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TonyTonyTony

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1-0 down, 2 games to go, in a season that’s over, based on Cardiff’s lead and us behind....what does he do, keep it tight and play the same way to keep our goal difference down.

He had a go!

Within 30 seconds we got a penalty, ok, Diedhiou missed it.

We built lots of attacks in the second half, but ultimately our quality was lacking.

For decent spells in the game we outpassed Swansea.  They unfortunately had the two players who had star quality, Gallagher and Ayew, and it told.

We lost the game in the 10 minutes leading to half-time.  For the rest of the game we (more than) matched them.

What did Holden really get wrong today.  Is being adventurous a fault?

 

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14 minutes ago, Andy082005 said:

Imagine taking off your top striker with 10 minutes left and bringing on Marley Watkins 

 

My apologies to Marley, nothing personal, but what a crap signing if ever there was one. Dear oh dear, what on earth was Lee thinking with that one? The mind boggles. Mind you, they were a dime a dozen lets be frank now. God, am I pleased he's gone.

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8 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

1-0 down, 2 games to go, in a season that’s over, based on Cardiff’s lead and us behind....what does he do, keep it tight and play the same way to keep our goal difference down.

He had a go!

Within 30 seconds we got a penalty, ok, Diedhiou missed it.

We built lots of attacks in the second half, but ultimately our quality was lacking.

For decent spells in the game we outpassed Swansea.  They unfortunately had the two players who had star quality, Gallagher and Ayew, and it told.

We lost the game in the 10 minutes leading to half-time.  For the rest of the game we (more than) matched them.

What did Holden really get wrong today.  Is being adventurous a fault?

 

Absolutely.

Firstly it made no difference what happened today, so bringing on attacking players made a lot of sense.

Could argue too that Eliasson & Fam’s first contributions should have earned us a draw when we finished the first half looking second best.

It also suggested to me that he really doesn’t rate Nagy or O’Dowda at all.

Usual cameo from Palmer, a load of misplaced passes & the one decent one, I really don’t see the fuss.

As for the Marley for Nahki sub, the latter was poor today & also looked all in, despite the haters on here Watkins is a nuisance & always likely to force an error that leads to a chance.

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6 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

What did Holden really get wrong today.  Is being adventurous a fault?

There is being adventurous and there is being a lunatic. Come on Dave that was bloody mental for the last 20 odd minutes. At least have one holding midfielder if you are gonna try and blitz up front

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I think some of the criticism is harsh.   Dean Holden clearly wants to play attacking football and is innovative without confusing the players with multiple formations and over complex tactics.  He sets up to give the opposition things to think about rather than setting up to sit back and contain. I find that refreshing after the negative mindset that has been apparent for the last couple of seasons.

Promotion is the aim next season, but if we lose some games narrowly against good opposition such as Swansea playing attractive football then that's fine with me. Dean Holden isn't going to get the job but I would like to see him given a one year rolling contract.   

The Club want a coach who will operate under strict limitations next season and I think DH with his knowledge of the player resources available is probably the best option from the candidates I have seen mentioned.

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7 minutes ago, TonyTonyTony said:

There is being adventurous and there is being a lunatic. Come on Dave that was bloody mental for the last 20 odd minutes. At least have one holding midfielder if you are gonna try and blitz up front

Why?

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2 minutes ago, bcfcnick said:

I think some of the criticism is harsh.   Dean Holden clearly wants to play attacking football and is innovative without confusing the players with multiple formations and over complex tactics.  He sets up to give the opposition things to think about rather than setting up to sit back and contain. I find that refreshing after the negative mindset that has been apparent for the last couple of seasons.

Promotion is the aim next season, but if we lose some games narrowly against good opposition such as Swansea playing attractive football then that's fine with me. Dean Holden isn't going to get the job but I would like to see him given a one year rolling contract.   

The Club want a coach who will operate under strict limitations next season and I think DH with his knowledge of the player resources available is probably the best option from the candidates I have seen mentioned.

God help us 

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Today, against one of the better passing sides in the division, we completed 429 successful passes (Swansea 315).

Yeah, we lacked quality in the final third, but at least we played with method, at least players knew what they should be doing, at least they showed guts.

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Of course it’s ifs buts and maybes, but imagine this set up and players had we spent the mini pre-season drilling it?  They’ve adapted pretty well.  Imagine if we’d recruited to one system?

Holden comes out of today with credit.  We were knocking on the door for large periods of the second half.  How many games like this have we been passed off the park, fail to string 3 or 4 passes together?

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4 minutes ago, TonyTonyTony said:

Cos inevitably you will be counter attacked, and if you have no MF it’s down to luck if you survive

Yeah, but it’s game 45 and we have nothing to play for other than a bit of pride.

Of course we were counter attacked.  That’s the nature of the state of the game AND SEASON.  So what if we went 4312, with the 3 being Weimann, Pato and Palmer, with Eliasson at LB.

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18 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

Absolutely.

Firstly it made no difference what happened today, so bringing on attacking players made a lot of sense.

Could argue too that Eliasson & Fam’s first contributions should have earned us a draw when we finished the first half looking second best.

It also suggested to me that he really doesn’t rate Nagy or O’Dowda at all.

Usual cameo from Palmer, a load of misplaced passes & the one decent one, I really don’t see the fuss.

He's been a massive waste of money really

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23 minutes ago, havanatopia said:

My apologies to Marley, nothing personal, but what a crap signing if ever there was one. Dear oh dear, what on earth was Lee thinking with that one? The mind boggles. Mind you, they were a dime a dozen lets be frank now. God, am I pleased he's gone.

A fit Watkins offers us something.  Too often he’s been injured.  In that respect, yes, a bad signing.

But also a bad signing that we never knew why Lee signed him and for what role other than “club in the bag”.

But when fit, he can be very effective.

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32 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

They unfortunately had the two players who had star quality, Gallagher and Ayew, and it told

 

3 Dave. 
Don’t forget Grimes. 
Ran the game, and so so comfortably too. 

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14 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

 So what if we went 4312, with the 3 being Weimann, Pato and Palmer, with Eliasson at LB.

Call me Mr conservative but playing 7 out of XI recognised offensive players  seems a bit headless chicken...which is exactly what it was

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13 minutes ago, TonyTonyTony said:

Cos inevitably you will be counter attacked, and if you have no MF it’s down to luck if you survive

Correct.  It's called gambling relatively late in the game when you have (almost) literally nothing to play for.  I for one enjoyed it.  Fair play to DH for having a go in a game which ultimately had little relevance.  If the alternative was holding midfielders and hang in for the same result with no excitement then I know which I'd prefer to watch.  It's not the kind of formation you'd play under normal circumstances but that's kind of the point...it's wasn't normal circumstances and he was doing his best to get a result given the state of the game.  What would be the point of keeping it solid and not being flexible in such a scenario.  I personally have watched far too much inflexible formulaic football at AG in the last few years. 

Very strange criticism IMHO but each to their own I come in peace. 

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33 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

Absolutely.

Firstly it made no difference what happened today, so bringing on attacking players made a lot of sense.

Could argue too that Eliasson & Fam’s first contributions should have earned us a draw when we finished the first half looking second best.

It also suggested to me that he really doesn’t rate Nagy or O’Dowda at all.

Usual cameo from Palmer, a load of misplaced passes & the one decent one, I really don’t see the fuss.

As for the Marley for Nahki sub, the latter was poor today & also looked all in, despite the haters on here Watkins is a nuisance & always likely to force an error that leads to a chance.

I'm in my 70s and I could still be a bloody nuisance on the pitch. I think we should be aspiring to field players with good all round talent as well as their specialised position qualities.

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3 minutes ago, Magicdaps said:

Correct.  It's called gambling relatively late in the game when you have (almost) literally nothing to play for.  I for one enjoyed it.  Fair play to DH for having a go in a game which ultimately had little relevance.  If the alternative was holding midfielders and hang in for the same result with no excitement then I know which I'd prefer to watch.  It's not the kind of formation you'd play under normal circumstances but that's kind of the point...it's wasn't normal circumstances and he was doing his best to get a result given the state of the game.  What would be the point of keeping it solid and not being flexible in such a scenario.  I personally have watched far too much inflexible formulaic football at AG in the last few years. 

Very strange criticism IMHO but each to their own I come in peace. 

Exactly this, people criticising Holden and his tactics for this game is truly bizarre. I would have been more concerned if he hadn’t made all those substitutions and set the team up not to have a go when the circumstances dictated that was the only option.

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24 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

A fit Watkins offers us something.  Too often he’s been injured.  In that respect, yes, a bad signing.

But also a bad signing that we never knew why Lee signed him and for what role other than “club in the bag”.

But when fit, he can be very effective.

Exactly. The few games he has been involved with this season he has offered us something very useful and been effective. To write a professional footballer who has played at a decent level and had reasonable success in my mind is not a terrible player and like you Dave, I can see why we signed him but injuries have held him back.

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28 minutes ago, Harry said:

3 Dave. 
Don’t forget Grimes. 
Ran the game, and so so comfortably too. 

He’s was decent enough today, thought Fulton showed up more imho.

20 minutes ago, JonDolman said:

Can't blame him on the end of the game. I would say we looked terrible for about the last 20 mins of the first half where I was even thinking bring off Weimann or Pato for Nagy or even Rowe. That Swansea goal was coming. Weimann just stopped doing his defensive job and Pato looked knackered.
why do you think we looked “terrible” after the drinks break, having looked nicely in control up to then?  Just because of two players?  Might the opposition changed something?  Need to look at the opposition sometimes rather than just lay fault at our players.

But to be fair there's no guarantee Nagy would have done better. And Rowe clearly way down in central midfield as he's barely played there for us.

With the bits of quality needed to create chances. We have seen LJ say we just lacked a bit of quality in the end, like its simply down to players to come up with ways of creating and scoring when in good areas of the pitch.

Next season I want us to know how we will create chances. Not randomly, spontaneously working out what to do with the ball.

there were passages of structured patterns of play today that got us into their final third and in threatening positions.  A couple of times it was obvious (obvious in a good way!) what the plan was.  Williams to Vyner, Vyner into Wells who dropped deep, Wells lay off to Smith, Smith to Weimann who’d broken the lines.
I honestly can’t remember when I last saw an LJ work a pattern of play like that.

Holden has done it in two weeks with little training ground time.

Earlier in the season our only plan at times was get it to Eliasson and he gets in a ball from deep that pretty much always gets headed away. Such examples is an attacking plan, but a very bad one!

But yeah overall Holden has done a decent job. I was very impressed with Boro away. I do think he got it wrong today though from the start.

In what way?  For 21 minutes we generally outplayed them.  Our two strikers (unfortunately) ended a lot of pretty impressive build up with poor touches, poor decision in making etc.  The rest of the team functioned very well at the start of the game.  What did you think Holden got wrong?

I am so glad he has given Vyner a go though. Obviously LJ did before too. But he's kept him in and he's playing very well now.

Holden has showed a bit of perseverance, LJ didn’t!

 

18 minutes ago, TonyTonyTony said:

Call me Mr conservative but playing 7 out of XI recognised offensive players  seems a bit headless chicken...which is exactly what it was

Of course it was kamikaze, that was the plan.  Nothing to lose.  I just don’t get what was wrong with that in the game / season scenario we were in.  It showed the players weren’t just playing out time.  I was proud of the way they stuck at it today.

16 minutes ago, Magicdaps said:

Correct.  It's called gambling relatively late in the game when you have (almost) literally nothing to play for.  I for one enjoyed it.  Fair play to DH for having a go in a game which ultimately had little relevance.  If the alternative was holding midfielders and hang in for the same result with no excitement then I know which I'd prefer to watch.  It's not the kind of formation you'd play under normal circumstances but that's kind of the point...it's wasn't normal circumstances and he was doing his best to get a result given the state of the game.  What would be the point of keeping it solid and not being flexible in such a scenario.  I personally have watched far too much inflexible formulaic football at AG in the last few years. 

Very strange criticism IMHO but each to their own I come in peace. 

Yep, I agree.

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6 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Of course it was kamikaze, that was the plan.  Nothing to lose.  I just don’t get what was wrong with that in the game / season scenario we were in.  It showed the players weren’t just playing out time.  I was proud of the way they stuck at it today.

I guess we will have to agree to disagree 

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3 hours ago, TonyTonyTony said:

Call me Mr conservative but playing 7 out of XI recognised offensive players  seems a bit headless chicken...which is exactly what it was

Does it matter? I found it funny that we were playing a formation I could only work out as Kalas & Vyner at centre back, Pedro and NE as wing backs, Weimann as a holding midfielder with license to get beyond the forwards, Pato and KP as advanced forwards, Fammy, Afobe and Wells up front. We still didn't get a shot on target, but for the last 20 games before Holden took over, we've only had like 2 players get in the opposition half all game. This one we had 7 camped outside their box for the last 25 mins!

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