Completely missing the point

I agree with that and it is why I believe Moncur must play. Perhaps I have got carried away here. He may just be the luxury player, but not the one with the quality to change the game, but as you describe, when playing 4-5-1, you must have someone who can pass the ball well, even if they do not do the work.

 

I liked the effort we played with, especially after we scored the 2nd goal.I saw a much more determined side than I had before this season.

 

Seemed to me as though he did the work last Saturday.

Having said that he is most certainly not a mini gazza. We don't have a notable creative midfielder.

 

If you're playing with one central striker then your number ten has to be capable of fulfilling the trequartista role otherwise you'll struggle to turn possession into goal scoring opportunities, as we've seen on numerous occasions this season.

For me we only have two players in this squad who can adequately fulfil that role. The first is Moncur, as you've pointed out and the second is Barnes if he was to move inside.

I have a friend who supports Leicester and he says that Barnes often played centrally off the front man for Leicester's youth sides/reserves and in the England set up.

 

Barnes could well be the answer. We seem to have a surplus of wingers now we have Isgrove fit, and both Hammill and Hedges can play on the left. Barnes is a very talented young man. His pace would scare the living daylights out of a central defender if he ran from deeper. Great call!

 

So then you don't believe Moncur must play?

Barnes is our most productive player. He'd benefit from not having to hare around every time to cover a full back. But it'd be a switch that Hecky must have thought about already, but not gone for.

Barnes is not noticeably pacier than e.g. Isgrove, running from deep. He is more precise though. More clinical.

 

I'd like to see Barnes in the no.10 role but it's a key position and he's not our player. George Moncur should be making that shirt his own this season. Whether he will or not, time will tell.

 

I think that Moncur is possibly the best player for the role who is contracted to us, but I do wonder if Barnes would be a better option in the short term. I do not think that Barnes is particularly effective when we are out of possession either. He does not work as hard as he should and does not understand the defensive part of the game as well as he should, so he falls into the luxury category (a player who is good when we have the ball, but not so much when we are out of possession). There might be a danger with two under 20s in key central positions though, because in my opinion, Williams is the best central midfield player currently at our club. Oh and I do think that Barnes is quicker than Isgrove, but does not work anywhere near as hard, particularly out of possession.

 

Could somebody, anybody eplain what "the no.10 role" is? Please.

 

I agree with nearly all of that.

Though to state that Williams is our best central midfielder is in itself an indictment of the creativity we possess. Williams creates nothing - we have to shove it wide or burst out into counter attack in order for our chances to be created.

 

Attacking mid in my mind.

 

Imho Williams is by far and away our best central midfielder. He breaks up play, protects the back four and dictates the tempo to which we play at. You can't expect Williams as a defensive midfielder to also create ample opportunities for our strikers as that's simply not his remit in either a 4/5 man midfield. That being said, Williams has played at U23 level for Everton as an 8 or a 10 so if we had another viable defensive midfield option then we might see that creative side of his game shine through more.

 

If you compare Williams with Hourihane, James or even perhaps Scowen, most might find him inferior.

So therefore if he is far and away our best, then that seems to me a black mark against our recruitment, if we are reliant upon a previously untried Everton youngster.

 

Williams is a completely different type of player with an almost opposite skill set to Hourihane. Anyone comparing the two is barking up the wrong tree.

 

Well you are in a sense comparing, if you are saying Williams is our best midfielder. Full stop.

You are comparing him with e.g. Moncur, who would not profess to be a defensive midfielder.

Overall, Hourihane often did a defensive midfield shift too. So there is a comparison of sorts to be made.

 

Fair enough, I take your point.

 

Sorry, I went to watch "The A Word on TV".

I got caught up in a different conversation than I wanted to be in on Saturday/Sunday because I was rude about Brad Potts in Minority Report, when what I really wanted was a discussion about our use of the long ball and the possible reasons for it. Your point about lack of creativity is another aspect of our use of the long ball. The fans seem to love Lindsay when he hits a 50 yard diagonal pass with his left foot, but does it actually open up the opposition defence, or is it just for show. They say things like we do not hit many long balls, when I spend 90 minutes watching the ball clear Bradshaw and watch us working our socks off again to win the ball back, only to watch us clear Bradshaw again the next time we win the ball back. We are compact and our 5 midfield players do well to cover in front of our back four, but is it how I want to watch my team play. No, it is not! Someone said that we only clear the ball into row Z or 50 yards up the park when we are under pressure, but the ability to play football, to pass the ball. whilst under pressure is what sets the good teams aside from those that are not so good. I said that I found it a tough watch on Saturday, and that was honest. We won and I was pleased that we won, but is there grounds for believing that we are headed in the right direction? Well not in the way that we are playing.... No.

Where I made my mistake in Saturday's Minority Report is that I should have focused on why Hecky was setting us up to play like that, because that is why we are playing like that. We are playing that way, not because Williams does not have the talent, we are playing that way because that is how Hecky wants it. Hecky wants the points, and he believes that in the short term the team is more likely to get the points if he keeps us defensively compact and if we do not get out of shape, particularly when we are protecting a narrow lead. In practice that means that you limit how many players play ahead of the ball when in possession (particularly in your own half). So, when we win the ball back, our central midfield 3 are very close to each other. There is little room to pass and great risk that a pass to a fellow central midfield player will be lost in a dangerous position. Of course, the best option would be to find a wide player. There is much less risk of damage by playing the ball wide, but our wide players are deep, and because they have been marking their respective full backs, they themselves are marked when possession changes. The only option is the long ball, but it is the only option because negativity has got us into that position.

So why is Hecky being so negative?

Well like any other manager, a low league position adds pressure. A manager needing points does what he feels he has to in order to get them. He has a team that has not gelled yet, and does not have the old heads on the field that assist in that process. Many of his new players do not have the experience of much football at this level and they struggle sometimes to come to terms with the step up in quality. What they do have though is the ability to run and run and run, and that is what he is relying on. I would that we were more entertaining than we currently are, but we will continue to play like this until Hecky feels confident that we can play a different way. I hope that it is soon.

 

You are right about Hourihane. Many do not realise how deep he was playing in the first half of last season because his stats covered up his true position. He produced those stats because he took the majority of our dead ball kicks from corners and around the opposition penalty area, but most of the time he played in front of our back four.

Lee Johnson takes an awful lot of stick on here, mainly because of the 9 defeats on the trot, but he was determined that we would play the right way, and in the end, that way won us promotion, albeit with Hecky at the helm. That way of playing took us right to the fringes of the top six before we sold off most of our successful team. That is the sad reality of supporting a club like Barnsley, but it is interesting that faced with a similar problem of integrating and gelling a new team, Hecky has chosen a different path. Now before anyone jumps down my neck, that is not an implied criticism of Hecky, but it would be nice to get the two of them in a room together in order to understand the differences in their football philosophies.

 

As big a myth as Labour caused the economic crash! Johnson was forced into changing his precious "philosophy" when he was "offered" Adam Hammil. Given he wasn't a "small, technical player, the likes of which we weren't used to at Barnsley, he changed "philosophy" in order to try and make best use of a better player and win some games. I quite clearly remember him being unhappy with beating Swindon at home as we scored direct goals. Indeed, he was quoted as saying that we would not be getting the ball in the box at the earliest possible opportunity, meaning he'd rather keep possesion and bore us rigid, whilst losing games on the way.

To compare the way of playing with the one that we used when we demolished Wigan is wishful thinking at best and disigenous at worst

 

I could write another 8 pages on the subject of Lee Johnson in a vain hope that you might reconsider your position, but my efforts would all be wasted. All that I can think of to say is, we will have to agree to differ, and leave it at that.