Gomez tactics may still take us down

[Denver Royal]

The tactics yesterday were totally wrong. Whilst passing from the back is admirable, when you have a bumpy pitch a swirling wind you play to the conditions. We were overrun in midfield, when we did have the ball our first thought was to go backwards we did not look comfortable at any stage. The last 10 minutes when we did start hit long things happened in and around there box. We got out of jail yesterday but against a top team we would have been hammered.

Jackson, I hear you. We'll certainly have our work cut out against better teams because, as we know, we aren't a very good team, esp with our injury list. Hopefully some of that will be addressed in the Summer.
We actually played it long a fair bit yesterday and, predictably, Wigan won nearly all the headers.
If we had done that all game it would have played in to their hands, because Wigan would have sat deep.
Despite scoring the winner, Meite's overall game was disappointing, imo. It was a big opportunity for him and we needed a huge game from him. He tried, but he didn't win his headers or hold the ball up well.
As such, I think yesterday's game and opponent lent itself to us playing it it out from the back, to bring Wigan out a bit. We are flexible, and can play long ball in games when it's better suited, as we did at Ipswich (with Oliveira).

[RoyalBlue]

Wrong way around. And if you can't take the risk of trying to play football in the centre of the pitch when your team are set up properly and not out of position then you are unlikely to create much going forwards.

I was working backwards from now and therefore the first goal I came to was the throw out
Didn't think there was too much wrong with what Ejaria was doing, other than he lost the ball !!!

If you watched the build up to their first goal, the initial error came from Baker player a very low percentage ball out from the back towards Blackett. Ejaria did a decent job of getting possession back and then lost it to James. So I think it did come from playing out from the back. You often have to go back a little further in the build up to see where the problem started

How far do you want to go back? Adopt that approach and anything that goes wrong can be blamed on playing out from the back! I like Ejaria but he had fully regained control and possession before being out muscled and forced off the ball. He happened to make the wrong choice/move on that occasion but creative midfield players have to make those choices and take chances if they are to create.

[3points]

I was working backwards from now and therefore the first goal I came to was the throw out
Didn't think there was too much wrong with what Ejaria was doing, other than he lost the ball !!!

If you watched the build up to their first goal, the initial error came from Baker player a very low percentage ball out from the back towards Blackett. Ejaria did a decent job of getting possession back and then lost it to James. So I think it did come from playing out from the back. You often have to go back a little further in the build up to see where the problem started

How far do you want to go back? Adopt that approach and anything that goes wrong can be blamed on playing out from the back! I like Ejaria but he had fully regained control and possession before being out muscled and forced off the ball. He happened to make the wrong choice/move on that occasion but creative midfield players have to make those choices and take chances if they are to create.

I disagree with that. Because of Baker’s initial poor pass, it out Ejaria (and others) into positions which didn’t then help our defensive shape or set up (ie trying to go from attack mode quickly into defence) and was one of these reasons that Yiadom had to step up and then get beaten badly. Now there’s a fair argument to say once Ejaria had the ball he could have put his laces through it rather than run across the midfield.

There’s was someone on Twitter recently stated our passing out from the back style hasn’t directly led to any goals. Many disagreed. But I think it does place pressure on our players who then make a poor decision or clearance which leads to a goal scoring opportunity 3 or 4 phases of play later. I see both sides of the argument. It’s about balance and I think the players are gett8ng better under Gomes about making the right decisions, much better than they were under Stam.

[leon]

Thr two that piss me off the most. McCleary has been here for years ffs.

Its not like theyre long complex foreign names based on an alien pronunciation.

Exactly, Brian Macdonald bought him.

[paddy20]

I don't think I was advocating playing the long ball but trying to play our passing football more in the opposing half rather than our own. I agree Gomes is adapting and we do less passing out from the back but a lot of the goals we concede come from mistakes in our own half losing the ball. Apparently according to Soccernomics more goals are conceded by players losing the ball than any other source.

[Hound]

I don't think I was advocating playing the long ball but trying to play our passing football more in the opposing half rather than our own. I agree Gomes is adapting and we do less passing out from the back but a lot of the goals we concede come from mistakes in our own half losing the ball. Apparently according to Soccernomics more goals are conceded by players losing the ball than any other source.

I'm sure they are trying to play it in the opposition half. As Denver rightly says, we went pretty long ball at times Saturday, and tbh, it didn't really work that well either. Martinez has to make better choices at times, the one on Saturday was an awful mistake under no pressure- even if Blackett got the ball he was hemmed in by 2 players. But generally playing out from the back works pretty well for us.

[Old Man Andrews]

Laughable thread.

When the original poster can't even spell the managers name correctly the opinion that follows can't really be taken seriously.

[paddy20]

Laughable thread.

When the original poster can't even spell the managers name correctly the opinion that follows can't really be taken seriously.

Good point and mistake on my part for which I apologise. Not sure it has a lot of bearing on the points though tbf. I shall be watching your posts in the future for any slight grammatical errors or spelling mistakes(only joking)! Or should the exclamation mark be inside or outside the brackets? Can you start a sentence with Or??? - Peace.

[Nameless]

I don't think I was advocating playing the long ball but trying to play our passing football more in the opposing half rather than our own. I agree Gomes is adapting and we do less passing out from the back but a lot of the goals we concede come from mistakes in our own half losing the ball. Apparently according to Soccernomics more goals are conceded by players losing the ball than any other source.

I'm sure they are trying to play it in the opposition half. As Denver rightly says, we went pretty long ball at times Saturday, and tbh, it didn't really work that well either. Martinez has to make better choices at times, the one on Saturday was an awful mistake under no pressure- even if Blackett got the ball he was hemmed in by 2 players. But generally playing out from the back works pretty well for us.

Surely part of the reason you play out from the back is to draw the opposition on to you creating space in their midfield to pass into.
If you move 20 yards further up you are compressing the space and essentially defeating the object. We have been much better of late in getting the ball to midfielders in space, we need to get better at the midfielders then moving the ball on to the attacking areas.
We’re not as obsessive at playing the ball across the back as we were under Stam largely because the midfielders actually make themselves more easily found .

[Hound]

As another poster may say on here - ‘well quite’

[SCIAG]

Laughable thread.

When the original poster can't even spell the managers name correctly the opinion that follows can't really be taken seriously.

Good point and mistake on my part for which I apologise. Not sure it has a lot of bearing on the points though tbf. I shall be watching your posts in the future for any slight grammatical errors or spelling mistakes(only joking)! Or should the exclamation mark be inside or outside the brackets? Can you start a sentence with Or??? - Peace.

Outside the brackets.

The purists will object to starting a sentence with "or" but if we go by the rules that people actually use then it is fine.

[URZZZZ]

I don't think I was advocating playing the long ball but trying to play our passing football more in the opposing half rather than our own. I agree Gomes is adapting and we do less passing out from the back but a lot of the goals we concede come from mistakes in our own half losing the ball. Apparently according to Soccernomics more goals are conceded by players losing the ball than any other source.

I'm sure they are trying to play it in the opposition half. As Denver rightly says, we went pretty long ball at times Saturday, and tbh, it didn't really work that well either. Martinez has to make better choices at times, the one on Saturday was an awful mistake under no pressure- even if Blackett got the ball he was hemmed in by 2 players. But generally playing out from the back works pretty well for us.

Surely part of the reason you play out from the back is to draw the opposition on to you creating space in their midfield to pass into.
If you move 20 yards further up you are compressing the space and essentially defeating the object. We have been much better of late in getting the ball to midfielders in space, we need to get better at the midfielders then moving the ball on to the attacking areas.
We’re not as obsessive at playing the ball across the back as we were under Stam largely because the midfielders actually make themselves more easily found .

Yeah, the purpose is to draw the opposition onto you and play through them (see Rotherham at home). But when teams like Wigan come and don't press, it's absolutely vital there's a different plan. We've effectively scored from three set pieces on Saturday (freekick/freekick/corner), but other than set pieces/dodgy referee decisions, we wouldn't have scored if we were still playing now

Alternatively, when teams sit back, you have to take advantage of any space. If Moore has 15 yards of space to run into, you need to exploit that space. Instead, what we did is Baker/Ejaria would collect the ball from the CB's, meaning there were fewer options going forward. If Moore carried onto that space in the first place, it would create more angles to break their defence down. Some of our passes are still utterly pointless, a three yard pass to someone with an opposition player right behind them is not a solution to break a watertight defence

[Brain Traysers]

Yeah, the purpose is to draw the opposition onto you and play through them (see Rotherham at home). But when teams like Wigan come and don't press, it's absolutely vital there's a different plan. We've effectively scored from three set pieces on Saturday (freekick/freekick/corner), but other than set pieces/dodgy referee decisions, we wouldn't have scored if we were still playing now

Alternatively, when teams sit back, you have to take advantage of any space. If Moore has 15 yards of space to run into, you need to exploit that space. Instead, what we did is Baker/Ejaria would collect the ball from the CB's, meaning there were fewer options going forward. If Moore carried onto that space in the first place, it would create more angles to break their defence down. Some of our passes are still utterly pointless, a three yard pass to someone with an opposition player right behind them is not a solution to break a watertight defence

I think I'm in the exact same boat as URZZZZ - while Gomes seems to have got (i) a positive reaction from the crowd, (ii) players in to fit his system, and (iii) buy in from the players (evidenced my Meite celebrating with him), we still have been second best in the vast majority of his games and very lucky to escape with some of the results. Its very difficult to figure out how much of our upturn is due to (i), (ii), (iii), a combination thereof, or just pure luck. A 5th factor is training ground work on set pieces - that shouldn't go unnoticed even if set piece goals haven't been raining in (yet) - there have been a few inventive but unsuccessful routines.

He certainly deserves some credit for that for sure, and appears to have a plan in place - I hope it continues. However, if it turns out we have just been getting really lucky on the pitch, we stay up and nothing improves next year, we are in the exact same situation. Clement was lauded for the 'fight' he instilled when we robbed QPR and Preston last year - which ultimately kept us up - but that 'fight' magically disappeared when results turned over the first half of this season and he was sacked.

[leon]

Yeah, the purpose is to draw the opposition onto you and play through them (see Rotherham at home). But when teams like Wigan come and don't press, it's absolutely vital there's a different plan. We've effectively scored from three set pieces on Saturday (freekick/freekick/corner), but other than set pieces/dodgy referee decisions, we wouldn't have scored if we were still playing now

Alternatively, when teams sit back, you have to take advantage of any space. If Moore has 15 yards of space to run into, you need to exploit that space. Instead, what we did is Baker/Ejaria would collect the ball from the CB's, meaning there were fewer options going forward. If Moore carried onto that space in the first place, it would create more angles to break their defence down. Some of our passes are still utterly pointless, a three yard pass to someone with an opposition player right behind them is not a solution to break a watertight defence

I think I'm in the exact same boat as URZZZZ - while Gomes seems to have got (i) a positive reaction from the crowd, (ii) players in to fit his system, and (iii) buy in from the players (evidenced my Meite celebrating with him), we still have been second best in the vast majority of his games and very lucky to escape with some of the results. Its very difficult to figure out how much of our upturn is due to (i), (ii), (iii), a combination thereof, or just pure luck. A 5th factor is training ground work on set pieces - that shouldn't go unnoticed even if set piece goals haven't been raining in (yet) - there have been a few inventive but unsuccessful routines.

He certainly deserves some credit for that for sure, and appears to have a plan in place - I hope it continues. However, if it turns out we have just been getting really lucky on the pitch, we stay up and nothing improves next year, we are in the exact same situation. Clement was lauded for the 'fight' he instilled when we robbed QPR and Preston last year - which ultimately kept us up - but that 'fight' magically disappeared when results turned over the first half of this season and he was sacked.

Not strictly true. The last 5 games of that season we got 2 points. The writing was on the wall then.

[Brain Traysers]

Yeah, the purpose is to draw the opposition onto you and play through them (see Rotherham at home). But when teams like Wigan come and don't press, it's absolutely vital there's a different plan. We've effectively scored from three set pieces on Saturday (freekick/freekick/corner), but other than set pieces/dodgy referee decisions, we wouldn't have scored if we were still playing now

Alternatively, when teams sit back, you have to take advantage of any space. If Moore has 15 yards of space to run into, you need to exploit that space. Instead, what we did is Baker/Ejaria would collect the ball from the CB's, meaning there were fewer options going forward. If Moore carried onto that space in the first place, it would create more angles to break their defence down. Some of our passes are still utterly pointless, a three yard pass to someone with an opposition player right behind them is not a solution to break a watertight defence

I think I'm in the exact same boat as URZZZZ - while Gomes seems to have got (i) a positive reaction from the crowd, (ii) players in to fit his system, and (iii) buy in from the players (evidenced my Meite celebrating with him), we still have been second best in the vast majority of his games and very lucky to escape with some of the results. Its very difficult to figure out how much of our upturn is due to (i), (ii), (iii), a combination thereof, or just pure luck. A 5th factor is training ground work on set pieces - that shouldn't go unnoticed even if set piece goals haven't been raining in (yet) - there have been a few inventive but unsuccessful routines.

He certainly deserves some credit for that for sure, and appears to have a plan in place - I hope it continues. However, if it turns out we have just been getting really lucky on the pitch, we stay up and nothing improves next year, we are in the exact same situation. Clement was lauded for the 'fight' he instilled when we robbed QPR and Preston last year - which ultimately kept us up - but that 'fight' magically disappeared when results turned over the first half of this season and he was sacked.

Not strictly true. The last 5 games of that season we got 2 points. The writing was on the wall then.

Point taken, and the 'feel good' factor under Gomes was never there with Clement, but what if we only get 2 points in the last 5 this season?

[URZZZZ]

I think I'm in the exact same boat as URZZZZ - while Gomes seems to have got (i) a positive reaction from the crowd, (ii) players in to fit his system, and (iii) buy in from the players (evidenced my Meite celebrating with him), we still have been second best in the vast majority of his games and very lucky to escape with some of the results. Its very difficult to figure out how much of our upturn is due to (i), (ii), (iii), a combination thereof, or just pure luck. A 5th factor is training ground work on set pieces - that shouldn't go unnoticed even if set piece goals haven't been raining in (yet) - there have been a few inventive but unsuccessful routines.

He certainly deserves some credit for that for sure, and appears to have a plan in place - I hope it continues. However, if it turns out we have just been getting really lucky on the pitch, we stay up and nothing improves next year, we are in the exact same situation. Clement was lauded for the 'fight' he instilled when we robbed QPR and Preston last year - which ultimately kept us up - but that 'fight' magically disappeared when results turned over the first half of this season and he was sacked.

Not strictly true. The last 5 games of that season we got 2 points. The writing was on the wall then.

Point taken, and the 'feel good' factor under Gomes was never there with Clement, but what if we only get 2 points in the last 5 this season?

Clement was never going to be liked because he was a "Gourlay appointment" and everyone despised Gourlay. People liked Howe because he got rid of the "Deadwood" straight away so thus trusted his judgement. That's why the "feel good" factor is there

But the Clement vs Gomes argument is getting rather tiresome now. I'll admit to bringing it up once or twice but every single thread tries to compare them. Clement's gone, end of story, let's focus on Gomes now

[Snowball]

I think I'm in the exact same boat as URZZZZ - while Gomes seems to have got (i) a positive reaction from the crowd, (ii) players in to fit his system, and (iii) buy in from the players (evidenced my Meite celebrating with him), we still have been second best in the vast majority of his games and very lucky to escape with some of the results. Its very difficult to figure out how much of our upturn is due to (i), (ii), (iii), a combination thereof, or just pure luck. A 5th factor is training ground work on set pieces - that shouldn't go unnoticed even if set piece goals haven't been raining in (yet) - there have been a few inventive but unsuccessful routines.

He certainly deserves some credit for that for sure, and appears to have a plan in place - I hope it continues. However, if it turns out we have just been getting really lucky on the pitch, we stay up and nothing improves next year, we are in the exact same situation. Clement was lauded for the 'fight' he instilled when we robbed QPR and Preston last year - which ultimately kept us up - but that 'fight' magically disappeared when results turned over the first half of this season and he was sacked.

Not strictly true. The last 5 games of that season we got 2 points. The writing was on the wall then.

Point taken, and the 'feel good' factor under Gomes was never there with Clement, but what if we only get 2 points in the last 5 this season?

If we’ve had two 1-0 wins before those games, I would be reasonably happy

Ipswich and Bolton wouldn’t catch us and Rotherham would need 12 points from their last ten

Add on that Millwall would need 11 from 10 and Wigan 8 or 9

[Snowball]

I think I'm in the exact same boat as URZZZZ - while Gomes seems to have got (i) a positive reaction from the crowd, (ii) players in to fit his system, and (iii) buy in from the players (evidenced my Meite celebrating with him), we still have been second best in the vast majority of his games and very lucky to escape with some of the results. Its very difficult to figure out how much of our upturn is due to (i), (ii), (iii), a combination thereof, or just pure luck. A 5th factor is training ground work on set pieces - that shouldn't go unnoticed even if set piece goals haven't been raining in (yet) - there have been a few inventive but unsuccessful routines.

He certainly deserves some credit for that for sure, and appears to have a plan in place - I hope it continues. However, if it turns out we have just been getting really lucky on the pitch, we stay up and nothing improves next year, we are in the exact same situation. Clement was lauded for the 'fight' he instilled when we robbed QPR and Preston last year - which ultimately kept us up - but that 'fight' magically disappeared when results turned over the first half of this season and he was sacked.

Not strictly true. The last 5 games of that season we got 2 points. The writing was on the wall then.

Point taken, and the 'feel good' factor under Gomes was never there with Clement, but what if we only get 2 points in the last 5 this season?

If we’ve had two 1-0 wins before those games, I would be reasonably happy

Ipswich and Bolton wouldn’t catch us and Rotherham would need 12 points from their last ten

Add on that Millwall would need 11 from 10 and Wigan 8 or 9

[Snowflake Royal]

I'm sure they are trying to play it in the opposition half. As Denver rightly says, we went pretty long ball at times Saturday, and tbh, it didn't really work that well either. Martinez has to make better choices at times, the one on Saturday was an awful mistake under no pressure- even if Blackett got the ball he was hemmed in by 2 players. But generally playing out from the back works pretty well for us.

Surely part of the reason you play out from the back is to draw the opposition on to you creating space in their midfield to pass into.
If you move 20 yards further up you are compressing the space and essentially defeating the object. We have been much better of late in getting the ball to midfielders in space, we need to get better at the midfielders then moving the ball on to the attacking areas.
We’re not as obsessive at playing the ball across the back as we were under Stam largely because the midfielders actually make themselves more easily found .

Yeah, the purpose is to draw the opposition onto you and play through them (see Rotherham at home). But when teams like Wigan come and don't press, it's absolutely vital there's a different plan. We've effectively scored from three set pieces on Saturday (freekick/freekick/corner), but other than set pieces/dodgy referee decisions, we wouldn't have scored if we were still playing now

Alternatively, when teams sit back, you have to take advantage of any space. If Moore has 15 yards of space to run into, you need to exploit that space. Instead, what we did is Baker/Ejaria would collect the ball from the CB's, meaning there were fewer options going forward. If Moore carried onto that space in the first place, it would create more angles to break their defence down. Some of our passes are still utterly pointless, a three yard pass to someone with an opposition player right behind them is not a solution to break a watertight defence

Yes, when teams refuse to come on, or are good at the high tempo high press you do need to adapt.

On the otherhand, adapting by getting your CBs to carry the ball forward does compress the pitch and is cpunter productive, so that isnt really the answer. Besides that, Moore is really shit at it. Time and again he sees no good easy pass on but space ahead of him. Runs it forward, gets tto close to the incoming challenge before looking for the pass, has even worse options and goes back or sideways. Ilori (was) and Miazga is far better at coming forward less far, but more controlled and playing a forward pass through narrower gaps to feet or a player in space.

[SCIAG]

I think getting Osho in the team next season could really help with our build-up play. He is prepared to bring the ball out or hit the longer pass.

Problem being that I'm not sure I can see him partnering Moore effectively. We need a Miazga type in there.