You Legislate Against Flukes By Scoring A Second

[Olé]

I'm a GJ supporter and will continue to be, but for once I don't believe that we did what was required to prevent today's result. Fluke it might be, but the old saying that you can't legislate against flukes is garbage in my opinion, you can quite clearly legislate against flukes by scoring a second goal and protecting the lead against such occurrences.

The tactics from the start were very tight with zero width (perhaps understandably so as Boyd and Mackail-Smith are both a handful) but I saw no evidence from the manager of trying to open up in the second half for that second goal that would definitely have killed the game off, instead we stuck with a disjointed and frankly at times disorganised midfield.

Yet again a home second half seemed to be a "rabbit in the headlights" job where GJ was desperate not to blink first - stick to what we have and hope the moment passes. Yes, we had a couple of exceptional scoring moves at 1-0 up so could have got a second, but I don't feel GJ demonstrated a real desire in his game management to ensure we secured the points.

Players who were struggling with fitness or injury were left out there to stew as if we just wanted to play the game out with the score as it stood. With the quality on the bench and the form of some of them in the reserves, you'd think this was the right game to get some fresh legs out there early - particularly with Saborio looking unfit and Sno getting injured.

Peterborough were a decent team and another world class save by Gerken kept our lead in tact as late it did, though the save shouldn't have been needed as it originated from a blatant foul on Elliott (opponent played his ankle, nowhere near the ball). However, by the same token, we shouldn't have needed individual brilliance from Skuse to get ahead.

I'm struggling to follow the tactics now - I assumed Skuse on the left was to offer a second coverage player on Boyd who by and large we did a good job on - but I really can't follow having zero width on both sides of the pitch, since Sno really doesn't offer the out and out width you look for on the opposite side if you're going to be conservative with Skuse on the left.

With the exception of a few bright spots, Sno had his worst game for us and cuts a forlorn figure who is obviously not happy with the role he is being asked to play. Not sure if his adopting a free role in the second half was of his own making or some tactical throwback to the McIndoe drifting, but Sno has rightly identified he is not playing his best where he's asked to be.

Besides the lack of enterprise and adaptation from the manager to open up for the second, what concerns me is several good players in midfield are starting to look distinctly average in this odd midfield setup and I wonder if it's related. Besides Sno, Elliott also seemed to struggle and his play on both sides of the ball (tackling and passing) suddenly seems a bit headless.

The bright spots for me are Carey, who was a class act at the back and I owe him an apology as I didn't think he'd be playing to this standard and with this confidence at this level this year, and Nyatanga, who is slowly developing into potentially the best signing of the summer, looks assured, comfortable on the ball and a significant upgrade in defence.

[windmillhillred]

the lack of width was the problem in my mind. Whatever people say, we weren't simply sitting back and defending - we just didn't create much all game. Formation was all wrong - utterly bizarre to expect Skuse to play on the left (where he did very well) and Sno on the right. Just completely baffling. If you want to utilise out excellent crop of central midfielders, play them in the middle. 5-3-2 with wing backs was, I thought, the way to go this season. Why on earth not today?

If we don't go back to 5-3-2/3-5-2 I am at a loss to know what the game plan is until christmas.

[iWurzel]

The lack of width was painfully obvious today. So many times when we picked the ball up over the halfway line, a ball was begging to be played out to the winger. Only we don't have any! All it did was create congestion in the middle of the pitch and really hindered the creation of clear cut chances in my opinion. I've been relatively impressed by our shape this season and some of the results we've picked up along the way, but we certainly need a Plan B.

[Spud55]

The complete lack of width is really starting to get my goat now, we were told that we wern't playing our 3-5-2 because we have injuries / illness, but we had 3 fully fit centre backs today yet still played some kind of formation, not sure exactly what it was as it wasn't a 4-4-2 because Sno seemed to have absolutely no idea of where the hell he was supposed to be and spent most of the game getting bailed out of the shit by Johnson, but neither was it a 4-3-3 as nobody was far enough forward to support Maynard and Saborio as a third front man.

Thought in general most of the team were either distinctly average or may as well not have been there, the only 3 players to come out of that with any real credit for me were Gerken - 2 great saves to keep us in the game, Johnson - did very little wrong got forward well, passed well, and finally Skuse - Best player on the park, considering he was playing completely out of position outstanding performance. Had it not been for Skuse and Johnson the midfield would have been completely devoid of anything as both Sno and Elliot may as well not have been there for most of the game.

Thought Peterborough were for the largest part the better side, Boyd made McCalister look like a monkey most of the time and McKail - Smith and McClean looked much much sharper and more dangerous than our strikers, their passing was much mroe incisive carving through our defence with ease all too often for my liking, luckily their finishing was worse than ours so they only managed one but whould have defenately had 3 and could have had a couple more if they'd have taken the numerous half chances they made.

[SE23Red]

All posts are right to highlight the link between the very narrow 4-4-2 and our inability to get a second goal at home. The width in this system has to come from the fullbacks and, with only two at the back, as soon as we go a goal up they'll become more cautious and sit back. We're then left with the whole side trying to thread passes through the eye of a needle and, sadly, not really testing the defence of quite mediocre opposition.