Refreshing honesty

[Frenchay Red]

8 minutes ago, 1960maaan said:

I don't see why we would have changed team as it had served us reasonably well, plus alternatives are limited. 

As for 15 minutes, I'm not buying that either. Until we scored we were getting a chasing, they pressed brilliantly and we had no time on the ball. They challenged for everything and never switched off, both things we were guilty of at times (not doing and doing respectively).  It may have been a mix of us being bad and them good, their pressing game made our players rush and misplace passes .When anyone did hold on to the ball inevitably they were caught in possession . We had a decent spell around our goals, mainly because we scored , but we never looked comfortable with the ball. Second half was awful, the team to a man were off their game. We have had games before were passing is poor, control is poor, but it has been spells in games and not the majority of one. Because of their pressing we ended up going long, Baker and Flint are not gifted passers and movement ahead of them was lacking as we struggled.

It seems to me (if you take out a couple of games) , the top few teams look better than us by a distance. Derby conceded 7 over 2 games, Hull 5, Brighton 6 ,Burnley 6 , but then the rest on any given day we can compete with. Our squad is still thin and options limited but with a good summer I think solid mid table or even just above maybe possible, beyond that will take some magic.

Very true. They showed us how to pass and move and to do it at speed.  Always had at least one player moving into space and available to receive the ball. This was the opposite for a lot of our game. In possession we had few options going forward and so played to marked team-mates or hit it hopefully forward, so we never retained possession. They out passed us, as, incidentally, did Brentford to some extent, though the Bees didn't have the quality to capitalise their possession when they were on top.

We played fast crisp passing against Sheff W., to great effect, but haven't reproduced it since.

Derby didn't play a high defensive line so Kodjia wasn't getting flagged. He certainly did at Brentford though, where they pushed up and caught him out time after time.

Plenty of work still to do, either with the players we have, or a major rebuild.

[Robbored]

36 minutes ago, Red Army Faction said:

Derby pressed us high up the pitch in the second putting the centre backs under pressure on the ball.  We had no answer for this tactically.  

Generally I think Flints distribution is good if he has time on the ball.  Derby didn't afford him this and consequently he looked poor.  Lots of players had a poor game by recent standards but we still only narrowly lost.  

Very few teams are able to cope with almost constant  pressing and very few teams are able to keep pressing for as much as Derby did last night. 

As for Flints distribution...........

He usually has two options. One - "whoosh" to no-one in particular. Two - sideways to Baker or a full back.

[BRISTOL86]

49 minutes ago, Red Army Faction said:

Derby pressed us high up the pitch in the second putting the centre backs under pressure on the ball.  We had no answer for this tactically.  

Generally I think Flints distribution is good if he has time on the ball.  Derby didn't afford him this and consequently he looked poor.  Lots of players had a poor game by recent standards but we still only narrowly lost.  

All season we've shown that if we are given time and space to play we can do so, but under intense pressure we cannot play as we do not have the technical ability to play a good passing game under an intense press. Good opposition managers will know that we have two centre backs who aren't comfortable with the ball at their feet and look to exploit it, as Derby did. 

Fulham at home this season was the first time we saw a team aggressively press us and it really highlighted our lack of ability to play our game in those circumstances. 

LJ identified and started to work on correcting many of our deficiencies almost immediately after he arrived, however at this stage in the season you can only work with what you've got - we're not all of a sudden going to go from nailed on relegation candidates to routinely beating top 6 teams because there's a different man in the dugout. He deserves time to build his own squad and go from there.

[spudski]

46 minutes ago, Frenchay Red said:

Very true. They showed us how to pass and move and to do it at speed.  Always had at least one player moving into space and available to receive the ball. This was the opposite for a lot of our game. In possession we had few options going forward and so played to marked team-mates or hit it hopefully forward, so we never retained possession. They out passed us, as, incidentally, did Brentford to some extent, though the Bees didn't have the quality to capitalise their possession when they were on top.

We played fast crisp passing against Sheff W., to great effect, but haven't reproduced it since.

Derby didn't play a high defensive line so Kodjia wasn't getting flagged. He certainly did at Brentford though, where they pushed up and caught him out time after time.

Plenty of work still to do, either with the players we have, or a major rebuild.

Re possession...it was 50-50 %

Against Sheff Wed we only had 46%

Funny what your eyes think, but in fact reality is different.

They did show how to play a high pressing game though.

[Red-Robbo]

Thing with Lee is that his natural intelligence comes through in his interviews. He isn't frightened of the press, or bolshy towards them, he knows being interviewed is part of the job. Growing up, hearing the adroit way his old man dealt with reporters probably helped.

The most listenable manager we've had for a very long while.

[Frenchay Red]

21 minutes ago, spudski said:

Re possession...it was 50-50 %

Against Sheff Wed we only had 46%

Funny what your eyes think, but in fact reality is different.

They did show how to play a high pressing game though.

Stats eh!

Quite a one sided 50/50 game then!

[spudski]

3 minutes ago, Frenchay Red said:

Stats eh!

Quite a one sided 50/50 game then!

Game of two halves i'd say ;-)

[Frenchay Red]

3 minutes ago, spudski said:

Game of two halves i'd say ;-)

Personally I would have been happy with a game of one half.

[Davefevs]

I sat in the Upper Tier of the Dolman (rather than SS pitch level) last night as I wasn't with Joe, so had a different view and perspective to my usual one.  Most of my comments will be about Bobby Reid, as I think his performance was a big factor in both the good and not so good bits.

For me the first half hour looked like both teams a little off the pace, but a Derby looked marginally the more threatening.  Reid took about 15 minutes to get any ball he could do much with.

Then, of course they scored, and I feared a frustrating night.  We responded straight away, and went in 2-1 up - a position better than we deserved....not that I was complaining.  Reid got up alongside Kodjia, and started getting on the ball in a bit of space, either through good movement, or sloppy play play / good pressing, e.g. Keogh's header that led to his goal.

Second half, first 4-5 minutes continued same theme as the final 5-10 of the first half....and then....

George Thorne (#34) then 'sat' on Reid, just in front of back four, in effect making it a 10v10.  As a result we lost a bit of Bobby's energy, and our midfield became a two (Pack and Smith) that Derby started to 'pass around' and their grip on the game became greater.

Reid, in some respects stuck with Thorne, but in doing so, meant that our two became overworked and stretched as there was no third player to help 'pass on their runners'.  On another day it might've been us doing the same to Butterfield and Bryson, but they got it working for them.

What also happened was that with Reid and Thorne not involved in the game, Kodjia got isolated...unlike last 10 mins of first half when him and Bobby towed each other around the attacking third.  Balls up to Kodjia didn't stick, and a Derby got stronger, and we became more disjointed and looked more likely to concede.

They got their goals, and by 70 minutes, Bobby was off and the game was a completely different pattern.  

That was the Bobby-effect.  In no way am I blaming him....he was one if the few to come out with a '+' last night.

I wonder what would've happened if Bobby had realised that Thorne was doing a job on him and decided to drag Thorne into wide areas, or even up closer alongside Kodjia, so that Keogh and Shackell suddenly had another player to worry about whether to mark themselves or drag Thorne back  with Bobby.

@Harry @spudski I'd love to see Bobby's pro-zone last night to see if this really was a major factor in what happened.  And Thorne's too.  That was how I saw it.

Wonder was LJ gleaned too?

 

[City1970]

4 hours ago, Portland Bill said:

Sounds to me like, 'it was all the players fault, what do you expect me to do about the way we played in the 2nd half, as I'm only the manager'.

He's managing the players on the pitch, if they aren't following instructions then it's his job to let them know and tell them from his position, ( 2 yards off the pitch) sorry, but to me it's a cop out from LJ.

 

Agree.

Misplaced passing is not an instruction. How can a team play so well in the first and be so different in the second half.

[steviestevieneville]

7 hours ago, Super said:

But he has to take as much of the blame as the players for last night. Wrong team picked and wrong tactics.

What would you of done differently then pep 

[Monkeh]

6 hours ago, Super said:

Let's be honest we were second best for most of the first half, they completely destroyed us in the midfield all game.

Put it into perspective super,

derby have spent the best part of 25-30 million putting that team together, they should be walking the league and bushing teams like us aside,

im in America at the moment and haven't seen the game but a3-2 defeat is disapointing but it shows we can compete with the best