Minority Report v Stoke City (a)

We will never know if a different system/personnel would have produced a different result. All we know is that the team selected yesterday lost on the day and lost comprehensively.

Sometimes when we lose I think 'if we played that game again and both teams line up with exactly the same players, I could see us winning quite comfortably.' Nothing was wrong, it just didn't go for us.

I reckon if the same two sides that met yesterday played another 99 times, we'd lose all 100 games. We never looked like breaking them down and every ball into our box looked more likely to result in a Stoke goal than not. As such, I can't think of a good reason not to have played Halme.

I reckon options were available, in terms of personnel, that would have improved our defensive performance against Stoke and improved it considerably. However, I can't offer any solutions that would have improved us offensively. I haven't seen us break down a team that sits back all season, whatever we've tried. I don't think we have the players to do it. I have an idea what might prevent us getting hammered against such teams, but I don't know how we'd beat them.

 

Gotta come back to tactics hasn’t it, we are too predictable, every team knows how we will play. If we were more adaptable in our style of play Stoke May have played different and it may have been a different result.
The better teams believe they can play us off the park, so leave space for our quick players and is why we play better against better teams and struggle against the ones who don’t.

 

The only option we have imo for getting ahead against teams who sit back is to spread wide and that would be by putting brown wide right and someone else wide left possibly Simone's. Let them run at players

 

They leave room for our quick players because there’s very rarely any end product .
They give the ball away or over run it or blown off the ball st the slightest touch .
Teams have let us run at them nearly all season because when we get into an area that might hurt them we offer nothing .
That’s the reason we are where we are that’s the reason our goal difference is as it is .
Some players have given up even after our run after lockdown and I’d be very very surprised if they’re still here within a couple of weeks after season ends .
It’s not the players fault imo and it’s not the coaches fault entirely , yeah they might have got tactics wrong or team selection at times but overall it was to someone thinking a team of novices and recent apprentices could play as that first Fulham game all season and teams wouldn’t adapt their tactics to counter imo .
not replacing Keiffer with a similar player has been one reason but there’s others .

 

I agree 100% - you learn more from defeat and when things go wrong. but to post directly after a heavy defeat, but not before was just strange to me.

 

OK mate, I understand it isn't the same as being at the game.

 

I posted 19 hours after the game. I wrote the report last night, immediately after the game and was not going to post it at all, but was goaded into doing so by some of the responses I saw from people who were simply trying to be hurtful.

 

Maybe Thomas on the left? Be nice to play with wingers again - it's how we've been successful in the past.

 

A good summary RR.
One thing that annoyed me from start to finish yesterday was the referee. Despite Stoke's physical presence, it wasn't a dirty game, and the bookings that he did make were justified. However, he allowed Stoke to move the ball forward at least ten yards, sometimes almost double that, at every throw-in. Stoke's first goal came from a corner that in turn came from a throw-in being taken miles further up the pitch than it should have been. Taken correctly, the corner would never have been conceded because the ball wouldn't have landed anywhere near the goal line. He even allowed them to take their throws ten yards further back down the line when it suited them, e.g. when they should have been penned in at our corner flag.

Not that the referee influenced the outcome. Unless we add an extra column into our player recruitment spreadsheet, one headed "Height", and then actively pursue some giants, I fear we will always struggle against physical sides. Yesterday we needed Halme and Diaby in the starting eleven. Even then, it may not have been enough.

 

Maybe sticking Halme up front would be a decent Plan B? He's big, good in the air and reasonably comfortable with the ball at his feet. Enables longer balls to be knocked into the box and then we fight for the second ball.

 

As you probably already know, Minority Report does not usually do away games. I have very few opportunities to look what I said in the reverse fixture. However, this is one of those few opportunities, and guess what I was complaining about in our home fixture. That's right, Stoke's negativity and the fact that they played the referee like a violin, going down from the least touch. Things haven't changed since November, have they.

 

Little Johnny Sheridan type player would have been a start.

 

All well and good but we've had almost a season to realise that teams do okay the referee. At least in Wilks we had someone who was prepared to do so. We should have been prepared for it surely?

 

You're right to emphasise the lack of replacement for big Keiffer. No attacking plan B has played a big part in stunting our points total.

 

Not a bad thought if Halme was up to it.

 

Agree need to use width to stretch the space and beating a man also creates space but to maximise the chances of that tactic paying off you need to mix up the floated cross and whipped cross and have a big man for finishing, knock downs and intimidating defenders.

 

Always enjoy reading these reports - keep 'em coming RR. I would be very disappointed if Struber's changes weren't designed to change the game although whenever Schmidt comes on I suspect that will be the outcome. How does he become a worthwhile sub?

 

I dont disagree with much of it to be fair.

I just think, at times such sides like stoke, no matter what we do, just goes against our style of play.

We could have had all manor of different systems and swapping our current crop around, and we would just struggle.

Yeah we could have made a better fist of it, but I'm not sure just how much we could have changed to reverse the scoreline in our favour.

 

I think the same. I think we could have done a few things to stop us losing 4-0. Every one on of them reducing our goal scoring options. And I think we would have lost 1 or 2 nowt. I would have played Halme. But I would have done it because I'm trying to stop them battering us. I would have done it hoping we could keep them out. But I would have done it knowing by doing so that we're less likely to catch them on the break and win the game. I'm not sure that's the best way to pick a team. Struber's team lost. I'm pretty sure my team would have lost. But at least Struber tried to win.

 

Yeah, totally agree.

I go back years to when stoke first went to the prem.

I was doing some work with a 3rd party contractor. Obviously delighted the had gone up, but **** scared at an infancied team and their style in that league.

My honest assessment to him at the time said, you have a strong, tall and powerful team. Play more direct. (Pretty much what we saw) and I wouldnt be surprised if you were the only team that managed to stay up.

They did, and very comfortably too, and for a few years.

I just think it's a style if football, we cant play against. Unless we are at them 100 percent from the first whistle to the last.

Even then, its gunna take some luck

Some teams and styles we just struggle with. And that's life i suppose