A geniune question on tactics?

[WESTY_SUFC]

I apologise for the negativity but ive just got in after our humiliating defeat and the anger is very raw but i do wonder....

Does Sturrock encourage us to play a long ball game or were we just so outclassed we could not cope with keeping it on the floor tonight which we have also struggled to do in all games bar Orients 10 men?

 

[Matt the Shrimp]

It's a legitimate question. I thought we hit fat too much long and over the top tonight. It's not the Southend way, Luggy; but then, with a midfield of Grant, Ferdinand an Kalala, we're not exactly set up for passing at the moment, are we?!

It makes me yearn for the days of Maher and Gower. Has Easton got a club yet? Maybe we should be making him an offer after all!

 

[Blue_Wes]

It's a legitimate question. I thought we hit fat too much long and over the top tonight. It's not the Southend way, Luggy; but then, with a midfield of Grant, Ferdinand an Kalala, we're not exactly set up for passing at the moment, are we?!

It makes me yearn for the days of Maher and Gower. Has Easton got a club yet? Maybe we should be making him an offer after all!

The problem is, that he's brought in only target men in Corr, Dickinson, Blair & Harris, and shipped out anyone who doesn't fit that description irrespective of ability, meaning that no matter whom we play up top, the rest of the team will always be tempted to play the long punt up the pitch.

 

[Frankie the half breed]

It's a legitimate question. I thought we hit fat too much long and over the top tonight. It's not the Southend way, Luggy; but then, with a midfield of Grant, Ferdinand an Kalala, we're not exactly set up for passing at the moment, are we?!

It makes me yearn for the days of Maher and Gower. Has Easton got a club yet? Maybe we should be making him an offer after all!

Agree with you there, Sawyer needs to start soon. He gives us that creativity, speed and quick passing. I think Easton has gone to Torquay btw.

 

[Bluepen]

From observation its clear that all the defence are told to look long first to the lines to maybe gain possesion by way of throw ins or knock it up in air where our front lines supposed to win it an hold it up for the midfield to join in .
But that only works if the defence pushes forward quick as well and the midfield sprint out quick.
Kicking it long can be effective sometimes and we will win some games like that against lesser sides but against better
teams we will struggle .
We got away with it at Accrington but not aginst Crawley but it also has to be said more than one player was dissappointing last night. and it was a bad day at the office hopefully not to be repeated.
IF we won 1-0 every game playing long in the air football and won the league everyone on this forum would applaud
but that aint gonna happen is it?
thought last night Ferdinand and Kalala were in the same space and to similar (one but not both) Grant did try to play a bit but Hall just had a night to forget by his standards.
Harris an Dickinson were contolled in the air comfortably so you would have thought ball to feet would apply so PS sends on JJ 30 mins to deliver and he failed miserably .
Why bother at 3-0 down to bring on Sawyer at all what was he suppossed to do magic in 10 mins
PS will look in the mirror i wonder what he will see he has options lets see what he will do stick with what his doing or change his style ....i think he will stick myself because he believes that is gonna get us outer this division .......
I myself would like to see plan B on the ground passing to feet football and win the league (Dreamer)

 

[Jam_Man]

The problem is, that he's brought in only target men in Corr, Dickinson, Blair & Harris, and shipped out anyone who doesn't fit that description irrespective of ability, meaning that no matter whom we play up top, the rest of the team will always be tempted to play the long punt up the pitch.

Harris isnt a target man?

 

[Pubey]

He doesn't just want us to hit a target man, but wants the ball to the wing as quickly as possible, with the creativity coming as crosses from wide. Tilly would play a more compact midfield (sometimes with no natural wide men) which would give license for our CMs to push/drive forward and support the strikers.

 

[Ayrshire Blue]

Harris isnt a target man?

Neither is Dickinson. If the ball isn't to his feet he isn't interested.

 

[leeblue]

sturrock got it wrong last night big time, playing grant, ferdinand,kalallalalalal in the same midfield meant we couldnt pass water to put it bluntly, we will never get the best out of haris if we keep hoofing the ****ing ball all the time, that said crawley swarmed all over us intensely whenever we did get the ball, I was very very impressed with their work off the ball ive rarely seen that work rate at this level and another thing i must say we played the league champions last night end of.

 

[Bromley Blue]

sturrock got it wrong last night big time, playing grant, ferdinand,kalallalalalal in the same midfield meant we couldnt pass water to put it bluntly, we will never get the best out of haris if we keep hoofing the ****ing ball all the time, that said crawley swarmed all over us intensely whenever we did get the ball, I was very very impressed with their work off the ball ive rarely seen that work rate at this level and another thing i must say we played the league champions last night end of.

Agree with all of this. Neither Harris or Dickinson are targetmen and are obviously struggling to threaten because the system doesn't suit their style. You can see in flashes that both are good players and IMO would score enough goals to get us out of the league but we need to play to their strengths which long ball certainly isn't !

 

[Clinton Baptiste]

Well the system worked on saturday against a team that Luggy said 'trampled' on us last season. It could jsut be we played a very good team last night. Luggy said last season that this season he wants a different formation home and away. Clearly last night the emphasis was on stopping Crawley playing with the 3 central midfielders being ball winners rather than ball players. For an hour or so it seemd to work then we had a crazy 20 mins or so. Im sure luggy will be looking at his own tactics and not just having a go at the players. He seems a proactive manager who will change things if not right.
Had we gone all out attack we may have suffered an even bigger loss who knows.
The worry for me is we are not playing to Neil Harris's strengths, we cannot expect a 34yr old to be chasing balls down the channels. We need to get Hall and maybe Sawyer to be picking out his runs and delivering quality into the box. Bar Hall, so far on what ive seen the crossing into the box has been poor.

Would expect to see Sawyer and maybe JJ come in on saturday, maybe Luggy has got his eye on another winger if he can ship out NDiaye and maybe one or two more. If we win on sat that will be 3 wins out of 4, a much better start than last season!

 

[Beefy]

Sturrock said last year that the way to get out of the division is to have centre-backs who can head the ball and strikers who can hold it up. Pretty football is a luxury. I'd rather finish top six playing hoofball this year than midtable passing it around a bit.

 

[Onion_Bag_Dave]

Against Accrington we did not play the long ball game!
Nor did we against Hereford.

I thought Crawley were poor first half and we were the better side. They brought us down to their poor level and then somehow managed to start playing.

We have all these players

Johnson, Hall, Grant, Ferdinand, Kalala, Harris, Dickinson, Sawyer, Clohessy, who all can play the ball on the deck. We didn't do that last night apart from the first 25 minutes and the last 10 minutes.

When we did it we created chances and looked dangerous.

We didn't get the ball out wide to Hall (who was poor due to frustration probably).

All we needed yesterday to win, was for Kane and Kalala to keep possession and play it back to the back four and look for the simple wide ball. But we didn't do it.

So many aimless balls down the middle for Big Dicko, who I felt sorry for, he won loads of headers in the first half, but couldn't seem to get up in the second half.

KEEP THE BALL ON THE ****ING FLOOR, JESUS!

It isn't hard!
What frustrates me the most is that our whole team can play football and we have the ability to smash this league if we find the right mixture of football on the deck and direct football.

We were too defensive, and everybody needs to realise including the players and fans that we are 10 x better than that **** poor performance!

Head up lads because it was definitely a BIG BIG OFF day! You can also tell this by the fact of everybody's responses on here. Not much slagging off going on, which I'm happy about! Let's back these boys because we have some of the best players in this league and the league above!

COME ON SOUTHEND!

 

[Matt the Shrimp]

Sturrock said last year that the way to get out of the division is to have centre-backs who can head the ball and strikers who can hold it up. Pretty football is a luxury. I'd rather finish top six playing hoofball this year than midtable passing it around a bit.

Hang on a cotton pickin' minute, there. Not often I disagree with you, Beefy, but it most definitely isn't an "either/or" situation. Both of the last two times we got promoted out of this godforsaken league (89/90; 04/05) we most certainly were not "route 1" merchants. We did not knock it long to a striker who could hold it up. Granted, we were often fairly direct, knocking it into the channels for overlapping fullbacks to run onto (Austin / Powell; and Jupp / Gower - yes, I know G-force wasn't a full-back - Che didn't overlap onto much, though, did he) - but we often played a lot of good stuff through the middle (esp. with Maher) and were blessed on both occasions with Spinner at centre half. And in Crowny / Freddy, we had a first rate centre-forward.

But we most certainly did knock it long. It is not an either / or choice. Southend is not a hoofball club, and Luggy really shouldn't be seduced into thinking we'll swallow those sorts of tactics.

 

[Matt the Shrimp]

Beefy - just seen your comment; is this now open?