I was at Carrow Road last night, at Millwall and also ER for the games with Hudds, Bolton and Sheff W. I also saw the 'Boro and Rotherham games on TV.
From the games I've witnessed here are my thoughts on 5 plus and minus (work to do) points for us this season
PLUS
1. Great keeper - I liked Kenny but Silvestri is far superior
2. Back 4 more solid than under BMcD. Although we creaked a little last night in general the defence is better than the Peltier & Lees era
3. We try to play football - keeping it on the deck and we have shown brief glimpses of what could be if we can resolves the minuses below
4. Our fitness has improved. Despite being run around (38% of possession) arguably we ended up the stronger side at Norwich last night
5. Options now in our squad - we have Sharp and Morison chomping at the bit, options in midfield and even at the back. We may still lack outright class (Adryan and Antenucci are closest) but we have shed a lot of Warnock and McDermott's dead wood and dross
MINUSES - or work to do
1. Diamond - we seem stuck in this and unable to find another strategy or tempo, although moving Duke and Adryan to the wings 2nd half last night did slow norwich down
2. Width, lack of. Linked to 1, we lack width and wingers. I feel we need to look to bring in some pace on the flanks in the January window
3. Passing - if you adopt our through-the-middle diamond formation you have to be much more precise and quick on your passing. Too many times last night and at Rothers we gave the ball away cheaply
4. Goals - we have 4 decent looking striker on paper, yet I don't feel we have the 20+ a season man identified amongst them. Strangely I don't feel Rosco would have made that much difference had he still been with us but I still worry where the goals will come from
5. Pressing - we don't look at all comfortable when teams press us, as many do. This has in my view been an Achiles heel for us for many seasons now. We need to work harder in training on our tactics for dealing with this.
Overall - some promising signs, especially after the depression of Jan-May this year but much work still to be done. Fail to do it and we will find ourselves uncomfortably close to the bottom 3, achieve most of it and we could yet challenge for 6th spot.
As always keeping the faith and marching on together!
Perspectives - the good and bad so far.....
posted on 22/10/14
I'm a plastic, so only seen the TV games, but would agree with all of the above. I don't know how good our strikers are... I Like the look of antenucci when he stays onside... But I'm not sure we'll ever find out without better service. We show glimpses of nice football, but at the moment they are just glimpses. What proportion is formation, familiarisation, ability is hard to say. My gut is its a combination of all of them.
posted on 22/10/14
Agreed Leeds 2036.
I'd also like to see us taking more shots from edge of area, doesn't seem to be happening much; seems like we're trying to walk the ball into net most of the time.
Adryan has had a couple of longish shots at goal, I think, and hope he'll do it more and that could encourage our strikers and mids to try same a lot more.
We are a team in progress, and as Darko said, most don't have the experience of most other teams yet but, having said that,
our defence is much more solid than previous defences. some criticise our defenders on here, but they have soaked up a lot of pressure from opposing attacks, good attacking opposition too, and although our results are below par lately, they've kept the goals against down, other than the Watford game.
I feel the second half of season is going to see us learn from first half and put a few good winning runs together, if not before of course.
Fitness wise, I think Hockaday did get this one right, we don't seem to be tiring that much, with exceptions of a couple of youngsters.
I did say to others during the Norwich game, they're coming at us thick and fast and suspect they'll tire a bit towards end.
Good article, 5 from me.
posted on 22/10/14
2036, how are you measuring that defence is more solid?
We've conceded exactly the same number of goals in 13 league games as we had in first 13 games last season, so how is it more solid?
With regards to options, it feels like we have options, but we don't use them, in which case how much value are they?
Agree on the rest, especially the striker bit, we might struggle to have anyone score 10 league goals this season.
posted on 22/10/14
Jonty, to be fair 2036 was making a comparison with the Jan-May period during which we conceded roughly 1.8 goals per game. We've conceded 16 from 13 league games this season, which is roughly 1.2 per game.
I'd put a lot of this down to Silvestri, though, not the defence .
posted on 22/10/14
Warwick, I know he mentioned the depression of that time, but if comparing with last season, you generally compare like with like.
We tend to fall away in second half of season, so our current form might be as good as it gets!
I agree re Silvestri, the bright spark out of all the signings, not just for his play but for the way that he and his girlfriend engage with the fans, comes across as a good guy.
posted on 22/10/14
For me all of our goals/chances are created when Doukara or the midfield plays that defence splitting ball to Antenucci or Doukara. We only look like scoring one one ones. 4 of Doukaras 5 have been scored that way, Antenucci has scored twice and has had countless one one ones saved and he's had one or two disallowed. We pose little goal threat elsewhere Imo. We've only scored 15 in 15.
How good is Silvestri though, I've seen the save he made last night, stunning.
posted on 22/10/14
Leeds2036
I am concerned that any club that gets in our face we don't like, we need to be stronger.
We need to put the opposition on the back foot, we need to get into them early and sustain it, we need to command the ball.
As it stands we have no width to support and feed Antenucci and Doukara and at the same time we have nothing to stretch the opposition back line.
We can see it, surely them in charge can see it.