I know it is all too easy to be over critical of your team but is it just me who think that we are poor at anticipating where the ball is going and picking up second balls?

We seem to wait and be caught on our heels a lot reacting to plays or mistakes rather than attempting to intercept or pressuring in key areas. Where head tennis is being played especially we seem to be bypassed in where the ball is going to end up and get overrun by the next phase of play.

Sprinting in to close down a back pass to the keeper. You have to be prepared to get whacked by the ball but often the strikers come in at a rubbish angle and make it easy to clear.

To me, this skill marks the better players as interceptions are key to getting on the front foot.

karlelseyisking wrote:Sprinting in to close down a back pass to the keeper. You have to be prepared to get whacked by the ball but often the strikers come in at a rubbish angle and make it easy to clear.

Thought that Nouble and Amond do that quite well.

karlelseyisking wrote:I know it is all too easy to be over critical of your team but is it just me who think that we are poor at anticipating where the ball is going and picking up second balls?

We seem to wait and be caught on our heels a lot reacting to plays or mistakes rather than attempting to intercept or pressuring in key areas. Where head tennis is being played especially we seem to be bypassed in where the ball is going to end up and get overrun by the next phase of play.

Sprinting in to close down a back pass to the keeper. You have to be prepared to get whacked by the ball but often the strikers come in at a rubbish angle and make it easy to clear.

To me, this skill marks the better players as interceptions are key to getting on the front foot.

Yesterday I though we were very god at this first half, much less so at the start of the second half but improved again later in the game. When we do it well we can over run teams but maybe it is too much to keep it up for 90 minutes?

karlelseyisking wrote:I know it is all too easy to be over critical of your team but is it just me who think that we are poor at anticipating where the ball is going and picking up second balls?

We seem to wait and be caught on our heels a lot reacting to plays or mistakes rather than attempting to intercept or pressuring in key areas. Where head tennis is being played especially we seem to be bypassed in where the ball is going to end up and get overrun by the next phase of play.

Sprinting in to close down a back pass to the keeper. You have to be prepared to get whacked by the ball but often the strikers come in at a rubbish angle and make it easy to clear.

To me, this skill marks the better players as interceptions are key to getting on the front foot.

It's just you

I'd think one of the problems of doing this is that our rather agricultural "clearance first" mentality means we often don't have the midfielders up in support of the areas where the ball goes to begin with - when you have to run 40 yards just to be in a position where you might pick up a rebound from any one of 360 degrees you'll find players tend to be a little more sensible in their approach.

Though Willmott and to a lesser degree Owen-Evans were all over it at Cheltenham nevertheless.

no its not just you plus there is a time to hoof but i like to see them chest control and pass rather than just head it 10 yds to the opposition so frustrating chapman did this well in one game i remember two defenders stood off him waiting for him to aimlessly heasd the ball towards them but he chested it controlled it and passed out to the wing look on defenders face was priceless.