A
A
Anonymous
Guest
Immaculate Pasta said:
I was just saying, with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek, that you could have used the exact same argument to defend Hughes...simple.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
I was just saying, with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek, that you could have used the exact same argument to defend Hughes...simple.
A
A
Anonymous
Guest
BillyShears said:Immaculate Pasta said:Please don't kid yourself that the performances under Mark Hughes were better than they are now. Do you really beleive that?
I was just saying, with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek, that you could have used the exact same argument to defend Hughes...simple.
No i couldn't because 1. the players all knew that they would be here next season as they were playing under a manager who had bought them himself (trust me, that has a huge effect on them) and 2. if we were poor, we were poor for 90 mins and not 45 mins like we have been recently.
A
A
Anonymous
Guest
Immaculate Pasta said:BillyShears said:I was just saying, with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek, that you could have used the exact same argument to defend Hughes...simple.
No i couldn't because 1. the players all knew that they would be here next season as they were playing under a manager who had bought them himself (trust me, that has a huge effect on them) and 2. if we were poor, we were poor for 90 mins and not 45 mins like we have been recently.
Ha ha ha. Lighten up man! I was FUCKING KIDDING. That's what it means when someone says to you, "I said that with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek"....
Plus, I don't want this thread to degenerate into an argument about Mark Hughes...
There's been an undeniable pick up in points per game under Mancini, and furthermore form and confidence was deteriorating rapidly at the end of Hughes's reign. With hindsight I am glad we made the change. If we had delayed, I don't think we would have been in this position....but that's just conjecture
Didsbury Dave said:Failsworth_Blue said:I'd say the majority of performances all season have been poor when you look at every aspect of the game but thats got to be put down to the personel aswell as the manager. We'll never be convincing for most of the match while we've got such a one dimension set of centre midfielders because they're not good enough with the ball at their feet to dictate the tempo and control the game. Ireland and one of Barry, NDJ and Vieira could work better but sadly Ireland isn't in good enough form to make it work and we'll just have to carry on like this until the end of the season and i'm sure Mancini will sort it out in the summer and we'll have a much better midfield who are much more effective with the ball at their feet
Results were poor overall under Hughes, but wierdly, performances were pretty good this season. It was terrible errors which cost us all those points. The only times we were bad under Hughes, if I remember correctly, were for 25 minutes in the second half against United, and Spurs away.
It's almost been the opposite under Mancini: patches of good play, lots of poor play. Reasonable results.
I agree. In the majority of those games we drew under Hughes, we were the better team, dictated much of the game, and were then largely undone by individual errors. Under Mancini, we've certainly cut some of those mistakes out, but the football has, by and large, been poor and uninspiring. The major problem, as far as I can see, is that we set out far too cautiously and play too deep - might (in fact surely does) work in Italy, but not suited here I don't think - we need to start taking games to the opposition more, putting more pressure on the ball higher up the pitch etc..
m27
Well-Known Member
ono said:We're stuck between a rock and a hard place.
First of all, an out and out anchorman generally would work better in a diamond formation. Unfortunately this leaves us short of width, and neither Zabba or Garrido are atheltic or good enough to consistently get up and down the flanks.
Last night we lined up pretty much as a 4-4-2, but because De Jong's job is so one sidedly defensive he drops a little deeper. Now this left Vieira with an awful lot of grass to cover and because of his age and legs, he didn't manage it. He was constantly been beaten to the loose ball. Now De Jong's job is to mop up, but when Vieira can't get close to their midfield it creates a big problem. Their midfield advance, and suddenly De Jong is exposed. He can deal with 1 player, but when he 2 or 3 advancing, there is little he can do.
So imo we should drop De Jong. Sounds harsh as he's been more impressive than Barry and Vieira, but it's not working, and in fact it won't work until De Jong has a couple of players in front of him who can control the ball and control the game.
Good post. Our problems in a nutshell.
We can 'play to our strengths' (Copyright De Niro Postings) and play with Bellamy and Johnson out wide with Tevez and Ade/RSC in the middle but this leaves us weak in the middle of the park....
.....or we can try to strentghen that weakness by playing a diamond in midfield and playing narrow but then we significantly weaken our attacking threat and highlight our midfield's lack of creativity and our full back's lack of quality.
Mancini's tried both of the above and seems to get slated for each formation off the same posters which I find really strange if I'm honest.
BillyShears said:fathellensbellend said:until we get a midfield that can dictate and dominate a game we will always look disjointed.
we have players who can dig us out of an hole, but the midfield is average at best.
A very fair point. However as average as that midfield is, is there really any excuse for our inability to impose any pressure on their midfield? We conceded so much ground so many times, that at times it looked like we were playing with 4 up front and 4 at the back, and were happy to give Wigan the ball anywhere in the middle of the park...
If Wigan had just a little bit more nous going forwards, they would have scored at least a couple of goals in the first half...
Mancini, again, had no plan B. Plan A wasn't working, Wigan were the better team in the first half. It took a poor Refereeing decision and Wigan going down to 10 men to create Mancini's plan B for him.
The man is tactically inept.
The Fat el Hombre
Well-Known Member
tevezblue said:BillyShears said:A very fair point. However as average as that midfield is, is there really any excuse for our inability to impose any pressure on their midfield? We conceded so much ground so many times, that at times it looked like we were playing with 4 up front and 4 at the back, and were happy to give Wigan the ball anywhere in the middle of the park...
If Wigan had just a little bit more nous going forwards, they would have scored at least a couple of goals in the first half...
Mancini, again, had no plan B. Plan A wasn't working, Wigan were the better team in the first half. It took a poor Refereeing decision and Wigan going down to 10 men to create Mancini's plan B for him.
The man is tactically inept.
LOL
Alba555 said:I sign of a good team, is when you play average.... & still win
If this was under hughes, after going 3 up, Jason Scotland would have buried an 11 minute Hatrick to level the scores late on
The sign of a good team is needing the ref to wrongly send off an opposition Centre back to help us win, which until the sending off, we'd looked anything like doing and Wigan had had the better chances?