points taken against the teams in the lower Reaches of league 2 (1 Viewer)

It will if we don't put it right and you have to remember that come the end of the season these teams at the bottom will be fighting for their lives and quite often have a bit of an upsurge in form.

It is worrying and needs sorting.

It just points to it being tactical, we can never break them down or create much against them.

When teams want to attack us and go for it we do much better as there are openings and spaces. Teams like port vale and Morecambe have clear game plans, they keep it tight and work as a unit. They are quite happy to be patient and grab the odd goal.

When we play teams like Wycombe, Notts County and even cheltenham they come to attack and get goals so we find it easier.

The worrying thing is almost every time we play a lowly placed team we are having virtually the same conversation, lets hope Robins does have a plan B but just doesn't have the players to effect the plan B but it will be 100% addressed in January

Evo1883 said:

We have lost 5 of these 12 games aswell

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Scored 7 conceded 11.

I highly doubt the teams at the bottom of the league are better than those at the top so its down to tactics. Robins can't come up with a way to beat teams who are happy to sit behind the ball and take a point or hit us on the break.

Doesn't help that are players struggle to convert chances. If the chances are going to be limited we need players who can make the most of them.

Nick said:

It just points to it being tactical, we can never break them down or create much against them.

When teams want to attack us and go for it we do much better as there are openings and spaces. Teams like port vale and Morecambe have clear game plans, they keep it tight and work as a unit. They are quite happy to be patient and grab the odd goal.

When we play teams like Wycombe, Notts County and even cheltenham they come to attack and get goals so we find it easier.

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Totally Agree

Nick said:

It just points to it being tactical, we can never break them down or create much against them.

When teams want to attack us and go for it we do much better as there are openings and spaces. Teams like port vale and Morecambe have clear game plans, they keep it tight and work as a unit. They are quite happy to be patient and grab the odd goal.

When we play teams like Wycombe, Notts County and even cheltenham they come to attack and get goals so we find it easier.

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Yep, but then how come Luton and Notts County etc. can find ways to beat these sides? Aren't these lower teams setting out to be defensive against them too?

Otis said:

Yep, but then how come Luton and Notts County etc. can find ways to beat these sides? Aren't these lower teams setting out to be defensive against them too?

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Probably, but Luton and Notts County aren't setting up defensively against them either.

Stupot posted some screenshots the other week, it showed how many got into the box on an attack. We had two, Luton had about 6.

Nick said:

Probably, but Luton and Notts County aren't setting up defensively against them either.

Stupot posted some screenshots the other week, it showed how many got into the box on an attack. We had two, Luton had about 6.

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So it's not that we can't break them down because they are too defensive, it's a case of we can't break them down because we are not committing enough bodies forward?

I do also think we thrive on space and when teams pack the defence we struggle to get in behind them to cause damage.

The Wycombe game was end to end at times and that suited us.

Otis said:

So it's not that we can't break them down because they are too defensive, it's a case of we can't break them down because we are not committing enough bodies forward?

I do also think we thrive on space and when teams pack the defence we struggle to get in behind them to cause damage.

The Wycombe game was end to end at times and that suited us.

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It’s because the midfield isn’t very good at moving forward with purpose. Baylis has made an impressive start but a lot of games with had Doyle running around with no point or purpose.

We isolate our forward (singular is deliberate) often don’t get enough players in scoring positions but the midfield takes an age to spread play wide and rarely with much impact.

I can count on one hand the amount of games where we haven't defended too deeply. It pulls the whole team out of shape. Doyle plays this quarterback role where he drops on to the toes of the centre backs to receive the ball and he can either pass it wide or go 45 yards long. It's improved a bit since Kelly was replaced with Bayliss because at least we have 1 central player a bit higher up the pitch. Doyle simply isn't good enough for that role though - as a niggly ball winning midfielder he's still fine but his longer passing is no better than McDonalds. We'd be better off letting Rod do that and Doyle being 15 yards further up the pitch. It makes us very 1 dimensional and is a major part of why we're so easy to defend against when a team has 2 banks of 4 in front of Doyle on the ball. If the ball does go wide, we rely on a fullback overlapping or one of the forwards has to come short to help out as there's not much back into central midfield with 1 or 2 DMs and then we're left with an isolated striker in the box. It's why we rarely have many players in the box when attacking and why we never get midfielders running beyond the strikers.
If the defence plays higher everyone is closer together - more options to pass to, over shorter distances and less need to go long so better ball retention.