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How do we get back to creating chances & more importantly scoring goals!

Nigeyman

Chris Armstrong
we average 7-10 shots a game we have scored 8 goals in six games, lets be honest since Bale left (who was basically papering over the cracks) even when we had Bale we have really struggled to bang in the goals, just wondered what people's thoughts are, is anyone else tired of us playing the lone striker when we don't have the player to pull off that difficult role? anyone else want to see us go with 2 strikers for a run of games?

The reason we had such a dreadful season last year against the sky 4 was because in football your confidence is shattered when you don't believe there are goals in the team, against arsenal we adopted a sensible approach because going toe to toe against them would have been murder for us, we could have had 4 goals on Saturday if we countered effectively, with the chances we had on the break we should have had at least two. Our team don't believe in themselves because we dont score enough goals, therefore mentally against the big sides our players go into their shells.

I know I know deep lying play maker (none since modders left) that is what were screaming out for right? I just worry that even if we had Pirlo & Gerrard in our team they would struggle to make incisive passes due to the woeful movement of our forward players.

Working with what we have here and now

So who are our most creative players???? Eriksen, Lamela I hear you cry! ok ok my thoughts are in order to get the best out of Eriksen I think we need to play him centre of midfield and build the majority of our attacking play through him, he has the biggest creative brain in our squad, he doesn't enjoy pressing, in my mind he is a classic no 10 a player who loves to 1 touch pass and move, my argument to people who say (but nige you silly little man his best peformances have come from playing on the left!) I would argue that his lack of defensive cover for our lb or his desire to do a job defensively in that position negates that argument. Playing such an undefensive player at cm obviously means we need to offset that by playing a destroyer next to him to equal out world harmony so that would be Benji but preferably Capoue.......so my thoughts on getting us amongst the goals are:


Hugo

Walker--- KAB--- Verts--- Rose

Chadli---Eriksen---Capoue---Townsend

Lamela
Soldado

Kane back up for Lamela, Ade for Soldado, yes its 4-4-2 or 4-4-1-1 whatever you like but it gets our most creative players Eriksen & Lamela central, Townsend & Chadli offer more of a direct threat on the wings, they can cut in to allow our attacking full backs to do a job, we can play a diamond or stretch wide giving us options in the game, we can bring on a more defensive cm if we build up a lead or even dare I say it get Paulie in behind the striker to drop in if we are struggling centrally or getting outnumbered......I am sick of possesion just want goals! I know we will be weaker defensively and in cm but I am sure this will get us amongst the goals! The big teams can get away with one up top because they have the players to do it! if you only play one striker a team always struggles to score goals if they dont have a beast in that position.

That to me gives us a nice 11 with the right blend of defensive and attack minded players, not playing three cm's will also force us to quicken our passing as for the longest while our build up play is painfully slow. Old Timmeh had an upturn with goals playing 4-4-2....I just wonder if we could do even better with a fully fit Lamela behind the striker and Eriksen playing centrally for a run of games.

Us playing with one striker hasn't worked for years! and it doesnt look as if we sign a striker suited to that role anytime soon! have I made any decent points? or is our lack of goals turned me into a rambling loonie?
 
I'd give it a go. Trouble is you've got others saying they'd prefer Ade up top and Eriksen out on the left. It's a bit if a roundabout argument on here these days. Give that formation a go for half a dozen goals and we'd bang a few in I'm sure.
 
I agree, but can you really see these foreign coaches scrapping their principles and playing 4-4-2? I cant really...
 
I've been going to the Lane for 15 years now. What ive found since Harry left is that we've slowed the game down now, and we dont pass the ball forward quick enough, it also goes back alot instead of forwards. Example, when Mason came on against Forest last week he started to pass the ball quicker and the strikers got more in the game and we looked far more dangerous. Under harry it was more simple and we most of the time had one or two goals by half time by attacking teams from the offset. I'm hoping as we gain more confidence under Poch that getting the ball moving forwards quicker starts to happen more frequently.

I think we made a big error buying Paulinho for 16 mill and should have bought a Modric-like for like replacement. If Roma are out of the Champions league by Jan then i think we should go in for pjanic. João Moutinho might be another option but think his wages are too high at Monaco.

For now though, i'd like to see Eriksen play alongside Stambouli in midfield and get him more in the game. When he plays on the left or floating he doesnt seem to get involved enough for me.
 
--------Kaboul-----------Verts--------
----------------Capoue----------------
-----Eriksen----------------Mason-----
--------------------------------------
Walker----------Lamela------------Rose
-----------------------Chadli-----------
--------------Ade----------------------


That's the shape which I think Poch is trying to get us to play in. During pre season it is how we looked quite often with Lennon, Soldado and Lamela interchanging. So far we have definately seen Chadli getting forward alongside Ade on many occassions with Lamela or Eriksen being the player to pick up the #10 space. Personally I like the above formation but with more rotation between those top three, Ade dropping deep or wide at times with Chadli or Lamela running through the space.
 
No offence but this ones been done to death. Harry s team had flying wingers in bale and Lennon and someone who could pick these out quickly (modric) and clever forwards in van de vaart.

We miss that one person who can play that pass quickly, we lack proper width so that reduces our ability to stretch teams with pace and we lack mobility / creativity up front.

Poch's style if I understand it when it works properly depends on good movement up front, lots of pressing and at times quick and direct passing. The squad are still getting used to that style of play, and let's face it we don't really have the right players to play it effectively right now.

The one up top works if the three behind him and cm can push up and beyond. So far though only chadders has scored any significant goals. ADE has looked off the pace most games and is not clinical as some. Bobby was that player before we signed him and broke him.
 
i genuinly think its not really about attacking play but our defence.

Firstly, last season we offered up lots of mistakes and free goals. Lots of teams now know that if they defend well they can get a goal against us, so they play for it. Who gets the blame? The front players. I remember sogardo's heat map at Emirates Marketing Project and how he got crucified in the media, we lost by six and it was far from his fault. It's even killed the confidence of many of our strikers.

Secondly, we don't control games anymore. We have periods of control but cannot strangle a team into their own half liked we used to with Parker and modric, this puts so much more pressure on both our defenders and attackers to win the last minute tackle or to take that chance.
 
Well we've had 2 games where what you're saying is true, v Liverpool and West Brom where we had a bit of a mare.

We've had 2 tough away fixtures v west ham and arsenal where we played majority of one game with 10 men and other away against our hated rivals and a very good team so chances are at a premium.

But we've also had two games v QPR and Sunderland where it was very much a throwback to the Harry days of total domination of teams and loads of chances created so rather than fret about it just accept its a work in progress from changing round a squad bought for and drilled by the defensive AVB to the attacking football we saw from Southampton under Poch. Not gonna happen overnight
 
Well one way we could be getting more goals is if we had bought a striker, as I and many others wanted us to.

We had a real chance of getting Welbeck at one stage for example, and losing out on him is Arsenal's gain at our expense. I don't know if ENIC or the manager is to blame, for us not getting another striker in, but I fear whoever made the decision, (probably a joint one I guess) made a big mistake.
 
Well one way we could be getting more goals is if we had bought a striker, as I and many others wanted us to.

We had a real chance of getting Welbeck at one stage for example, and losing out on him is Arsenal's gain at our expense. I don't know if ENIC or the manager is to blame, for us not getting another striker in, but I fear whoever made the decision, (probably a joint one I guess) made a big mistake.


i imagine it was Wellbeck who made the decision, as soon as Arsenal made a concrete offer
 
We should do what we did v goons a bit more; allow teams to shift up against us in possession, win it in midfield and then attack them at speed.
 
We should do what we did v goons a bit more; allow teams to shift up against us in possession, win it in midfield and then attack them at speed.

How many teams, outside those competing for European places, will be willing to do that?
 
All teams will come forward at some point, if our defensive line is a little deeper. We're not Barca or Bayern.

Actually agree with this, we are at our best as a counter attacking team. That is also what man u were under Ferguson, yes they had Scholes to unlock defences. But his sides were always counter attacking and playing at speed.

How you actually coach that and get your team to do it I have no idea, I can fit you a new lock for your front door or build a wall for you or drive you around but I have no idea how to coach players to break at speed.
 
For me, I think the thing that is too often not stated is that our attack lost two legitimate, World Class players since Harry has gone. Not small "w" world class (ie Ozil, Hazard). Big W, genuine, actual World Class. It could easily be argued that Bale and Modric would get into an actual World XI at the moment (Modric may be the best CM in the world, right now), and as we've seen down the years, it is nearly impossible to replace one of those players (look at Man U) let alone two of them. King, Berba, and Van Der Vaart were all great players, but they weren't true world class players like Bale and Modric.

As amazing as Bale was/is, so much of Redknapp's success stemmed from Modric. Modric was the player who could get out our attacking players the ball where they needed it and when they needed it. How often did we see Bale and Lennon matched up one v one on a full back? How often did we see Crouch getting the right ball early, one v one w/ a CB? The advantage he gave us was even greater, because he was able to do all this without the assistance of two ball-winning, all-around midfielders.

What's made things even tougher is that Bale and Modric are World Class players in positions that are hard to find. There aren't many great deep lying midfielders bouncing around, and they generally play for the biggest teams in the world (Kroos, Pirlo, Xabi, etc). The same goes for many of the true goalscoring wide midfielders, as well.

Let's see how well Liverpool does this season without Suarez. Now, imagine them losing TWO Suarez's in back-to-back seasons. I think they'd find struggle.

When you find yourself pining for the Redknapp days or cursing our manager/Daniel levy, remember that Bale and Modric are two of the five most important players on the best team in the world at the moment. I think our attacking play is doing pretty well when you consider all that.
 
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redknapp plays an open philosophy that is really exciting to watch, but it leaves the game too open trying to outscore the opponents. it wouldn't have worked if we didn't have bale, modric and to a certain extent vdv - all three considered near world class status during that time. look at qpr where redknapp is trying the same with a different set of players...

avb and poch to me have a very similar approach to the game and we are seeing increasing evidence that both are facing the same problems (somewhere along the way i think avb gave up, thats all been debated, we'll never know) ... we've never replaced our goal scoring machine (bale, not ade even then ) we've never got our midfield engine restarted (modric was nevery injured and provided time for us to build player understanding - which he did so well with bale), and injuries in critical positions ( kaboul, walker, sandro ) when we needed them most.

recreating chances and scoring goals CONSISTENTLY is developing a system of play that can be efficiently and effective deployed by the first eleven and then the 25 men team. it will take time and unfortunately our transfer strategy has not been very effective, we still look unbalanced at times, and even worse, we can't seem to get the first eleven settled for whatever reason (but you can see poch trying).

stability will help us in all areas and i think it will benefit the defence the most. I'm not worried about the midfield pressing to win the ball - I think we do that well enough. creating your own chances is about making clever and well timed runs into space to meet the ball. from the defenders point of view it is just too easy to follow a player who is static, and to read the ball coming to him.

i can see why poch persists with chadli, because he seems to be the only one doing this, and reaping the rewards for his hard work. (also mason, who recenty). thinking back is this what we missed most - it was bale who was busting his gut time and time again for the team? there are no chances up front because the strikers are far too static, a tall ask for the midfielder to pull off an outrageous pass that falls to the striker but evades the defender when both of them are in touching distance.

tldr:
1. time will give stability, stability will help defence. be patient.
2. creating chances in attack means unpredictable runs by players into space not marked by defenders. not sure if we have good enough strikers for this.
 
All teams will come forward at some point, if our defensive line is a little deeper. We're not Barca or Bayern.
We found that the last time we played on the counter, that we did not have an answer against teams that sat back and there are plenty of teams that are happy to leave WHL with a point.

For what it is worth, I think that we (the fans) need to hold our nerve and get behind the team and manager. Introducing a new system takes time and both the manager and several of the players have spoken of this.

We are never going to move forward as a club if we call for new approaches to be dropped after a handful of games because they are not bearing immediate results.
 
We found that the last time we played on the counter, that we did not have an answer against teams that sat back and there are plenty of teams that are happy to leave WHL with a point.

For what it is worth, I think that we (the fans) need to hold our nerve and get behind the team and manager. Introducing a new system takes time and both the manager and several of the players have spoken of this.

We are never going to move forward as a club if we call for new approaches to be dropped after a handful of games because they are not bearing immediate results.

well said Milo
 
1) Quick transitioning from DM to AM - hopefully Mason and Stambouli will help with this

2) Synchronised movement from the front 4 - I think Eriksen, Lamela and Chadli (and Kane) are slowly getting there, but I'd like to see them in tandem with Soldado at some point
 
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