Minority Report 2019-20 v Huddersfield Town

With respect, the defenders are under instructions to play that way. Your beef is not with them, it is with Struber.

 

But the concept of 'retaining possession' is implicit in what I said. Go long = lose the ball. as a rule of thumb, bigger players are less mobile. Therefore our system covets mobility over size. I think we're agreeing, I'm saying we play this way so Struber plays his two most mobile forward players upfront. If our most mobile player was 6' 5" he'd play and we might see the route one option utilised a bit more.

 

The other thing I don't understand is why is it apparently so frowned upon for Radlinger to kick the ball long under no pressure but it's some kind of tactical genius for him to pass it 10 yards to a marked Mads Andersen to kick it long to the exact same place. Often misplacing his pass because he's rushed.

 

Don't worry, Red Rain will explain it to you very shortly. Probably in the most condescending way imaginable. It's the modern way, you see, with respect.

 

The bigger picture is that Struber's message, which he delivers over and over again throughout training is that we have to play football from the back. There is no doubt that there are times when it does not work. There are times when the player receiving the ball has no alternative but to do what the keeper could have done. That is not the point though. The point is that as a general strategy, Struber wants to retain possession and move the ball forward through a succession of shorter passes. It is the modern way.

 

If Struber is telling Radlinger to pass to players under pressure simply because it's 'modern' then he's a a fc.uking idiot, as is anybody advocating such a stupid move.

I highly doubt he is telling them to do that and it's just that we have players who are incapable of deciding when to play it short and when not to.

 

I really do hope that I am not condescending. I try to explain as clearly as I can what I see, and the way that I understand the game. If that appears condescending, then I apologise, but that is not my intention.

 

It's not an unfair assessment of the tactic, but it puts a lot of pressure on keepers/defenders at times...leading to harsher criticism of a particular player than the overall performance merited. It was clear yesterday that even the Huddersfield defence were not comfortable with it at times, even with the experience of Schindler ...29 years old with 76 Premier League games under his belt...and when you consider Diaby has only played 17 games at this level and 34 as an adult in his whole career I think he's learning quickly enough to persist with.

 

at last! someone giving an objective assessment of our two CBs. FULLY agree with the above RR.
Mads and Bambo are in development and they are indeed developing. In my opinion they have improved under Struber. Their understanding of each others' game is improving.
in this league errors are punished wherever they're made and unfortunately they do both have an error in them. but so does every player at every level.
I also agree with you re their obvious qualities. Pace. strength in the air. Good and hard in the tackle.
we need to be patient with them.

 

If you are hearing the same message over and over again, every single day, then it is sometimes easier to comply with the message, than think whether it is appropriate at that moment.

Training is constant repetition and sometimes doing exactly as you have been told takes presidence over your ability to think. There are loads of examples from the way that the army teaches their raw recruits about how they react to certain situations. Struber is still at the stage of teaching our team about his plan as raw recruits are at when they join the army. Once he trusts them, he will reduce the emphasis on the plan, and increase the emphasis on individual decision-making.

 

The thread seems to be concentrating on the centre backs and playing out from the back, with a couple of posters stating that the ones criticising the centre halves ‘don’t understand’.

My 2 pennerth is, I do understand we don’t have a player ‘up top’ who can receive a long punt apart from Jacob on the wing who wins most of his headers to be fair, so yes booting it long from the keeper often means giving possession away, however when it gets to a certain point I would rather give possession away midway in the opposing teams half than at the edge of our box. I don’t mind them attempting playing out from the back, the issue comes when it becomes obvious they haven’t got a next pass and instead of then deciding to lose it they attempt a suicidal pass or a dribble through 3 players as Anderson did yesterday, it works playing out but they need to learn when they don’t have the option and do something to ease the pressure instead. My other issue with the centre halves is the mistakes they make are not only from trying to play it out, they are also mistakes relating to defending, which is why I still believe we need another 1 at least to get us to the end of the season and stay in this division.

 

whilst agreeing with your critique of the centre backs I dont agree with your opinion on Mowatt. I thought he looked a bit lost yesterday having to wait for the ball to come to him rather than the other way around.
He puts in a great shift wherever he plays and on that regard there was no change yesterday.
However I think he's best playing deeper in the diamond. On either side of (in our case) Aapo. i think that's his natural position. why?
because he can influence play more. he has the vision required for a central midfielder. Whilst he doesn't have pace he can see a team mate and hit a pass to him whether 10, 20 or 30 yards. The part of his game which he has successfully developed with us is his tackling. he's prepared to get stuck in; another quality essential for a CM - diamond or no diamond.
he foraged in that midfield battleground very effectively.
For me the typical number 10 (top tip of the diamond) is a hignett or beardsley type of footballer, not a Mowatt.
That leads on to where should Gerhard play Cauley when he's fit again?
I agree with you that CW is best used as an out and out striker but with Conor and Jacob playing as they are it leaves our manager with a good problem to have. Personally I'd reluctantly play Cauley at the tip of the D with AM and Marcel either side of Aapo. Luke Thomas would be benched but I wouldn't want to bench him as I think he adds a trickery which no other player in our squad has.
As I've said.... a great problem to have.
Over to you Gerhard!!

 

I'm sure we won and restricted Huddersfield to one on target shot.

 

Mads Anderson played a long ball to Jacob Brown on the wi g in the first half which resulted in our first goal. It's not that kind of ball anyone can object to , it's the passing it square across the back line when the opposition has been told to pus forward on the two centre backs that scares me to death. It's lie watching an accident waiting to happen . The number of goals we have conceded in this situation is a cause for concern.

 

When Stendel was in charge, and Barnsley played the press to a much greater degree, and with more players than they do under Struber, I argued that whilst it worked well in League 1, it was less likely to work in The Championship, where the players are better and they can play through the press and into the open spaces that lay beyond it. In my view, the overuse of the press was one of the reasons that we conceded so many goals earlier in the season, and conversely, the limited number of players who press under Struber is one one the reason that we are conceding fewer goals now. The press tired our players, made us more vulnerable late in games when our players were tired from the workload, and made it hard to play two games in a week because the players could not recover properly from one game to the next when there was a quick turn round.

In the second half against Huddersfield, the boot was on the other foot. Huddersfield were pressing us, and we failed the test of whether we were good enough and cool enough to play through it. But with little height up front, we must try to play through the press, because a ball hit long, is a ball lost. There is no doubt the the home fans were not happy with the tactic. There is no doubt that the majority were happier when the back four plus keeper put their foot through the ball, hitting it as far as they could up the park, but expect us to keep trying to play football from the back. That is the plan, and that is the way that we must get used to playing. Try some Valium before games if you must, but expect the tactic to continue under Struber.

 

Jacob Brown did win quite a few headers from long balls, however, good game though he had on Saturday I put this down to the Huddersfield CBs shortcomings. He will not be able to do so well in most games against stronger opponents.

 

I thought this might be the case, but actually we won a fair amount of long ball as their defenders headed it out of play or we picked up second or third ball.

 

I think Brown is really good in the air, but he’s the only one of our midfielders/ forwards who is!

 

Agree. Even with Chaplin or Mowatt challenging them many centre backs in this league can’t find their own men. Not sure whether that’s a tactic to rely on though.