What we lack (1 Viewer)

Nick said:

We need a midfielder who isn't scared to kick people with a bit of a physical presence.

Looking at their team today most of their team were quite stocky and powerful. Not all of them were tall but they had a bit about them.

We need somebody nasty in the middle of the park I think with a bit about them. Dennis wise type.

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It sounds like Astute would fit the bill.

we need a miracle

Nick said:

We need a midfielder who isn't scared to kick people with a bit of a physical presence.

Looking at their team today most of their team were quite stocky and powerful. Not all of them were tall but they had a bit about them.

We need somebody nasty in the middle of the park I think with a bit about them. Dennis wise type.

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As long as it isn't Deegan or Jennings though, right?

Think pressley spent to much time chasing the chap at brentford, diagouraga in the summer. Needed a plan B, but seems to be the same story all over. No plan B. A powerful striker to partner Jackson an a strong player to do the ugly midfield work. Oh an a vocal keeper that uses his gloves be nice.

Jackson's pap

pusbccfc said:

As long as it isn't Deegan or Jennings though, right?

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I'd take Jennings, did well under robins. But we need that player who will run an break it up an supply fleck an o'brien.

Nick said:

Deegan may not be very good, but some games he at least put himself about.

We need a Wise type, somebody who can come in and be a bastard and an influence at the same time.

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You're now describing a midfield of Astute and Grendel. We could do with a thread naming the best SBT XI.

Rusty Trombone said:

You're now describing a midfield of Astute and Grendel. We could do with a thread naming the best SBT XI.

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I bagsy being in goal! :claping hands:

Nick said:

I think Nouble won't be too bad with Jackson or Miller up front.

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I'd like to see miller given his chance, seems to work to find space an put him self about. How long is the scan results gonna take for nouble's hip?? Would of known by now if he'd of gone nhs at walsgrave! Nearly November now an goals are few an far between. Confidence low an so is our league position. We are a mid table league 1 outfit now an times have changed for our happier days in the top flight but trouble is in the air without the physical threat up top an May not have time to wait for nouble to return.

you are assuming we are paying a significant part of nouble's wages...also he came from Ipswich (not West Ham)!!. This may not be the case.

I am waiting for sisu to invest the clarke/wilson/season tkt revenues as promised

Nick said:

Yep, if Nouble is going to be out then send him back to West Ham and free up those wages and get somebody else in.

Eider Gudjonssen is a free agent!

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Need to send him East Anglia mate, he's at mick mccarthys Ipswich these days. But your point is correct. If we are playing a cut of his fees if all send him back as he's only here till jan (if any option to extend is there) we need a striker now. Player miller instead of mcquoid, but I'd rather a big powerful striker.

What we need, as you say Nick, is a combatative, ball winning, midfield general. Just how many times do we tackle and win the ball back in the centre of the park?

The truth is, we lack any strength in the midfield at all. This is one thing we can very much criticise Pressley for. It appears that he has made no attempt whatsoever to address this position in this respect.

Yes, we had that unbeaten run of 7 games, but it now appears that since then the opposition have always done their homework well on us and they can always counter anything we can throw at them ..... or in our case, gently lob.

We had 2 games where Haynes came in and was obviously a completely new entiity to opposing teams and he had a field day. Teams then targeted him and for the most part have almost completely shut him out of games.

What we lack is strength in midfield. We also lack on the whole a quick countering game. We tend to be very pedestrian in our build up play and very predictable too. I sit in the stands and witness very little cleverness or trickery. You can usually very much predict where the ball is going to go all the time. From keeper to back four, little triangles, left to right, to right to left again and then a long ball.

There's not much in reverse passing and doing the unexpected. It tends to go one way and then predictably back the other. There's very little clever little passes that catch the opposition out or on the wrong foot. Our passes tend to always be very expected and are all but telegraphed. You know where they are going to go with the ball pretty much every time we have it. That's very easy to defend against.

Can't remember the last time I saw something particularly clever from us. Maddison did show a bit of that about him mind yesterday. Fleck can be quite clever at times, but still, we just don't have enough of that in the squad.

It was embarrassing yesterday and at times it looked like giants versus midgets.

In League One you need strength and pace. We have some pace about us, but next to no strength. It's a big worry. I think we are going to really struggle against most physical sides. Reda gives us that strength and muscle at the back, but it is totally missing in the middle of the park and if you take Nouble out of the equation, we have nothing up front there either.

I have always been supportive of Pressley in the past (his bizzarre post match interviews apart), but he has made a serious error of judgment in his transfer dealings by not addressing the need for some strength and muscle.

Swanson? O'Brien? Miller? McQuoid? Jackson? Coulibaly? Tudgay?

Add to that the fact that we now have a very poor goalkeeper behind the sticks and you can see where it is all going wrong and where it could be a recipe for disaster.

We need a new keeper desperately. We need a physical midfield general desperately and we need another big strong target man.

The kids are looking good, but in this physical league they are not the answer at the moment.

We also desperately need to look at the system we are deploying too. We simply are not creating anough chances and therefore making life very difficult for us. We go a goal down, we lose.

Hard to be positive about anything at the moment and that's even before you start thinking about off the pitch and the fact that the Ricoh has just been sold to a rugby team from 80 miles away.

It's all very, very desperate.

Ignore Pressley's comments of our being 'not very far from where we want to be.' It's a thin line between success and failure for sure and you can be relatively close in games, but if you keep losing 2-1 you will go down. It's no good constantly being 'nearly there.'

Against Crewe we apparently played well for 45 mins. Yesterday, it was just 15. Don't be clouded by the fact the finished we game well. The previous 75 mins we were pretty clueless. Had we been good for he first 15 only people would now be saying there were no positives, rather than that we finished the game quite well.


We look 'pretty' but it's all huff and puff and powder puff.

We are now 7 points behind 6th place and the gap is widening and we are now just a point off the bottom four. We seriously now need to start looking over our shoulders.

There is no coincidence that we lack muscle and midfield, signings such as swanson to join an already small midfield is because SP's philosophy is a version of tippy tappy barcelona style football which from what I can see goes nowhere and allows the opposition to get all their players behind the ball whilst we are completing our 5th triangle. This possession football mostly in our half discourages the midfield from getting forward - did any of our midfield come close to scoring yesterday

shy_tall_knight said:

There is no coincidence that we lack muscle and midfield, signings such as swanson to join an already small midfield is because SP's philosophy is a version of tippy tappy barcelona style football which from what I can see goes nowhere and allows the opposition to get all their players behind the ball whilst we are completing our 5th triangle. This possession football mostly in our half discourages the midfield from getting forward - did any of our midfield come close to scoring yesterday

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The question is, can you play Barcelona style tippy tappy football in League One?

It was always obvious Tudgay and Swanson were gambles and given our situation in the summer probably worth taking.
The three from Bournemouth seemed to come as a package tied to the Wilson deal. A sort of add on to the fee and they might come off for you.

letting Murphy go (when he was happy to stay with a wage cut) was a big mistake. How much that was Pressleys decision who knows? You could argue A case for Baker, who I think was getting a tad rebellious and I think that was Pressleys decision.

I agree with Otis, the two central midfield positions have been overlooked. I said last season Fleck and Thomas were both over played. Not only would they benefit from competition but also an occasional rest. We are crying out for a couple of foot in style plays.

it is all very well our owners trimming expenditure and trawling the free and loans market. But you have to accept more will fail than succeed. But the key for this strategy to work, is to be able to retain some of the decent players that come your way, so that a team can be built over a two year period and make you competitive.

I am not sure changing the manager will make a great deal of difference in the long term. What does need a radical shake up is our scouting system. We seem to take players on blind at the moment. Every deal seems a little desperate rather than this is the guy we targeted.

Otis said:

The question is, can you play Barcelona style tippy tappy football in League One?

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I think you would find Barcelona would do very well in league 1.

Hobo said:

I think you would find Barcelona would do very well in league 1.

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Okay, I will give you my full quote then.


The question is, can you play Barcelona style tippy tappy football in League One with the quality of players we've got?

Otis said:

Okay, I will give you my full quote then.


The question is, can you play Barcelona style tippy tappy football in League One with the quality of players we've got?

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The league position says no, not with the players we have currently. For example the small triangle passing does not work offensively as when we're in possession we play the ball an then they never look to move forward into space to be the next corner of the triangle an advance forwards an then we end up going backwards as their is always someone at the back to receive, never in a forward space to exploit their gaps pulling teams apart. An when we do it's all to slow an obvious.

Barcelona press high up the pitch, we play so deep, that's what I really struggle with.