Middle of the pitch

[Dredd]

For me, games are won and lost in the  middle of the pitch and today, for both sides, the battle in the midfield wasn’t won. That’s where you want players picking up the ball from your defence, recycling attacks, moving the play from one wing to another, drawing out the opposition, but there was none of that today. It might take time for NP to find that dominant midfield pairing but King/James isn’t it. With King being the one who went completely missing for me. Hopefully Williams, HNM, Bakinson get more of a chance of the next few games (ideally someone puts in a stonker in the midweek cup game) because I don’t think today was the answer.  
 

[The Dolman Pragmatist]

1 hour ago, Dredd said:

For me, games are won and lost in the  middle of the pitch and today, for both sides, the battle in the midfield wasn’t won. That’s where you want players picking up the ball from your defence, recycling attacks, moving the play from one wing to another, drawing out the opposition, but there was none of that today. It might take time for NP to find that dominant midfield pairing but King/James isn’t it. With King being the one who went completely missing for me. Hopefully Williams, HNM, Bakinson get more of a chance of the next few games (ideally someone puts in a stonker in the midweek cup game) because I don’t think today was the answer.  
 

I thought we were completely dominant in midfield until the substitutions.  The fact is that we won the game for 92 minutes and Blackpool getting a rather fortunate 93rd minute equaliser hardly reflects on the performance of our midfield for the previous 92 minutes.  I thought King had a good debut.

[Silvio Dante]

Just now, The Dolman Pragmatist said:

I thought we were completely dominant in midfield until the substitutions.  The fact is that we won the game for 92 minutes and Blackpool getting a rather fortunate 93rd minute winner hardly reflects on the performance of our midfield for the previous 92 minutes.  I thought King had a good debut.

Yep, agree. I think Ian Gay is a total **** but he made a valid point today that the sub of Scott meant King got pushed to #10, and although Williams did will, it disrupted what was a well functioning pivot.

Fact is - we won that game for 80 minutes and lost it for 10. That was pretty much down to poor subs/game management (although Scott had to come off as he was spent)

[Citychuds]

10 minutes ago, Dredd said:

For me, games are won and lost in the  middle of the pitch and today, for both sides, the battle in the midfield wasn’t won. That’s where you want players picking up the ball from your defence, recycling attacks, moving the play from one wing to another, drawing out the opposition, but there was none of that today. It might take time for NP to find that dominant midfield pairing but King/James isn’t it. With King being the one who went completely missing for me. Hopefully Williams, HNM, Bakinson get more of a chance of the next few games (ideally someone puts in a stonker in the midweek cup game) because I don’t think today was the answer.  
 

I personally thought we were pretty strong in the centre of midfield just aimless in the final third. I felt a number of times players were looking to get into the box and hoping to get tripped. It was like there was no end plan. I think a lot of our attacking plan was based around O’dowda. As great as it was to see Kasey Palmer make tackles, his pass completion didn’t justify the attacking plan being around him as O’dowda’s replacement 

[REDOXO]

14 minutes ago, The Dolman Pragmatist said:

I thought we were completely dominant in midfield until the substitutions.  The fact is that we won the game for 92 minutes and Blackpool getting a rather fortunate 93rd minute winner hardly reflects on the performance of our midfield for the previous 92 minutes.  I thought King had a good debut.

I agree mostly. Firstly Blackpool didn’t get a winner. And we let them in a couple of times but effectively blew it when subs were made and started to conceded possession everywhere. 

[The Dolman Pragmatist]

40 minutes ago, REDOXO said:

I agree mostly. Firstly Blackpool didn’t get a winner. And we let them in a couple of times but effectively blew it when subs were made and started to conceded possession everywhere. 

Now edited, thanks!

[MATT BCFC]

I thought we looked really comfortable up until around the 70th minute mark and they came into it a bit then. 

We should have killed the game off in the first half. I thought it was quite promising, we won't go up this season but confident we seem to be heading in the right direction with NP. Think he just needs a few transfer windows to get us where we need to be.

[Davefevs]

1 hour ago, Silvio Dante said:

Yep, agree. I think Ian Gay is a total **** but he made a valid point today that the sub of Scott meant King got pushed to #10, and although Williams did will, it disrupted what was a well functioning pivot.

Fact is - we won that game for 80 minutes and lost it for 10. That was pretty much down to poor subs/game management (although Scott had to come off as he was spent)

And yet Williams got on the ball, squeezed the receiver into giving it away a few times by his energetic press.  I think King was getting tired, as was Scott, as was Palmer.  With one sub enforced, I think Nige was trying to cover two bases with one sub (or more correctly 3 players with 2 subs….maybe ideally Martin too?).

For the goal Bowler has run off the blindside of James, not sure it was a Williams / James issue per se.

[RoystonFoote'snephew]

2 hours ago, Dredd said:

For me, games are won and lost in the  middle of the pitch and today, for both sides, the battle in the midfield wasn’t won. That’s where you want players picking up the ball from your defence, recycling attacks, moving the play from one wing to another, drawing out the opposition, but there was none of that today. It might take time for NP to find that dominant midfield pairing but King/James isn’t it. With King being the one who went completely missing for me. Hopefully Williams, HNM, Bakinson get more of a chance of the next few games (ideally someone puts in a stonker in the midweek cup game) because I don’t think today was the answer.  
 

To be pedantic, games are won and lost by goals scored and the goals are at the ends of the pitch not in the middle.

As far as today was concerned then, apart from the last 5-19 minutes I thought we controlled the midfield. 

[Mr Popodopolous]

2 hours ago, Dredd said:

For me, games are won and lost in the  middle of the pitch and today, for both sides, the battle in the midfield wasn’t won. That’s where you want players picking up the ball from your defence, recycling attacks, moving the play from one wing to another, drawing out the opposition, but there was none of that today. It might take time for NP to find that dominant midfield pairing but King/James isn’t it. With King being the one who went completely missing for me. Hopefully Williams, HNM, Bakinson get more of a chance of the next few games (ideally someone puts in a stonker in the midweek cup game) because I don’t think today was the answer.  
 

Won't good sides with a 3 bypass and get us chasing the ball somewhat- although if it's solid out of possession, maybe not such an issue.

That said with Scott in front and Atkinson behind- think Kalas-Atkinson because of the former's potential in terms of interceptions and therefore anticipating in a sense, could be the way to go- this allieviates my concerns about central areas a bit.

[TRL]

19 minutes ago, RoystonFoote'snephew said:

To be pedantic, games are won and lost by goals scored and the goals are at the ends of the pitch not in the middle.

As far as today was concerned then, apart from the last 5-19 minutes I thought we controlled the midfield. 

Ageee entirely, for me it was our best midfield performance for a very very long time. Comfortably bossed it for most of the match, we were only every really troubled due to tbe high line of our defence being caught out by the occasional quick turnover and raking ball played past the defence.

[Simon79]

9 hours ago, Davefevs said:

And yet Williams got on the ball, squeezed the receiver into giving it away a few times by his energetic press.  I think King was getting tired, as was Scott, as was Palmer.  With one sub enforced, I think Nige was trying to cover two bases with one sub (or more correctly 3 players with 2 subs….maybe ideally Martin too?).

For the goal Bowler has run off the blindside of James, not sure it was a Williams / James issue per se.

Didn’t see the game, so cannot comment on the game too much, but from the highlights, I think this is the moment Pearson talks about a lack of communication. COYR 

[Davefevs]

2 hours ago, Simon79 said:

Didn’t see the game, so cannot comment on the game too much, but from the highlights, I think this is the moment Pearson talks about a lack of communication. COYR 

Yep lack of communication, but not Williams and James.

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