Monday Breakfast Debate - Your First XI v Oxford

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whiteswan
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Re: Monday Breakfast Debate - Your First XI v Oxford

Post by whiteswan »

I have absolutely no idea what team to pick. As some have already said, things seem a bit disorganised to me and also have to agree that we could have a very bad start to the season. I said as much to Mr Swan yesterday....I really hope I'm wrong!
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The Subhuman
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Re: Monday Breakfast Debate - Your First XI v Oxford

Post by The Subhuman »

weasel wrote:We don't know what training etc is going on behind closed doors. Take the Burspaspor friendly and if it hadn't been for the Burspapor website announcing it we may never have known the game took place. For all we know there may be 2 or 3 more of these type of matches taking place. Also TC is having a lot of training sessions with the this may be more important as we have changed style quite a lot since last season and despite some people thinking you can change formation overnight and everything magically would fall into place it is not the case and players need to be coached repeatedly into where they should be, what runs they should make etc for TC's formation and style to work.

So far as well we have seen every player, barring Klich, being given game time and due to this it is hard for understandings to happen as someone may have played alongside a different player every match. I wouldn't worry too much about our pre-season, same as I wouldn't be c**k-a-hoop if we'd won every match 6-0. We don't know how strong the opposition line-up was, how seriously they were taking it and likewise we wouldn't have had our strongest XI all playing together.

We got off to an awful start last season, where we were definitely under-prepared but this season we have had more matches and more training sessions and a more settled squad despite the influx of new players (compared to last year when Green, Ayling, Bartley, Vieira, Antonnson, Roofe etc were all new to the team and thrown in)

practice should never be confused with competition, we've had 1 proper game and a few park kick arounds and maybe some training ground games. I think the squad is a lot less settled. To start with Green, Ayling, Bartley, Roofe and Vierra all had experience playing in England. Vierra had been with us the season before IIRC.
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weasel
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Re: Monday Breakfast Debate - Your First XI v Oxford

Post by weasel »

Equally though it could be said that the english players brought in last year was because we were going to be playing an english way - as such it makes more sense to bring in more continental style players this season.

I used Vieira as a new player as although he had made his debut in the last match of the previous season he was still new to the first team and new to playing at the championship level.
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The Subhuman
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Re: Monday Breakfast Debate - Your First XI v Oxford

Post by The Subhuman »

And I have no problem with that. it'll just take more time and more practice to implement assuming it will be successful in the first place. Not sure there's a great deal of difference though and Wood strikes me as the typical English style CF and we didn't play the English style 442 last season

Are you sure we've added players to play a continental style? Apart from Wiedwald that is?
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weasel
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Re: Monday Breakfast Debate - Your First XI v Oxford

Post by weasel »

faaip wrote:And I have no problem with that. it'll just take more time and more practice to implement assuming it will be successful in the first place. Not sure there's a great deal of difference though and Wood strikes me as the typical English style CF and we didn't play the English style 442 last season

Are you sure we've added players to play a continental style? Apart from Wiedwald that is?
We played a continental type formation last season 451 (4231) but in an English play. The general ploy was to stay solid at the back and hit a lot of long balls diagonally so as to win throw in, free kicks, corners, possession deep into the opposition half. The only possession, barring the Derby performance, was generally when we played the ball backwards before going long.

In terms of a continental style it generally seems to mean keeping possession more (usually without resorting to working it back to a centreback or keeper to lump it forward) and now also the fashionable 'high pressing' game. As such by signing players from abroad we are in theory signing players that are better 'technically' than english players (i.e. able to control the ball quicker, and able to move it around without panicking like it is a hot potato). Players that have been coached from a young age to value possession rather than the english way of give it to the kid who's big for his age/or faster than the other kids. Don't know enough yet about TC's way of playing the game but it may also be about players being fluent enough to suddenly pop up in different areas of the pitch to create overlaps and be unable to be marked (an example being Luke Ayling's goal). The dutch way being that in theory every player could play in any position on the pitch - but doubt we will be going to that level.

I feel that under TC we will score more goals than last season without being as reliant on Wood. Defensively we may be a bit more open and concede more than last year. The real concern for me though is not that but how poor we have looked defending set plays as it is irrelevant what style/formation is played when a set piece needs to be defended. Not sure if we have ditched the way we defended set plays last season, with Jannson being allowed a free role to simply attack the ball, and was also surprised to see us not have men on the posts from corners. That for me is the big concern and is at this stage far more important then is the team gelling, are they match hardened etc etc.
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The Subhuman
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Re: Monday Breakfast Debate - Your First XI v Oxford

Post by The Subhuman »

I still think the best way is to shut up shop at the back, so much easier to win if you're not conceding 2 a game, we may score more but you can't bank on just outscoring the opposition, also I didn't think the new guys looked any better on the ball especially in our half then the guys from last season.

TC is a big gamble as a very inexperienced manager and he's basically come from a non league club to us...Hockaday style
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Re: Monday Breakfast Debate - Your First XI v Oxford

Post by nickjett »

------------------------------------------Green---------------------------------------

Anita---------------Pennington------------------Ayling----------------Berardi

-----------------------------------------Phillips------------------------------------------
---------------------Hernandez----------------------O'Kane-------------------------

---------Alioski------------------------Wood----------------------Roofe-------------

Thats my starting 11 against Oxford
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