coping with the physical championship

KenTred

Thought Hull did really well to combat the physical long ball, naive simulation (Mills) approach of Charlton today.

Two evenly matched teams who showed plenty of strength and fight making up for what they lacked in quality and tactically sterile management. Both should be there or thereabouts in the shake up for the play offs though

tricky

As someone who before has argued for Reid not being in the team, Ken Tred, did you think he would have made a difference today?

Nug

I think he'd have been smothered just like Tomas Sam and ZZ were all game, saying that I thought when ZZ was on the ball we looked good why oh why did we go long most of the time. And why didn't Thomas have a go at the left back for a change he looked absolutely useless when sam was up against him. I've never understood why a right footed winger plays constantly on the left, he cut inside every time, we definitely lack from good crosses into the box.

tricky

You might be right about being smothered, especially as most teams realise how influential he can be. We did seem to lack creativity today, and I couldn't see how we were going to score. I was hoping Ambrose could show some of his ability as a creative force, but again he was disappointing.

We took the easy option of going long too many times today. I can understand why Holland is playing at the moment, and he was probably one of our better players today, but I think Semedo often helps us to play more through the midfield because he picks the ball up from defenders and then turns and looks to play it on the floor, or spread it wide.

Sam getting injured today didn't help today as I think he could have done some damage down their left.

KenTred

I agree that the team lacked creativity today but that was in large part because Pards had them going long and Iwelumo did not hold enough up and fouled his opponent 50% of the time. If reid had been in there might have been different instructions but I still dont think he can provide the creativity needed to break down the championship teams at the Valley (as witnessed for most of thos season). Ambfrose does not have a creative inch in his body!

ISawLeaburnScore

we can't cope with it... end of story and for some stupid reason we get drawn into playing crap football instead of getting the ball on the deck and playing some of the pass and move stuff we managed even towards the end of last season with a sameish line up

Kap10

there were periods in the 1st half where we played some good stuff on the deck, but failed to really penetrate. in the 2nd half it was long all the way through, its not Chris's fault but the team need to realise just because we have a big bloke up front we don't have to knock the ball to his head constantly.

LenGlover

It's sooooo frustrating when they lump it in the air to Big Chris all the time!

As a team we are physically relative midgets in this division and our strength is our superior footballing ability, even Iwelumo is better on the deck than in the air so why, oh why don't we play to feet?