I attribute the lack of confidence to players resorting to what I’d call their ‘comfort zone’ areas on the pitch. Just strikes me as Grimes is playing deeper than he should, Torp (when playing) is going higher than he should, Rudoni drifting about all over the place.
I’ve had a plan all along to go through the first 10 weeks alcohol free, which takes me pretty much to my birthday. Weigh-in last Monday was 11lb down on the start of January. Some of the alcohol free options are really good.
I mentioned about his issue at Southampton a week or so back, and it’s things like the set pieces that make me think he has a foot injury. All of a sudden the guy who never misplaces a pass can’t strike a dead ball cleanly. It doesn’t make sense.
Other big thing for me is I want our ‘out of possession’ shape to be a 433/451 rather than the 442/424 that we’ve typically used this season. Tell Rudoni to drop back in and congest the middle.
Last 5 league games we’ve had an average xG against of 1.34. First 5 games of the season we had an average xG against of 0.78. Fair to say teams are more able to exploit our system than they were at the start, and that’s why we could do with tweaking it.
So thinking about that specific game, Ipswich left their wingers very high up the pitch which kept our full backs honest and our defence stretched. Walton did indeed play long a lot but was able to wait until their attacking unit was set due to the lack of pressure. I’d imagine we won a healthy...
Find this a little ridiculous. We’re giving a lot of keepers at this level far too much credit for their ball-playing ability. Christian Walton (Ipswich keeper) is a bomb scare on the ball so there was no reason for us to be standing off him.