The midfield diamond worked well for us against Northampton and Rotherham but not so much yesterday. I thought they had done their homework well on us, pressing us high on the flanks from the off and exposing the lack of cover out wide. Page coped better with this than Dijksteel and it was his failure to win the header that lead to Pearce's weak header for their goal. For those calling for a 20 goal a season striker, we do have one in Nikki Ajose and he very nearly got on the scoresheet but for an excellent save from their keeper. Reeves was good yet again, though I thought his goal was deflected off a defender not that you can see that on the highlights.
I don't get to many games as I live in Devon and run a Saturday morning youth side, but games on a Firday, Monday and a mad dash up the M5 yesterday meant I've got to watch three games in a row for the first time since I had a season ticket in the early noughties.
We definitely looked a bit leggy yesterday in comparison with last weekend and that could have been down to the pitch. It seemed to me that the grass was far too long, almost rugby length, which is ironic as Bristol dont play at the Mem any more. With another game on Tuesday I hope that Lee rings the changes and rests a few players. I'm also hoping he shows some tactical flexibility. I feel the upturn since hes taken charge is as much about the change in formation taking teams by surprise as it is about the freedom hes given the players and now that surprise factor is gone. We are in danger of becoming equally formulaic with 442 diamond as we were under Robinsons 4231. Mixing it up a bit, even using 4231 away from home wouldn't be a bad shout.
Right back is also an issue in this formation. I'm a big fan of Dijksteel, he was outstanding in the cup v Exeter earlier in the season and faultless v Northampton but it was evident on yesterdays showing that he's not got the confidence to beat his man in a 1 on 1 and with a diamond its vital that your full backs get forward and provide width. The difficult question though is who to put in instead as I think Konsa is similar.
It has begun. For real.
The problem under Robinson was always his predictable tactics and line ups rather than the formation 4231 itself.
Lots of teams use 4231 to very good effect when needed, I think back to 2005 when we had Kish and Smertin holding behind Murphy, Thomas, Rommedahl and Bent. The difference is when you're picking the team and tactics games in advance, no wonder you can't get anywhere.
Good point @Callumcafc, Bent at his prime in a 1 up front in the premier compared to big Josh in a 1 in the 3rd tier is poles apart.
Sean Dyche always played 4-4-2 in the championship where he would attack with 4-4-2 and defend with 4-5-1 with the two strikers rotating on who drops back when the opposition have the ball. Simple for simple footballers to understand. He has changed now in the premier because of the skill levels of that division.
Robinson became stubborn and couldn't see that without two goal scoring midfielders in Holmes(transfered) and Fosu (injured) the 4-2-3-1 was doomed to failure.
The midfield diamond worked well for us against Northampton and Rotherham but not so much yesterday. I thought they had done their homework well on us, pressing us high on the flanks from the off and exposing the lack of cover out wide. Page coped better with this than Dijksteel and it was his failure to win the header that lead to Pearce's weak header for their goal. For those calling for a 20 goal a season striker, we do have one in Nikki Ajose and he very nearly got on the scoresheet but for an excellent save from their keeper. Reeves was good yet again, though I thought his goal was deflected off a defender not that you can see that on the highlights.
I don't get to many games as I live in Devon and run a Saturday morning youth side, but games on a Firday, Monday and a mad dash up the M5 yesterday meant I've got to watch three games in a row for the first time since I had a season ticket in the early noughties.
We definitely looked a bit leggy yesterday in comparison with last weekend and that could have been down to the pitch. It seemed to me that the grass was far too long, almost rugby length, which is ironic as Bristol dont play at the Mem any more. With another game on Tuesday I hope that Lee rings the changes and rests a few players. I'm also hoping he shows some tactical flexibility. I feel the upturn since hes taken charge is as much about the change in formation taking teams by surprise as it is about the freedom hes given the players and now that surprise factor is gone. We are in danger of becoming equally formulaic with 442 diamond as we were under Robinsons 4231. Mixing it up a bit, even using 4231 away from home wouldn't be a bad shout.
Right back is also an issue in this formation. I'm a big fan of Dijksteel, he was outstanding in the cup v Exeter earlier in the season and faultless v Northampton but it was evident on yesterdays showing that he's not got the confidence to beat his man in a 1 on 1 and with a diamond its vital that your full backs get forward and provide width. The difficult question though is who to put in instead as I think Konsa is similar.
It has begun. For real.
The problem under Robinson was always his predictable tactics and line ups rather than the formation 4231 itself.
Lots of teams use 4231 to very good effect when needed, I think back to 2005 when we had Kish and Smertin holding behind Murphy, Thomas, Rommedahl and Bent. The difference is when you're picking the team and tactics games in advance, no wonder you can't get anywhere.
Good point @Callumcafc, Bent at his prime in a 1 up front in the premier compared to big Josh in a 1 in the 3rd tier is poles apart.
Sean Dyche always played 4-4-2 in the championship where he would attack with 4-4-2 and defend with 4-5-1 with the two strikers rotating on who drops back when the opposition have the ball. Simple for simple footballers to understand. He has changed now in the premier because of the skill levels of that division.
Robinson became stubborn and couldn't see that without two goal scoring midfielders in Holmes(transfered) and Fosu (injured) the 4-2-3-1 was doomed to failure.
Curbs always talked about defending from the front. I sense Bowyer likes that thought too.
Thing is the strikers have to be fit enough to do the work and Zyro and Ajose, although they try hard and can be effective, have not really had that much football to build up that match fitness level.
Not their fault of course but the more they play one hopes the better they will get.
The midfield diamond worked well for us against Northampton and Rotherham but not so much yesterday. I thought they had done their homework well on us, pressing us high on the flanks from the off and exposing the lack of cover out wide. Page coped better with this than Dijksteel and it was his failure to win the header that lead to Pearce's weak header for their goal. For those calling for a 20 goal a season striker, we do have one in Nikki Ajose and he very nearly got on the scoresheet but for an excellent save from their keeper. Reeves was good yet again, though I thought his goal was deflected off a defender not that you can see that on the highlights.
I don't get to many games as I live in Devon and run a Saturday morning youth side, but games on a Firday, Monday and a mad dash up the M5 yesterday meant I've got to watch three games in a row for the first time since I had a season ticket in the early noughties.
We definitely looked a bit leggy yesterday in comparison with last weekend and that could have been down to the pitch. It seemed to me that the grass was far too long, almost rugby length, which is ironic as Bristol dont play at the Mem any more. With another game on Tuesday I hope that Lee rings the changes and rests a few players. I'm also hoping he shows some tactical flexibility. I feel the upturn since hes taken charge is as much about the change in formation taking teams by surprise as it is about the freedom hes given the players and now that surprise factor is gone. We are in danger of becoming equally formulaic with 442 diamond as we were under Robinsons 4231. Mixing it up a bit, even using 4231 away from home wouldn't be a bad shout.
Right back is also an issue in this formation. I'm a big fan of Dijksteel, he was outstanding in the cup v Exeter earlier in the season and faultless v Northampton but it was evident on yesterdays showing that he's not got the confidence to beat his man in a 1 on 1 and with a diamond its vital that your full backs get forward and provide width. The difficult question though is who to put in instead as I think Konsa is similar.
It has begun. For real.
Playing the same formation week in week out is the problem, you hand your tactical plan to the oppo for free. I only suggested 4231 as at least this is a formation the team knows and the squad we have fit suits the formation. Bowyer has not had a lot of time on the training pitch in the last two weeks due to the number of games. Id prefer we played 352 but as, in the diamond, we've a lack of a decent attacking full back/wing back on the right with Solly injured. In theory with 4231 you get width (and defensive cover) from the 3. On Sat we got virtually nothing from the right in their half, it was all coming down the left or through the middle.
The midfield diamond worked well for us against Northampton and Rotherham but not so much yesterday. I thought they had done their homework well on us, pressing us high on the flanks from the off and exposing the lack of cover out wide. Page coped better with this than Dijksteel and it was his failure to win the header that lead to Pearce's weak header for their goal. For those calling for a 20 goal a season striker, we do have one in Nikki Ajose and he very nearly got on the scoresheet but for an excellent save from their keeper. Reeves was good yet again, though I thought his goal was deflected off a defender not that you can see that on the highlights.
I don't get to many games as I live in Devon and run a Saturday morning youth side, but games on a Firday, Monday and a mad dash up the M5 yesterday meant I've got to watch three games in a row for the first time since I had a season ticket in the early noughties.
We definitely looked a bit leggy yesterday in comparison with last weekend and that could have been down to the pitch. It seemed to me that the grass was far too long, almost rugby length, which is ironic as Bristol dont play at the Mem any more. With another game on Tuesday I hope that Lee rings the changes and rests a few players. I'm also hoping he shows some tactical flexibility. I feel the upturn since hes taken charge is as much about the change in formation taking teams by surprise as it is about the freedom hes given the players and now that surprise factor is gone. We are in danger of becoming equally formulaic with 442 diamond as we were under Robinsons 4231. Mixing it up a bit, even using 4231 away from home wouldn't be a bad shout.
Right back is also an issue in this formation. I'm a big fan of Dijksteel, he was outstanding in the cup v Exeter earlier in the season and faultless v Northampton but it was evident on yesterdays showing that he's not got the confidence to beat his man in a 1 on 1 and with a diamond its vital that your full backs get forward and provide width. The difficult question though is who to put in instead as I think Konsa is similar.
It has begun. For real.
Playing the same formation week in week out is the problem, you hand your tactical plan to the oppo for free. I only suggested 4231 as at least this is a formation the team knows and the squad we have fit suits the formation. Bowyer has not had a lot of time on the training pitch in the last two weeks due to the number of games. Id prefer we played 352 but as, in the diamond, we've a lack of a decent attacking full back/wing back on the right with Solly injured. In theory with 4231 you get width (and defensive cover) from the 3. On Sat we got virtually nothing from the right in their half, it was all coming down the left or through the middle.
I don't think Solly is that attacking full back option either, not on recent form anyway. The problem with the team picked is that none of the midfielders chosen are natural wide players, Reeves and Aribo both prefer to play more centrally, I think it would have been worth bringing Marshall on in place of Aribo to give more natural width down the right.
Wasn't at the game & kept in touch via Soccer Saturday & the CAFC twitter feed from Golfir Jnr.
The main thing I took from this game (and many others I hasten to add) is the lack of goals or meaningful threat from corners. I know this has been mentioned before but the common theme (that we even laughed about towards the end) is the following.....
" Charlton win a corner after attempt by Kaikai is deflected wide..............ball headed clear from (insert opposition name)"
11 corners I believe with what sounded like no real threat from any of them. wtf do they do in training all week ?? Players should be fit enough now so that running or stamina work isn't necessary from day-to-day & so set pieces should be practiced infinitum. We see it time & time again, JFC (or Fosu when playing) deliver weak efforts that do not clear the first defender or land straight with their keeper.
The play-off places could be decided by just one goal - snatching a draw when losing 1-0 at Pompey perhaps, or turning a 1-1 into a 2-1 win (which should perhaps have been the case yesterday)
Does my nut in.
No good winning all these corners if we can't do a thing with them.
JFC’s delivery was consistently decent afternoon and one corner was headed just wide by Aribo and another was cleared off the line. Bristol just defended well and statistically very few goals are scored from corners across the whole of football.
Whilst I generally agree with this, it would be nice if we could consistently deliver our corners into areas where something might happen instead of into the bollocks of the first man. And on a related point, can somebody explain to me what is the point of short corners
I was as frustrated as anyone else watching our corners earlier in the season, but we haven't been doing that since JFC was finally put back on corners by Bowyer. Holmes, Fosu, Reeves, Aribo and whoever else had a try, however... they were all terrible when they were given corner duty earlier in the season. As a fairly terrible recreational footballer, I have always found it a bit baffling why any professional footballer struggles to take a corner to at least the minimum standard you describe because, despite being barely able to trap the proverbial bag of cement, two things i could always do was cross a ball reasonably well and take a corner that usually got over head height at the front post and dropped to somewhere around head height by the time it got to the far post. It just doesn't seem that difficult, but a lot of our players down the years have definitely made it look harder than it is.
With regards short corners, I'm not a fan either, but there are stats that suggest you are actually more likely to score by playing it short and building a move from there than you are to score by hitting it long into the box.
Expectations are rising amongst the fans thanks to Lee Lee Lee Bowyer and Jacko.
Have our players got the mental strength to cope with that?
If they can then we should be able to do enough from our remaining fixtures to stay in the top 6.
The question then is have they got the mental strength for a two legged play-off?
A cursory glance, not in depth study, of the remaining fixtures, suggests Charlton are somewhat blessed that their success will be very much in their own hands (vs. Scunthorpe, Portsmouth?). Not so much "looking around for the other results". Mental strength? True, much of this has been sapped through the Sheep Whisperer and Roll in Duckshit Alley. Cheer up, with one abject failure gone, and the other about to become history/sectioned, pigs are about to take off!! Surely not about mental, but more about momentum.
Shame really......... players look kind of O.K......... Start of the year, with a half decent manager, or even a worthy novice who understood Charlton.................
What a shame.
"If you ever see a post from WRICURKINCAM walk away and pretend you didn't. Only madness lies ahead. " = Henry Irving.
One more thing, to those saying our corners were poor, we had one goal mouth scramble that started with Aribo having one cleared off the line, another Aribo headed just wide, and still another where the ball was worked wide and Kaikai out in a beautiful ball that Pearce headed over from six yards. I wouldn't class them as terrible by any stretch. We should want more, but I think the criticism had been harsh.
11 corners & the best we can do is ONE goalmouth scramble & a header just over. A ball worked out wide does not constitute a decent effort from a corner imo.
when did we last score direct from a corner & how many have we it total this season compared to the number of corners gained. Considering you are talking about getting the ball crossed in from about 35 yards to 6 or 7 players congregated 10 yards in front of goal I would say a conversion rate of less than 1% not just poor but utterly abysmal.
I mean we're not a big team, especially for this league. We have maybe three players good at attacking the ball in the air: Bauer, Zyro, and Aribo. I do think we've not scored enough from set pieces this season, particularly free kicks in wide areas, but I don't think we're abysmal.
Completely disagree about second phase from a corner not counting. It's incredibly important. Maybe it doesn't count as scoring directly, but that is the kind of thing teams work on, and what we create from it was arguably the best chance of the game.
As for last goal from a corner, I think it was Bauer against Donny, so about two months ago. But we did score LAST GAME against Rotherham from a free kick out wide. All in all I'd say not great, not terrible. And again, given how often we're fouled in wide positions I think we should be better at those. But we're not the type of team that is set up to score loads from corners, especially in this league full of lumps.
Wasn't at the game & kept in touch via Soccer Saturday & the CAFC twitter feed from Golfir Jnr.
The main thing I took from this game (and many others I hasten to add) is the lack of goals or meaningful threat from corners. I know this has been mentioned before but the common theme (that we even laughed about towards the end) is the following.....
" Charlton win a corner after attempt by Kaikai is deflected wide..............ball headed clear from (insert opposition name)"
11 corners I believe with what sounded like no real threat from any of them. wtf do they do in training all week ?? Players should be fit enough now so that running or stamina work isn't necessary from day-to-day & so set pieces should be practiced infinitum. We see it time & time again, JFC (or Fosu when playing) deliver weak efforts that do not clear the first defender or land straight with their keeper.
The play-off places could be decided by just one goal - snatching a draw when losing 1-0 at Pompey perhaps, or turning a 1-1 into a 2-1 win (which should perhaps have been the case yesterday)
Does my nut in.
No good winning all these corners if we can't do a thing with them.
JFC’s delivery was consistently decent afternoon and one corner was headed just wide by Aribo and another was cleared off the line. Bristol just defended well and statistically very few goals are scored from corners across the whole of football.
Whilst I generally agree with this, it would be nice if we could consistently deliver our corners into areas where something might happen instead of into the bollocks of the first man. And on a related point, can somebody explain to me what is the point of short corners
The odds of scoring from a corner are so small, statistically your better off just keeping the ball in the attacking 3rd. We all love the giant center halves trundle up but it doesn't produce many goals.
If you watch barca, City etc they look to take short corners and quick free kicks where ever possible.
The stats are quite interesting.
Lasts season West Brom scored 15 out of their 41 goals from corners, but still scored from only 1 in 10 of them. A low percentage, but probably still higher than their open play scoring percentage!
Moral of the story, my God Tony Pullis teams are dreadful to watch.
Thanks for digging that stat out. I think people overestimate how often goals are scored (and thus should be expected to be scored) from corners. A 10% return is really good it seems.
Wasn't at the game & kept in touch via Soccer Saturday & the CAFC twitter feed from Golfir Jnr.
The main thing I took from this game (and many others I hasten to add) is the lack of goals or meaningful threat from corners. I know this has been mentioned before but the common theme (that we even laughed about towards the end) is the following.....
" Charlton win a corner after attempt by Kaikai is deflected wide..............ball headed clear from (insert opposition name)"
11 corners I believe with what sounded like no real threat from any of them. wtf do they do in training all week ?? Players should be fit enough now so that running or stamina work isn't necessary from day-to-day & so set pieces should be practiced infinitum. We see it time & time again, JFC (or Fosu when playing) deliver weak efforts that do not clear the first defender or land straight with their keeper.
The play-off places could be decided by just one goal - snatching a draw when losing 1-0 at Pompey perhaps, or turning a 1-1 into a 2-1 win (which should perhaps have been the case yesterday)
Does my nut in.
No good winning all these corners if we can't do a thing with them.
JFC’s delivery was consistently decent afternoon and one corner was headed just wide by Aribo and another was cleared off the line. Bristol just defended well and statistically very few goals are scored from corners across the whole of football.
Whilst I generally agree with this, it would be nice if we could consistently deliver our corners into areas where something might happen instead of into the bollocks of the first man. And on a related point, can somebody explain to me what is the point of short corners
The odds of scoring from a corner are so small, statistically your better off just keeping the ball in the attacking 3rd. We all love the giant center halves trundle up but it doesn't produce many goals.
If you watch barca, City etc they look to take short corners and quick free kicks where ever possible.
Yes, I think for a team of our size and aerial ability we are often better off just keeping the ball than we are lumping it into the box from 40-50 yards (which I'm sure we'll see a lot of tomorrow night). The other thing is, because we're not the biggest, working on winning second balls and creating opportunities from the second phase (as mentioned above) is really important.
All of this "playoffs could come down to one goal" is absolutely true, but I'd rather we put more emphasis on creating chances and taking those chances around the edge of the box.
The midfield diamond worked well for us against Northampton and Rotherham but not so much yesterday. I thought they had done their homework well on us, pressing us high on the flanks from the off and exposing the lack of cover out wide. Page coped better with this than Dijksteel and it was his failure to win the header that lead to Pearce's weak header for their goal. For those calling for a 20 goal a season striker, we do have one in Nikki Ajose and he very nearly got on the scoresheet but for an excellent save from their keeper. Reeves was good yet again, though I thought his goal was deflected off a defender not that you can see that on the highlights.
I don't get to many games as I live in Devon and run a Saturday morning youth side, but games on a Firday, Monday and a mad dash up the M5 yesterday meant I've got to watch three games in a row for the first time since I had a season ticket in the early noughties.
We definitely looked a bit leggy yesterday in comparison with last weekend and that could have been down to the pitch. It seemed to me that the grass was far too long, almost rugby length, which is ironic as Bristol dont play at the Mem any more. With another game on Tuesday I hope that Lee rings the changes and rests a few players. I'm also hoping he shows some tactical flexibility. I feel the upturn since hes taken charge is as much about the change in formation taking teams by surprise as it is about the freedom hes given the players and now that surprise factor is gone. We are in danger of becoming equally formulaic with 442 diamond as we were under Robinsons 4231. Mixing it up a bit, even using 4231 away from home wouldn't be a bad shout.
Right back is also an issue in this formation. I'm a big fan of Dijksteel, he was outstanding in the cup v Exeter earlier in the season and faultless v Northampton but it was evident on yesterdays showing that he's not got the confidence to beat his man in a 1 on 1 and with a diamond its vital that your full backs get forward and provide width. The difficult question though is who to put in instead as I think Konsa is similar.
It has begun. For real.
The problem under Robinson was always his predictable tactics and line ups rather than the formation 4231 itself.
Lots of teams use 4231 to very good effect when needed, I think back to 2005 when we had Kish and Smertin holding behind Murphy, Thomas, Rommedahl and Bent. The difference is when you're picking the team and tactics games in advance, no wonder you can't get anywhere.
I've always liked you Callum.
That was a great side, one of the first Charlton sides I remember watching regularly. They had Ambrose in on one of the flanks at times too if memory serves.
Also, let's not pretend like 4-2-3-1 is some esoteric formation. Madrid won the Champions League two years ago with it (arguably more 4-3-3 last year). Chelsea (Mourinho, Ancellotti), Man City (Mancini), United (one of the later Ferguson seasons), and probably more teams I can't remember have won the Prem with it. Wigan play it devoutly, and to good effect. I think Blackburn have used it at least at times this season. I'm pretty sure the U-21s have played it at times over the last couple years. 4-2-3-1, unto itself, is not the problem.
I agree it was more Robinson's tactics and how he set the team up. Also agree to some extent on personnel, and I don't think he used his squads well and was often too late on subs, but I also think some of that was down to an imbalanced squad and injuries. But with his 4-2-3-1 our players were so far away from each other most of the time, seemingly so they could leave space for someone (Fosu, Holmes) to do something special on their own. And it made it easy to double up against those players. It made it easy to sit back and let us have the ball, and it made it so that when teams countered we had players really far away from the ball.
The midfield diamond worked well for us against Northampton and Rotherham but not so much yesterday. I thought they had done their homework well on us, pressing us high on the flanks from the off and exposing the lack of cover out wide. Page coped better with this than Dijksteel and it was his failure to win the header that lead to Pearce's weak header for their goal. For those calling for a 20 goal a season striker, we do have one in Nikki Ajose and he very nearly got on the scoresheet but for an excellent save from their keeper. Reeves was good yet again, though I thought his goal was deflected off a defender not that you can see that on the highlights.
I don't get to many games as I live in Devon and run a Saturday morning youth side, but games on a Firday, Monday and a mad dash up the M5 yesterday meant I've got to watch three games in a row for the first time since I had a season ticket in the early noughties.
We definitely looked a bit leggy yesterday in comparison with last weekend and that could have been down to the pitch. It seemed to me that the grass was far too long, almost rugby length, which is ironic as Bristol dont play at the Mem any more. With another game on Tuesday I hope that Lee rings the changes and rests a few players. I'm also hoping he shows some tactical flexibility. I feel the upturn since hes taken charge is as much about the change in formation taking teams by surprise as it is about the freedom hes given the players and now that surprise factor is gone. We are in danger of becoming equally formulaic with 442 diamond as we were under Robinsons 4231. Mixing it up a bit, even using 4231 away from home wouldn't be a bad shout.
Right back is also an issue in this formation. I'm a big fan of Dijksteel, he was outstanding in the cup v Exeter earlier in the season and faultless v Northampton but it was evident on yesterdays showing that he's not got the confidence to beat his man in a 1 on 1 and with a diamond its vital that your full backs get forward and provide width. The difficult question though is who to put in instead as I think Konsa is similar.
It has begun. For real.
The problem under Robinson was always his predictable tactics and line ups rather than the formation 4231 itself.
Lots of teams use 4231 to very good effect when needed, I think back to 2005 when we had Kish and Smertin holding behind Murphy, Thomas, Rommedahl and Bent. The difference is when you're picking the team and tactics games in advance, no wonder you can't get anywhere.
I've always liked you Callum.
That was a great side, one of the first Charlton sides I remember watching regularly. They had Ambrose in on one of the flanks at times too if memory serves.
Also, let's not pretend like 4-2-3-1 is some esoteric formation. Madrid won the Champions League two years ago with it (arguably more 4-3-3 last year). Chelsea (Mourinho, Ancellotti), Man City (Mancini), United (one of the later Ferguson seasons), and probably more teams I can't remember have won the Prem with it. Wigan play it devoutly, and to good effect. I think Blackburn have used it at least at times this season. I'm pretty sure the U-21s have played it at times over the last couple years. 4-2-3-1, unto itself, is not the problem.
I agree it was more Robinson's tactics and how he set the team up. Also agree to some extent on personnel, and I don't think he used his squads well and was often too late on subs, but I also think some of that was down to an imbalanced squad and injuries. But with his 4-2-3-1 our players were so far away from each other most of the time, seemingly so they could leave space for someone (Fosu, Holmes) to do something special on their own. And it made it easy to double up against those players. It made it easy to sit back and let us have the ball, and it made it so that when teams countered we had players really far away from the ball.
I know I keep saying it, but the problem under Robinson was much more the pace of the play, than it was the shape. We simply did not move the ball quickly enough in the final third. We looked the worst we have under Bowyer in the first half on Saturday, and it is no coincidence that Bowyer highlighted post match how we didn't move the ball as quickly as we had been, and that we looked better in the second half when we got back to a more fluid, sharp passing game.
Comments
Sean Dyche always played 4-4-2 in the championship where he would attack with 4-4-2 and defend with 4-5-1 with the two strikers rotating on who drops back when the opposition have the ball. Simple for simple footballers to understand. He has changed now in the premier because of the skill levels of that division.
Robinson became stubborn and couldn't see that without two goal scoring midfielders in Holmes(transfered) and Fosu (injured) the 4-2-3-1 was doomed to failure.
Thing is the strikers have to be fit enough to do the work and Zyro and Ajose, although they try hard and can be effective, have not really had that much football to build up that match fitness level.
Not their fault of course but the more they play one hopes the better they will get.
Have our players got the mental strength to cope with that?
If they can then we should be able to do enough from our remaining fixtures to stay in the top 6.
The question then is have they got the mental strength for a two legged play-off?
With regards short corners, I'm not a fan either, but there are stats that suggest you are actually more likely to score by playing it short and building a move from there than you are to score by hitting it long into the box.
Shame really......... players look kind of O.K......... Start of the year, with a half decent manager, or even a worthy novice who understood Charlton.................
What a shame.
"If you ever see a post from WRICURKINCAM walk away and pretend you didn't. Only madness lies ahead. " = Henry Irving.
Completely disagree about second phase from a corner not counting. It's incredibly important. Maybe it doesn't count as scoring directly, but that is the kind of thing teams work on, and what we create from it was arguably the best chance of the game.
As for last goal from a corner, I think it was Bauer against Donny, so about two months ago. But we did score LAST GAME against Rotherham from a free kick out wide. All in all I'd say not great, not terrible. And again, given how often we're fouled in wide positions I think we should be better at those. But we're not the type of team that is set up to score loads from corners, especially in this league full of lumps. Moral of the story, my God Tony Pullis teams are dreadful to watch.
Thanks for digging that stat out. I think people overestimate how often goals are scored (and thus should be expected to be scored) from corners. A 10% return is really good it seems. Yes, I think for a team of our size and aerial ability we are often better off just keeping the ball than we are lumping it into the box from 40-50 yards (which I'm sure we'll see a lot of tomorrow night). The other thing is, because we're not the biggest, working on winning second balls and creating opportunities from the second phase (as mentioned above) is really important.
All of this "playoffs could come down to one goal" is absolutely true, but I'd rather we put more emphasis on creating chances and taking those chances around the edge of the box.
That was a great side, one of the first Charlton sides I remember watching regularly. They had Ambrose in on one of the flanks at times too if memory serves.
Also, let's not pretend like 4-2-3-1 is some esoteric formation. Madrid won the Champions League two years ago with it (arguably more 4-3-3 last year). Chelsea (Mourinho, Ancellotti), Man City (Mancini), United (one of the later Ferguson seasons), and probably more teams I can't remember have won the Prem with it. Wigan play it devoutly, and to good effect. I think Blackburn have used it at least at times this season. I'm pretty sure the U-21s have played it at times over the last couple years. 4-2-3-1, unto itself, is not the problem.
I agree it was more Robinson's tactics and how he set the team up. Also agree to some extent on personnel, and I don't think he used his squads well and was often too late on subs, but I also think some of that was down to an imbalanced squad and injuries. But with his 4-2-3-1 our players were so far away from each other most of the time, seemingly so they could leave space for someone (Fosu, Holmes) to do something special on their own. And it made it easy to double up against those players. It made it easy to sit back and let us have the ball, and it made it so that when teams countered we had players really far away from the ball.