Collins' Tactics tonight... Praise and Grumble

Firstly make no mistake, Peterborough are one of the better sides in this league, and if they keep their team together to the end of August, I expect them to be top 6 at the very least.

They're good in possession and are especially good at quick transitions through the midfield, where they have both quality on the ball and players who can beat a man.

From the first minute, I was struck by how high we were willing to press them to stop those transitions early. Of course the risk is that they break that press and create opportunities, but in the first half I thought it was 50/50 between that happening and us regaining possession and us creating chances ourselves, which made for a good game to watch. I think this is a massive plus for Collins, that we played a more intense press than we had in previous games, against opposition that required it. It worked.

We continued this for the first 10 mins of the 2nd half until we scored. Whether it was a tactical change or the outcome of tiredness, after the goal we very clearly allowed them possession deep and tried to contain the space for them to pass into - unsuccessfully. Personally I'd have replaced Watters with Phillips to add an extra body to the midfield at this point. If it was a tactical decision, it was a bad one, it gave them a foothold in the game.

The thing about a pressing game is that a lot of it comes with momentum. When you lose the momentum, you lose the intensity. After Posh equalised, they turned over possession time and again to launch counter attacks that we were vulnerable to. And got their rewards, assisted by some individual errors. They could have easily had 5 in the 2nd half.

To be fair, we regained control of the game for the last 10 mins (incl. injury time) and actually created some presentable chances, but the belief didn't really seem to be there.

One last thing, I'm beginning to think there's some conventional wisdom in coaches that centre forwards can't play 90 mins. I can't remember the last time we didn't substitute both our strikers. For me tonight, Cole should have stayed on longer, because the replacements from the bench were way off the mark for what was required. I'll never write players off after 3 games, but it looks to me like Dallas and Shaw need to be introduced to this level of football much more slowly than they are. I'd be out looking for a centre forward on loan tomorrow.

Also - Roberts - some outstanding goalkeeping tonight. We've only got him on loan, can we put in a bid to get him permanently? If we don't, someone else is going to be offering him a bigger deal next summer!

 

Best assessment of the evening.

 

Do me a favour mate. Watch the second half again and watch Watters. And Cole, but Watters does it better. Not in possession, but out of possession. Watch how they work as a pair and how they prevent Peterborough attacks. Watch how they contain Peterborough in their own half, and particularly how Watters tracks back and covers runners from midfield. And then watch how it just disintegrates when they're taken off. There's a lot more to playing up front than scoring and creating goals. Although, on that front, we've scored two goals in the last two games and Watters has controlled the ball and laid it off to the goal scorer on each occasion.

There's no way either Cole or Watters should have been subbed tonight. They were both still doing their job perfectly.

Two players needed subbing. Russell because he was knackered and Styles because he doesn't try hard enough. Had we brought on Phillips and Chapman for those two then we still may not have won, but we damn well wouldn't have lost 3-1.

It was 50-50 up to us taking off our two strikers, after which we capitulated.

I don't usually have any time for petulance from our players. Cole displayed that tonight in spades. But I have some sympathy there because him and Watters worked their guts out for the team, not for individual glory, and they did it to the letter and still had energy in the tank and it was nuts to take them off.

 

Unfortunately I don't have the means to watch the full game back, otherwise I'd oblige. That, and I'm off on holiday tomorrow!

There's no stick from Watters here from me, I thought he played his part in the press that worked effectively for the first 60 mins. I'd like to see him offer more holding the ball up, but off the ball he did his job well.

My grumble is the same as yours:
"There's no way either Cole or Watters should have been subbed tonight. They were both still doing their job perfectly"
"It was 50-50 up to us taking off our two strikers, after which we capitulated."

That's why I'm asking, why has it become the norm for strikers to be replaced after 60-70 mins every week?

I think we need another striker, because I think we need 3 we can rely on and then introduce Dallas/Shaw plus maybe Jalo/Marsh gradually. Of course if we'd been able to keep Norwood we'd be there already, but that wasn't to be.

 

I am in agreement Jay. I would have left the strikers and changed midfield
and said so at the time. Another thing I am concerned with is lessons not learned. Went to the Hull friendly and their goal came from their full back and winger playing around Kitchen and Cadden and they seemed to do it effectively twice tonight. It happened a few times last season as well.

 

If we'd still got Norwood, absolutely he should have come on at 60 minutes. And I don't have any problem with Dallas or Shaw, just not for a game like tonight.

And yes, go and enjoy your holiday and don't give this game another thought.

 

The problem with this assessment, which I’m not arguing against hugely, is that as much as he does work hard out of possession, and knows what he’s doing, in possession Watters is woefully short.

Covering the space and stopping the opponent playing from the back should be coachable to them all. Fitness and desire, communication, tactical awareness - it should be sorted on the training field. It’s early days but they should be able to replicate eachother’s defensive roles by now as forwards. He’s subbed them at similar points in each game, Port vale it made no odds as the game was done, but in Bristol and tonight it was akin to giving up.

There’s no way the introduction of the two sub centre forwards should lead to such a decline in the way you describe. But it did, you’re 100% right.

That doesn’t make Watters the answer though. It just means that not enough is being done on the training field with the others - and that we are desperate for a hard working, hard running, tactically aware centre forward who won’t give centre backs an easy ride. Maybe someone with a bit of experience and a leader. Someone like James Norwood …

 

Can't say I noticed the press... other than by its absence.

 

Haha as if, I'll be replaying the game all week! And on the plus side, I'm *actually* abroad on Saturday, so can watch iFollow

I think the thing I'd like to know, is that in the first 60 mins, we pressed the player with the ball and had the midfield and wing backs push up on the passing options. After the goal, I think we switched to cutting off the passing lanes as the primary method of preventing the attacks. I'd like to know if this was the plan, or it just looked that way because the forwards were tired and unable to keep pressing the man with the ball (which would be understandable). It feels like an important part of understanding Collins' approach to games, and certainly something we'll revisit this season.

 

I'm not going to argue that Watters has played well in possession so far this season, but we're only three games in, and he has controlled the ball and played in the goal scorer for the last two goals, and was involved, doing pretty much the same, for a couple of the Port Vale goals. This idea that he's not been involved is just not true. It's an incorrect evaluation, demonstrably so. Again, I'm not claiming he's been setting the world on fire, but the general consensus is wrong. He's been doing a lot of the things that good centre forwards are paid to do. Do I want more? Yes, I do, but he hasn't done nothing offensively, and when he's asked to do so much defensively, and we're missing key players in other areas, it's difficult.

 

Sorry mate, but I can't give you any other answer than you weren't watching closely enough then.

If you have an iFollow subscription, watch the match back, even just for the first 10 mins. Every time their full backs get the ball, our wing backs pressed them immediately, high up the field, and forced several mistakes. I've said Styles played well on another thread, his job was to pick up the loose balls this press forced. He did it brilliantly all through the first half. We often had 7-8 players in their half pressing, because even one of the 3 CB's joined in depending on which side the ball was on.

You'll definitely be able to pick out passages of play where this doesn't happen because no team can maintain that for 90 mins, but that was the game plan, and for a large period it worked well. I hope we see more of it this season.

 

Good game that, reight enjoyed it, we lost an to be fair Posh deserved their win, onwards an upwards, C,O,Y,R.

 

Thanks for this summary.
Agree with most of it. the most refreshing thing about your post is that it's full of analysis and objective opinion.
After reading most of the other threads about last night which contain the usual put downs from the same "critics" its a real bonus reading to read your views.
cheers.

 

He’ll know the players loadings and stats, and probably called it in that.

Giving Dallas and Shaw time didn’t work - but did highlight to him and the board that we’re lacking, so maybe that was a positive.

Russell is a head-scratcher. Just too slow. There’s a reason why Hudds let him go….. For 22, he’s not played that many games either…..

 

Absolutely first class appraisal...and how I saw it.

 

Russell did ok for an hour then he was struggling. Collins was too slow to change things last night. It was obvious we were getting overrun in midfield, I thought Phillips should've been brought on sooner.

 

Agree on the timing. 5mins too late. Just after they scored. You could see the momentum was building for them.

With 5 subs, you need to be changing them at 60mins to maintain the press but also give them time to get up to speed with game.

However, admittedly, Posh didn’t make a sub until 81mins.

 

I'm no tactical mastermind but there was clearly something wrong way before the equalised if it wasn't for Robert's it could have been worse. We got away with it at Bristol we didn't last night.

 

Tbf I missed the first 10 mins.

 

Great write up