Implosion !

VisionarySound wrote:We where 3-0 down Baz and on the ropes. If he had have taken his very simple chance it, could, completely have changed the game and we may have gone in 3-1 at half time instead of 4-0 ! Terrible miss and that from me if not his biggest fan at least a seer of the positives in his game . . . . . .

ArnieArdiles wrote:As per , yes Baz good post Ion ... Agree , we cant just blame the defenders as we were poor defensively as team ...
Also Ion makes a good point about Wilson and perhaps this was the game to have given him a start , hindsight I know .....

Harry has been right to take Wilson out of the side this season due to his below par performances... Hudd and Modric in the latter part of last season were excellent .......This season although we aint conceeding goals in the premeirship ( not enough clean sheets thou) in Europe thats now 10 conceeded in the five games ..... Perhaps in the next couple of months Harry will give Wilson more playing time , we shall see ...

ionman34 wrote:Interesting thread this and, afer watching the highlights, I think the only one who's touched on the actual problem was Arnie. For me, it was the midfield where we were at our weakest. Redknapp actually played the formation that I suggested, 4-1-4-1 (I'm convinced he is spending time on this board you know and I'm expecting my call up to the coaching staff any day now LOL), but he played Thudd in the hole instead of Palacios. This, I believe, was the mistake as his brief was to try and snuff out Snieders play. Palacios would have been the better option for this as he is far more defencively minded and would have pressured more if that had been his brief. As it was, Snieders movement caused Thudd lots of problems, resulting in their most incisive play coming through the middle with Snieder stretching the pitch by playing in the hole behind Eto'o.
Their play was really rather simple, and was how I've been advocating the use of Crouch. Play it into the hole, snieder then brought their wingers into play who stayed out wide and were able to get in behind the fullbacks from intelligent diagonal balls via Snieder. Their first 2 goals came as a result of this.

Effectively they were able to pull our midfield around so much that they lost any semblance of shape. After that they cut us apart at will. Harry dropped the ball there really. Not with the formation but with the personnel used in that formation.

In the second half, however, you could see that he'd seen this himself and adjusted to suit. It's a shame they hit 3 in 14 minutes really, had they gotten just the 2 then I think the game would have been much closer.

The defence can't really be blamed too harshly here IMO. They were badly exposed in all areas by the movement in front of them. Yes, they probably could have done better but the majority of the first half was played in our half so it wasn't just those 4 doing the defending was it? 2 of the 4 goals came from non strikers with Eto'o only getting a brace thanks to a penalty won by a midfielder.

BTW, I wouldn't be too harsh on Gomez, it wasn't really that rash a challenge. He was out very quick, as should be expected, and made a genuine attempt to stop the ball, his momentum brought the player down. Had the ref been less eager to show red he could have taken into account that Benny was on the players shoulder when he hit the deck. I don't have TOO many complaints about the red but I feel a better ref would have considered this and shown yellow.

Now some have made a point of highlighting our defensive frailties but, despite being a man down, they caused us very little trouble in the second half after Harry tweaked the midfield. Tells a story that really don't you think? Then the superb Bale saved us too many blushes with some truly World Class finishing, the run for the first was superb.

All in all I believe it was our set up that let us down, not individual performance. That formation works with the right personnel so I'd hope to see it used again away, with Wilson used in the role that best suits him.

Loughtonlegend wrote:1st goal wasnt hutton fault. he had hes man who draged him out of poistion it was jenas who left hes man and got round the back. where was lennon he should be covering for hutton aswell

shearspur wrote:STATIC ! GALLAS TURNING WAS LIKE THE BLOODY QE2