Barry & De Jong

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fatbloke

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24 May 2004
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Can someone please tell these two to take a bit more responsibility when we're in possession. I think those two our are main problem at the moment because neither of them drive us forward. They're both good players but at times against Stoke and in quite a few recent games they have had the opportunities to carry the ball 20-30 yards but have been happy to play a simple 10 yard pass to one of the full backs. It makes us so predictable going forward and if we want to break into the top 4 we have to attack as well as defend as a team, not 3 or 4 individuals trying to nick us a goal. It's all about mixing it up and trying to have a bit of variety in our play.
 
We won't break into the top four in my opinion. We lack creativity, invention and when we play (sometimes) 3 defensive midfielders at home, well you can forget top 4. Funny how Mancini was put in charge when he was, with the teams we played I mean, and then when the better teams come up against us we can't beat them. Prepared to give him another season after he's had a transfer window to bring in his players, but at the minute we don't look like a good team. Just my opinion like.
 
fatbloke said:
Can someone please tell these two to take a bit more responsibility when we're in possession. I think those two our are main problem at the moment because neither of them drive us forward. They're both good players but at times against Stoke and in quite a few recent games they have had the opportunities to carry the ball 20-30 yards but have been happy to play a simple 10 yard pass to one of the full backs. It makes us so predictable going forward and if we want to break into the top 4 we have to attack as well as defend as a team, not 3 or 4 individuals trying to nick us a goal.
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Nige must be the most one-dimensional player in the Prem. He is a tackling machine, most times successful but if you discount the sideways, backwards passes he contributes but little to an attack. Occasionally, he might maraud forward (he has scored for Holland!) and on Saturday there was one such moment where I willed him to thrash it into the Stoke net - my willpower was markedly deficient. Barry has a little more to his game.

But if you play these two, Ireland has got to be on fire or we have to have a midfielder who just attacks, scores, scores again and feeds T and A with gilt-edged chances.
 
imo all of our recent problems stem from how poor Barry and Nige are when in possession, barry just looks for contact so he can fall over and win a free kick where as Nige just looks to get rid of it asap to the nearest player.

it then makes our forward progression so predictable as we are obviously going to try and move the ball to the wings, our build up play is so slow, and tbh only Vieira looks capable of passing a ball more than 10 yards.
 
For the life of me I can't see why Barry doesn't keep possession better than he currently does. Drives me mad! Seemingly, no matter what we do at the minute we can't string together good bits of possession. Our chances are coming from mistakes, i'm sure it will improve.
 
They're a poor pairing. They're far too imobile together and Nige has been giving us very little of late and his severe lack of height really doesn't help
 
They're both excellent professionals and I would never get on their backs because they do put the effort in every game but we really need a bit more from them in an attacking sense. Opposition teams know they can sit deep and defend with those two being so reluctant to bring the ball forward we never draw the opposition out. I think a lot of it is to do with mentality because they're both more than capable, maybe it's just confident but whatever it is Mancini has to try and get more out of them. He obviously knows it's a problem hence Vieira and also the deal for Mariga which fell through but I really do think this could cost us that top 4 place.
 
I think De Jong would make us a cracking little right back but not much else. I've been consistent IMO that he's no top flight midfielder despite many blues talking him up. The whole offensive side of the squad can't even be judged with the poor midfield we have. You can't blame Mancini for the complete lack of pace, stamina, creativity, inventiveness & movement that Hughes put togeather.
 
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