High ball tactics

[Redland]

Against Middlesborough we played excellent passing football and kept the ball on the deck. So why against Cheltenham last night did we resort to speculatively hoofing the ball high into the box? A bloke behind me remarked it was like watching a rugby match!

This approach suited Cheltenham and with respect to them, brought the game down to their level. It was particularly pointless when we did not have a recognised centre forward playing with Brooker injured.

In these situations can we not play to feet and try to pass through the opposition - even if play sometimes breaks down as a result? It would certainly be more atractive to watch and can't be any less successful than last nights tactics.

We have the better, more skillful players but it is only by playing patient passing football that we will be able to distinguish ourselves from the more robust teams in this division. Alternatively, if GJ is going to continue with the speculative high ball approach we need more physical players up front.

On a more important note I hope Scott Brown makes a full and speedy recovery.

[Port Said Red]

Against Middlesborough we played excellent passing football and kept the ball on the deck. So why against Cheltenham last night did we resort to speculatively hoofing the ball high into the box? A bloke behind me remarked it was like watching a rugby match!

This approach suited Cheltenham and with respect to them, brought the game down to their level. It was particularly pointless when we did not have a recognised centre forward playing with Brooker injured.

In these situations can we not play to feet and try to pass through the opposition - even if play sometimes breaks down as a result? It would certainly be more atractive to watch and can't be any less successful than last nights tactics.

We have the better, more skillful players but it is only by playing patient passing football that we will be able to distinguish ourselves from the more robust teams in this division. Alternatively, if GJ is going to continue with the speculative high ball approach we need more physical players up front.

On a more important note I hope Scott Brown makes a full and speedy recovery.

We had very few opportunities to get the ball on the ground and play. Cheltenham did a great job of hounding our best ball players into hurrying their passes. Every time they tried to bring the ball under control they were dispossessed. As much as like Louis Carey I always get worried when I see him having to try and be the playmaker because he is the only player in space.

[Long Ashton Red]

It's not always just about how badly we play but also about how well the other team play - or how good they are at stopping us play. Last night Ward got his tactics spot on, they stopped Lee J from running the game from midfield and they hassled us. We resorted, all too often, to long ball hoofs because we couldn't play our usual game. Credit to Cheltenham and John Ward for that, but we should have been able to break through. Betsy showed what we needed, someone who would run at them with the ball at their feet, nearly paid off, but not quite.

Overall a poor performance, but good tactics from Cheltenham won the day for them.

[BCFCfan]

We had very few opportunities to get the ball on the ground and play.

:noexpression:

[SE23Red]

We had very few opportunities to get the ball on the ground and play. Cheltenham did a great job of hounding our best ball players into hurrying their passes. Every time they tried to bring the ball under control they were dispossessed. As much as like Louis Carey I always get worried when I see him having to try and be the playmaker because he is the only player in space.

The thing that disappointed me most was us playing into their hands by being so narrow on the left - we could only attack down one side of them. If they want to pack the middle of midfield to stop Johnson playing we should be able to play down the flanks. But with Wilson coming no wider than the edge of the centre circle it was never going to happen.

The introduction of Betsy at half time gave us more of a threat, IMO it would have given us even more so if it had of been for Orr with Wilson going to RB and Murray to LM.

I guess it is fitting that it took a game on the last night of the transfer window to highlight that, yet again, we failed to solve the LM problem.

[Nibor]

We had very few opportunities to get the ball on the ground and play. Cheltenham did a great job of hounding our best ball players into hurrying their passes. Every time they tried to bring the ball under control they were dispossessed. As much as like Louis Carey I always get worried when I see him having to try and be the playmaker because he is the only player in space.

That was true sometimes but other times it certainly wasn't.

In the first half Cheltenham outworked us and hassled us at every opportunity, but that stopped immediately they went 1-0 up.

Many, many times after that the defence had the ball and the midfield just ran forward waiting for the long ball instead of coming to get it, particularly in the second half.

Instead of bringing the ball out of defence until Cheltenham had to come out of their 10 man defence and force us to play it, we just lumped it on nearly every occasion and played right into their hands.

We played many aimless long balls under no pressure whatsoever last night and that's why the service in the final third was abysmal. It looked lazy to me, the midfield and the front line just waited expectantly for the hoofs, they provided no movement whatsoever.

Our only decent chances came from set pieces or from Betsy running down the right.

[Robbored]

After about 10 mins last night I had that 'sixth sense' feeling that it wasn't going to be City's night simply because the ball was spending far more time in the air than on the ground.Normally decent players were just hoofing the ball into the channels and pretty soon all the back four were at it.Then a gap started to appear between the strikers and the midfield and it took me back to the early days of Tinnion and even as far back as Lumbsden.

Why they started to do that is anyones guess but the bottom line is that there was no need to play straight into Ch'hams hands as the City players are better than that.

I hope this is just a blip and the players come out on Monday at Scunny fired up and determined to make ammends.

[Drew Peacock]

It's not always just about how badly we play but also about how well the other team play - or how good they are at stopping us play. Last night Ward got his tactics spot on, they stopped Lee J from running the game from midfield and they hassled us. We resorted, all too often, to long ball hoofs because we couldn't play our usual game. Credit to Cheltenham and John Ward for that, but we should have been able to break through. Betsy showed what we needed, someone who would run at them with the ball at their feet, nearly paid off, but not quite.

Overall a poor performance, but good tactics from Cheltenham won the day for them.

We knew they would do that, GJs comments about them coming to scrap for their lives made that clear. To be successful you have to cope with that and we didn't until the last 10 minutes when GJ made the double sub and changed the formation and started to pass properly.

I would be really interested to know why this wasn't done earlier in the game.

[Long Ashton Red]

We knew they would do that, GJs comments about them coming to scrap for their lives made that clear. To be successful you have to cope with that and we didn't until the last 10 minutes when GJ made the double sub and changed the formation and started to pass properly.

I would be really interested to know why this wasn't done earlier in the game.

Spot on - the game was crying out for someone who would just run at them - which Betsy did, or a change in formation that would enable us to gain some ground in midfield, we got there with about 10 mins to go!

[Paul Hudd]

The thing that disappointed me most was us playing into their hands by being so narrow on the left - we could only attack down one side of them. If they want to pack the middle of midfield to stop Johnson playing we should be able to play down the flanks. But with Wilson coming no wider than the edge of the centre circle it was never going to happen.

The introduction of Betsy at half time gave us more of a threat, IMO it would have given us even more so if it had of been for Orr with Wilson going to RB and Murray to LM.

I guess it is fitting that it took a game on the last night of the transfer window to highlight that, yet again, we failed to solve the LM problem.

I think you have hit the nail on the head- Orr should have gone off, Wilson to right back and two wingers attacking from both angles............Andrews could have played off Showumni............it still may not have worked but their defence could have buckled.