Re: Jermain Defoe
I like that AVB believes in a system of meritocracy. Doesn't matter who you are or how much has been paid, if you deserve to start based on your last performance then you start. This is proven by his comments regarding Brad and Hugo:
"but at the moment we are paying respect to a player who is performing very well"
I admire his principles and him sticking to it, so long as he is willing to quickly adapt when it goes wrong.
It seems visible to us all that we're not the same fluent outfit that we were last season. I wonder whether it would have been much different had Luka and Rafa played yesterday in place of Sig and Dembele. Probably, but I still think QPR may have dominated if Bale and Dempsey started where they did.
It was strange that we were overrun by the trio of Park, Granero and Faulin. To be fair it's a good trio of players. But Sig clearly did not make it a 3 in midfield to compete and we lost a lot of individual battles. What did happen in the second half was that we were counter attacking them. I felt they still had general control of the game throughout. With Lennon and Bale we will always pose a threat, but we have at the moment lost our ability to control a game. Our 2 chiefs Rafa and Luka are now gone, Moutinho was a must, but we have to accept we might not be as comfortable in possession as we were last year until we get a proper playmaker in that midfield.
I think at the moment Dempsey, Sigg, Sandro and Dembele are all pretty loose in possession when they get pressed. Look at Lazio and the amount of time we had on the ball the players were moving well for each other, moving to space and we controlled the midfield pretty well. Take the tempo up a notch and they start to become uncomfortable (not disimilar to when teams actually press the Gooners, with their current lot of the last 5 years, they break down, even when Fabregas was with them).
The difference is, imo, the little mistakes. It's the little mistakes, the loose passing and poor choices and being slow to show in an up tempo game, that begin to wear on us and we start losing the midfield (or lose it immediately!). I hate making comparisions to Barca, but AVB is asking us to play high up the pitch, bringing the FBs up the pitch, asking the CBs to cover a greater area and asking the players to pass and move... So they're probably a good place to start for comparison. Their style of play absolutely hinges on the passing ability of their players. No loose passing and an absolute minimum of two players showing for the ball at all times. If Barca started losing the ball in the places we are and started making the silly mistakes that we are, they'd struggle just as much.
Sounds like an obvious answer, but that's because it is imo quite obvious where the problem is. Hunt in packs, turn possession over as quickly as possible, create your own time on the ball through good movement and don't allow the opposition to pressure/hurry you... Simple as that :ssg: (I've just cracked football, I think I'll go and get my badges!).
Personally, I'm not unduly concerned. Yesterday was bad tactics, we now know that Dempsey on the left is not an option, but we learnt that without losing the game, so no harm no foul. Bale has changed to the point that I don't think he is much value at LB anymore, so I wouldn't play him there either. The only thing that made Bale stand out as a FB were his deep runs but yesterday he was all over the place and kept moving into central spaces instead of looking for the overlap.
It was a good lesson for AVB yesterday, he recognised the need to move to a formation he doesn't hold much time for, he learnt a few things about a few players and we won.
