Thoughts on the game, for what it's worth

Rothwell and Wilkinson may or may not be good players. I don't know, I haven't seen enough of them. Yesterday they were poor, although I'm not sure that's entirely their fault.

Wilkinson looks ill suited to a lone striker role. Despite his height, he doesn't have the strength or the presence to compete physically with the opposition centre halves, like O'Grady, he doesn't have the pace to run beyond them, like Cole, and he doesn't have the energy and persistence to be constantly on the move looking to slip his marker, like Winnall. To be honest, it's difficult to think of a striker who is less suited to playing up front on his own, which, considering that appears to be Johnson's preferred system of play, begs the question: why did we sign him? Although we haven't seen much of it yet, we're told his major asset is his close control allowing him to bring others in to play. That may well be true, but if he's plying his trade at this level then he's not going to be Dennis Bergkamp. We shouldn't expect him to be, but if he's played up front on his own it allows the opposition central defenders to double up on him and, like we saw yesterday, they're going to take it off him a lot more often than not. Keeping the ball when two players mark you is bloody difficult and beyond all but the very best players, like Dennis Bergkamp for example. To see the best of Wilkinson he needs a bit of space and he's never going to get that in the position he played yesterday. Put Winnall at the side of him, who will take markers away from Wilkinson, and we might see a much better player. If we're not going to do that, we should send him back because we'll be wasting his time and ours.

I've yet to discover what Rothwell's strengths are. He may have many, but I've not seen them yet. What was obvious from yesterday is that he cannot play in the role behind the striker. For the 45 minutes he was on the field he did an excellent impression of a little boy lost, unable to get to grips with the role he was being asked to play and, seemingly, completely unaware what he was supposed to be doing. I felt for him. Again, if that's where Johnson wants him to play, we may as well send him back because it's doing neither the team nor the player any good.

Unlike with Rothwell and Wilkinson, I do know that Hourihane is a good player, but he too was poor. I also know he can play in the hole behind the striker, where Rothwell played, but instead he was positioned alongside Pearson just in front of the back four, for reasons I cannot even begin to imagine. I'm often left dazed and confused by Johnson's systems and formations, unable to work out how they're supposed to benefit us (football has become a complicated game that I haven't kept up with), but the use of Hourihane and Rothwell yesterday left me completely bamboozled.

For my money, our best player during the second half of last season was Nyatanga. I believe he won the player's player of the season although I could be wrong on that. I was delighted when he signed a new contract. As it seemed were the club, who made a big deal about it. I wouldn't be surprised to learn he's on the highest wages at the club. Rightly so if that's true, he's our most experienced player and despite the promise shown by both Roberts and Mawson, still our best centre half in my opinion. Shortly after Johnson arrived he referenced Nyatanga when speaking of his dislike of selecting players out of position. Yesterday Nyatanga played left back. This was after his shortcomings in that position had been cruelly exposed by an extremely talented Everton right winger on Wednesday. Although, to be fair to Nyatanga, a specialist left back from any league would have experienced a tough time that night. But that wasn't the first time Nyatanga has looked ill suited to the role. Seeing him hauled off after the hour at Rochdale, visibly dejected and disillusioned, to be replaced by a left back who should have started the game, our final substitution when we were already 3-0 down, was very depressing.

No one played well yesterday. We made more mistakes than usual, but I've seen us look equally ineffective numerous times under Johnson and win the game. The difference was that no one got on the end of Hourihane's set pieces, while Rochdale were significantly more potent in front of goal than many opponents in this league. We adopted the usual methodical approach, at complete odds to how we played against Everton, choosing to play safe and keep possession (although often losing it) rather than risk the killer ball, which allowed the Rochdale defence to get back in numbers, steady themselves and stifle our half hearted attacks.

We missed Scowen, greatly, just as we missed a similar player in the first half of last season, before Wilson signed Scowen in January. But where as pre-Christmas last season our major failing was committing too many players forward (we scored plenty of goals but conceded far too many) leaving Bailey and the defence swamped when the opposition broke, yesterday we barely troubled the final third of the field, but still got stuffed.

Rochdale were a much better unit than us yesterday. They were quick in attack and organised in defence. It may be that they have better players than us, in which case you'll lose to such a team more often than not, but I can't help feeling the system we played and the positions we asked some of players to adopt contributed greatly to our downfall.

It's just one game. On it's own it means little, just like the Everton game means little. But I've seen a lot more performances similar to that Rochdale game than I have to the Everton game since Johnson has been in charge. It's not often we're punished as harshly as we were against Rochdale, but I think that has as much to do with the opposition often being quite poor rather than it being solely down to us playing significantly better than we did yesterday. We'll soon see whether the Everton game was a flash in the pan or that defeat at Rochdale. Let's hope it's the latter.

 

Good Post

 

Agree with every word.

It's a massive concern to me that we don't create chances in open play.

If Hourihane gets injured we better hope the defence is in good form because we'll not be scoring many

 

And Rothwell's a sideways & backwards merchant.

Unwilling to shoot, doesn't pass forwards or try defence splitting balls, doesn't run beyond the forward & a bit soft.

The lads assets are that he's neat & tidy in possession & runs a fair bit. After that I'm struggling

 

All in All another one who can go back and won't be missed

 

But that's what we seemingly want or how we want to play

 

An excellent well written post. Very impressive.

I like Lee Johnson and I like what he's trying to do at Oakwell. I like his emphasis on youth, and on hungry talented players who we can develop and get better.
He's made some great signings and whilst there are a few too many on loan he must know that, and be looking to either make some of them permanent or in some cases not renew them.
I think it will take time. He's still a young manager and he will make mistakes.
I also think there must be forces or constraints at play that as fans we aren't aware of.
It's obvious to a blind man we need at least 1 more striker and a left back.
I don't think Wilkinson has worked out so far. He appears lazy but it might just be that the formations we play don't suit him. As you say neither him nor Winnall can play the lone striker role!
I remember seeing Chris Woods and a young John Walters in a reds shirt and neither of them looked any good. They needed time and coaching but at the time like now we needed goalscorers!

There must be a reason we haven't signed players in those positions we desperately need. I'm sure LJ doesn't think that Nyatanga can play left back all season or that any of his forward players suit playing 1 up front but there must be some reason we haven't addressed that. I just wish I knew what that reason was.

 

I didn't go yesterday so thanks for that. More importantly how did the plant pot do?

 

The plant pot was genuinely brilliant. A depressing game that was turning the afternoon in to a miserable one was transformed in to one of the best laughs I've had at a football game. I should have said that the above ballacks on the game does not include anything that happened in the final 15 minutes. None of us on the gardening/silly hat side of the ground watched any of the match during that time. We just watched a plant pot being transferred from head to head. One of those situations that at first just seems a bit daft but then gets funnier and funnier until you can't help but laugh out loud.

Maybe if they'd done that in the first half I wouldn't have had a 20 minute drunken half time rant [MENTION=6673]Hicksy[/MENTION]. Sorry about that mate.

 

Any idea where the plant pot appeared from?

 

Bloke walked in with a plant pot on his head. I think that's it.

 

Sometimes the simplest explanations are the best

 

It was doing an impersonation of Connor Wilkinson. Badly it turns out as it started moving!

 

Agree with all this. Summed up perfectly.

 

I see what you mean , but Wilkinson played for Johnson at Oldham , so surely he knew what was expected of him and Johnson knew he either could or couldnt play in that role, one or the other of them is taking the piss !
Also the reason Johnson gave last season for bringing in a left back on loan, was that he doesnt like playing centre halves at fullback, so why is he doing it when we have a left back in the squad ?