Max’s Kicking

[BLRed]

I don’t really want to put a negative post following a fantastic win and performance by the team but one area that does concern me is the serious inability of max when it comes to kicking a ball. Game after game on numerous occasions he kicks it straight out of play under pressure or not, which then puts us back under pressure by conceding possession.

if he’s going to be our number 1 long term, he really needs to improve in this area. 
Am I the only one that has noticed this? Thought it was worthy of discussion.

[CloudyThatchers]

Agree - there must of been 6/7 occasions whnn he punted the ball straight out for a throw in

When he first came into the side his distribution was so much better than it is now.

[pikeysrobins]

No you are not the only one that thinks this. Max has done a great job establishing himself as Number 1(well 12…actually) and is a good stopper and catcher of the ball. However, please please Max kick the ball forward not sideways. You are asking far too much from our wide players to keep the ball in play. We give away possession again and again. Aim for the opposite corner flag is more likely to stay in and play to our strengths. 
 

That aside soooo proud of the team today. Played their hearts out. Pring reminds me of the kind of players we had back in the 1980s90s. No messing, aggressive play - gives 150% and leaves the pitch looking like he’s been on a battlefield. 

Edited February 11, 2023 by pikeysrobins

[joe jordans teeth]

1 minute ago, CloudyThatchers said:

Agree - there must of been 6/7 occasions whnn he punted the ball straight out for a throw in

When he first came into the side his distribution was so much better than it is now.

His commanding of the area has improved so it’s horses for courses i spose 

[TBW]

It became a bit of a sad joke by the end of the game today. Was celebrating every time he kept it in play.

[E.J.Thribb]

Just now, joe jordans teeth said:

His commanding of the area has improved so it’s horses for courses i spose 

Agreed. He was totally in control of the box today. 

[Fordy62]

Frankie got absolute pelters and his kicking was miles better. I also think his decision making on catching/punching is also a bit iffy, but he’s not long been number one, so plenty of time for improvement. Good Keeper but room for improvement. 

[Silvio Dante]

This was something I flagged a couple of times before. And I agree Max’s general command of his area has got better but his kicking is dire. It’s either a floaty one wide which is easy to attack or a slice. He also plays people into trouble a bit on the floor at times. 

It’s a major question mark and will be exploited by teams. He thinks he’s Ramsdale. He’s nowhere near that level distribution wise.
 

 

[And Its Smith]

Imagine if he was perfect…then we could sell him 

[mozo]

It was poor today, no doubt.

Otherwise he did well and clean sheet 

[Robbored]

O’Learys kicking today was shocking. I can’t remember the last time I saw a City keeper out it out of touch so often. Probably FF was the last

No doubt he’ll be very aware of how awry his distribution was and work to rectify it.

[glynriley]

Happy with Max. Better keeper overall then Bentley for me. 
Not glued to his line and deals with crosses much better. 
Shot stopping improving as well. 
Keep it going Max

[RedRobin96]

Shocking today, a number of times his kicks were to nobody in particular.
 

Norwich win a free header in the middle of the park and broke onto our back line, invited avoidable pressure on numerous occasions 

[REDOXO]

25 minutes ago, BLRed said:

I don’t really want to put a negative post following a fantastic win and performance by the team but one area that does concern me is the serious inability of max when it comes to kicking a ball. Game after game on numerous occasions he kicks it straight out of play under pressure or not, which then puts us back under pressure by conceding possession.

if he’s going to be our number 1 long term, he really needs to improve in this area. 
Am I the only one that has noticed this? Thought it was worthy of discussion.

 

10 minutes ago, joe jordans teeth said:

His commanding of the area has improved so it’s horses for courses i spose 

Yes we are so much less likely to concede from dead balls than we were. 
 

Without doubt everyone noticed some wayward kicking today. I think max has kicking practice in his future!

[sh1t_ref_again]

Max kicking today was poor and worse than normal, but he is forced to try and hit a difficult ball out to the wings as we are small up front and would be easy win for the centre backs, with Pring particularly we have more chance of winning the header.

Overall very happy with Max

[Numero Uno]

He kicked it out “for no apparent reason” once, that was it. It is obviously a tactic to kick to the touch line and on most of the kicks that went out of play it was Pring getting eased out of the header. That tells me Max is literally a yard or two out with his distribution. Something to work on definitely but nowhere near as bad as Frank who kicked it 5 yards over peoples heads and out. Bit of rewriting history I think.

[joe jordans teeth]

14 minutes ago, And Its Smith said:

Imagine if he was perfect…then we could sell him 

Or get someone in and have him as a decent backup,not rocket science 

[Red Army 75]

It is the only negative of the day. His kicking is shocking and puts the team under pressure. Frustrating 

[GrahamC]

Thought he had a very good game, positive at claiming the ball & when to choose to punch.

His kicking did get worse as the game progressed & two particularly poor ones weren’t when he was really under pressure, but I’d take a keeper who looks secure but is struggling with his kicking over the reverse, any day.

[Sleepy1968]

38 minutes ago, CloudyThatchers said:

Agree - there must of been 6/7 occasions whnn he punted the ball straight out for a throw in

When he first came into the side his distribution was so much better than it is now.

It was. Which makes it all the more baffling.

[Charlie BCFC]

35 minutes ago, Fordy62 said:

Frankie got absolute pelters and his kicking was miles better. I also think his decision making on catching/punching is also a bit iffy, but he’s not long been number one, so plenty of time for improvement. Good Keeper but room for improvement. 

Disagree around the catching and punching, I personally think every cross that came in he dealt with superbly. The ones he punched went long and out of danger which impressed me.

 

As for the kicking, I’m torn on it. He clearly is good with the ball at his feet showed by his ability to go short but too many times he goes for the full backs and asks a lot of them to keep it in play and get possession. It has worked a few times which constitutes to a great attack but a lot of the time we lose possession in many ways

[E.G.Red]

3 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

Thought he had a very good game, positive at claiming the ball & when to choose to punch.

His kicking did get worse as the game progressed & two particularly poor ones weren’t when he was really under pressure, but I’d take a keeper who looks secure but is struggling with his kicking over the reverse, any day.

Thought he'd got that out of his system so was surprised that it started to return as the game progressed. However seems to be more assured at collecting the ball and not punching it away. 

[MC RISK77]

He has stepped up to the plate and a reliable enough keeper but can’t help thinking long term we will see someone else come in and at this level he is a number 2

[And Its Smith]

Conceded 7 in 9 games and at fault for just one of those goals.  Find a keeper at this level without one fault in their game 

[joe jordans teeth]

8 minutes ago, And Its Smith said:

Conceded 7 in 9 games and at fault for just one of those goals.  Find a keeper at this level without one fault in their game 

That’s a stupid question because you can’t find a goalkeeper in the world that hasn’t a fault,does that mean we can’t critique them

[And Its Smith]

4 minutes ago, joe jordans teeth said:

That’s a stupid question because you can’t find a goalkeeper in the world that hasn’t a fault,does that mean we can’t critique them

Every player has at least one fault.  

Edited February 11, 2023 by And Its Smith

[Rob k]

1 hour ago, Robbored said:

O’Learys kicking today was shocking. I can’t remember the last time I saw a City keeper out it out of touch so often. Probably FF was the last

No doubt he’ll be very aware of how awry his distribution was and work to rectify it.

I can - Max O’Leary, away to Swansea in the FA cup 

[Davefevs]

It was awful today, even out of his hands, where he seems to be kicking it with slice.  Those drop kicks just ask for your opponent to attack it.

I get the tactic of kicking it wide, but it’s pretty clear it just concedes possession.  Just aim 10 yards infield.

[joe jordans teeth]

10 minutes ago, And Its Smith said:

Every player has at least one fault.  

No shi Sherlock,every human has apart from you of course 

[And Its Smith]

23 minutes ago, Percy Pig said:

It is clearly a tactical ploy. And it makes sense generally, too. 

The design is to ensure that when we cannot play out from the back because the opposition press has been good we have a higher percentage chance of retaining possession by chipping it into the fullbacks. 

Thats because we either win the header or the opposition defender wins it and likely heads it out for a throw. 

Execution was slightly off today, but its a very small margin for error with that kick.

Max has been brilliant since coming in. He's kept a cleansheet against one of the best forwards to ever play this level, he's dominated his box and he's getting better at knowing when the pressure needs to be averted by going longer. 

If he whacked it down the middle we'd lose the ball and be right back under pressure. If he plays short when it's not on, pelters. 

He's been TOLD to do this, and its obvious why. 

Finally some sense 

Just now, joe jordans teeth said:

No shi Sherlock,every human has apart from you of course 

I’ve got one. Giving negative ninnies like you the time of day!!

[joe jordans teeth]

2 minutes ago, And Its Smith said:

Finally some sense 

I’ve got one. Giving negative ninnies like you the time of day!!

I’m a ninnie,love it 

[Red Army 75]

Kicking it out on purpose. **** me 

[And Its Smith]

2 minutes ago, joe jordans teeth said:

I’m a ninnie,love it 

I don’t even know what a ninnie is but it is a funny word!  Cheer up mate 

[joe jordans teeth]

4 minutes ago, And Its Smith said:

I don’t even know what a ninnie is but it is a funny word!  Cheer up mate 

We are all happy my boy,wouldn’t go round typing words in if you don’t know what they mean 

[formerly known as ivan]

If things keep progressing as they are, then realistically MO’L is the weak link in the team.

He is doing ok. Unfortunately I can’t see him being any better than ok.

If we are to push on next season a new no.1 will need to be signed. Not sure if the keeper we signed in January is the answer. I hope we would be looking at someone like Cooper at Plymouth, although his injury might prevent any move soon.

[Leveller]

37 minutes ago, Percy Pig said:

It is clearly a tactical ploy. And it makes sense generally, too. 

The design is to ensure that when we cannot play out from the back because the opposition press has been good we have a higher percentage chance of retaining possession by chipping it into the fullbacks. 

Thats because we either win the header or the opposition defender wins it and likely heads it out for a throw. 

Execution was slightly off today, but its a very small margin for error with that kick.

Max has been brilliant since coming in. He's kept a cleansheet against one of the best forwards to ever play this level, he's dominated his box and he's getting better at knowing when the pressure needs to be averted by going longer. 

If he whacked it down the middle we'd lose the ball and be right back under pressure. If he plays short when it's not on, pelters. 

He's been TOLD to do this, and its obvious why. 

Those were my thoughts too. It happened so often it had to be deliberate. If you kick up the centre of the pitch and we lose possession (which we frequently do) the risk is higher than conceding a throw in near the halfway line. And if it lands just inside the line, the full backs have a good chance of getting on the end of it. If the opposition win the header, it’s still less dangerous than in the centre circle.

[stephenkibby.]

5 minutes ago, Red Army 75 said:

Kicking it out on purpose. **** me 

Thing is when he kicks it wide it's always going to be long rather than short with the chance of their wide player picking it up and exposing our defence.

Although it looks shit and gives position away i can see why we don't pump it up the middle, loose the ball and they have the width of the pitch to attack. Much better to concede a throw halfway line then get the opposition to try and break us down from there.

[Malago]

TBF he finds touch on a much more regular basis than the Bears full back.

[BigAl&Toby]

**** me…

Frankie F is back.

Is he bollocks.

Look at Deepdale 7 days ago. Max kept us in it. Several times. Again and again.

And today? Like a sweeper at times.

Far better than Capn Dan IMHO.

And we’re sitting right behind him. At DD and BS3.

 

[cidercity1987]

Defo always accepted it as a tactical ploy

In the 94th min as we look to close out the game with a bit of head tennis, no wayy

[Robbored]

41 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

It was awful today, even out of his hands, where he seems to be kicking it with slice.  Those drop kicks just ask for your opponent to attack it.

I get the tactic of kicking it wide, but it’s pretty clear it just concedes possession.  Just aim 10 yards infield.

I thought the same Dave - he was definitely slicing in from his hands.

Surely just booting up the pitch hands possession to the opposition. Far better to either throw or pass it to a defender and play out from the back.

[McNasty Filth]

19 minutes ago, formerly known as ivan said:

If things keep progressing as they are, then realistically MO’L is the weak link in the team.

He is doing ok. Unfortunately I can’t see him being any better than ok.

If we are to push on next season a new no.1 will need to be signed. Not sure if the keeper we signed in January is the answer. I hope we would be looking at someone like Cooper at Plymouth, although his injury might prevent any move soon.

Are you having a f****** laugh. Max is one of the reasons for our upturn in form and one of the reasons we are more solid defensively. Saved us in numerous games since he's come in (have you watched all the away games?). His command of the box is so much better than Bentley. His shot stopping and reflexes are equal if not better than Bentleys. You can see that the centre backs have confidence in their keeper in terms of their postive body language when defending, and that calmness translates to the stands.

I'll admit in the first couple of games when he came in, things did look a bit shaky, but that's down to the back line and keeper working through their issues, since then I've seen nothing but improvement (bar the spilled shot against Preston, but for me that was an extremely difficult shot with the ball bouncing just in front of him and at pace).

Definitely not a weak link, but hey ho, we all see things differently I suppose!

[BigAl&Toby]

8 minutes ago, Robbored said:

I thought the same Dave - he was definitely slicing in from his hands.

Surely just booting up the pitch hands possession to the opposition. Far better to either throw or pass it to a defender and play out from the back.

Bollocks. As so often.

Did you get to Deepdale!

[Always red]

No good Max kicking ball up middle of park to our forward line of small players. Be creative. He'll get there

PS he's better than Bentley for me,  who never commanded his area and albeit a good shot stopper was poor at crosses into the box