Where the Problems come from (10 replies)
We have Kief - ridiculously limited, is scrappy and can get at the ball but is not comfortable on the ball and runs around like a bit of a headless chicken and gives away a lot of fouls by going for ankles rather than the ball.
We have Davis - ridiculously limited, he is passionate and runs around a lot and puts in effort but he struggles to pass, he puts more pressure on himself the longer he holds onto the ball, his decision making is poor, he makes a lot of fouls because he brings danger into bad areas and has no choice but to lash out.
Because of this we ship a lot of goals, the players meant to be protecting the defence aren't good enough to do that and so invite a hell of a lot of pressure on our defence. Our defence is good, they have the ability are technically limited so when they are overwhelmed by an attack they get dragged out of position to stop the initial attack that our two centre mids caused.
Watching all of our highlights this is where a lot of goals come from. Opposition with a load of time on the ball and waltzing through the centre, Grounds, Morrison, Roberts, Dean getting dragged forward to close down whilst the player theyre meant to mark gets the ball and scores.
Because the midfield are not comfortable on the ball and are there purely as the best of an awful bunch we have no attacks come through them. They can't recieve the ball and play it out, they can't play through balls, they have no positional sense to look around and pick out a winger with a great ball. You watch Davis and Kief, they lose it 90% to playing a good ball 10%. Because of this we are stuck with launching the ball from defence up to the top. Hench playing some giant guy with no football ability as a target head to knock down. 8/10 headers go to the opposition but the only game plan we can use at the moment is to bypass midfield and have somebody to knock it down out the air. Gallagher is good on the wing, he has strength to battle and run and shoot from the outside, he has played very well there every game he played.
Until we sort the midfield out we will never be able to play technical players in front of them to run circles, we will never be able to play a higher defensive line. That midfield 2 really does cause us so many problems. It is why we leak goals at the back and don't score any up top.
But we have nobody to come in and replace them, we had a passed in Gleeson in there but he got injured after 45 when he vastly improved the team. We have Gardner who has been woeful in every appearance and we have Lowe who is another extremely limited player in the same mould as Kief and Davis. Can pass a little, tackle a little, holds some shape though but goes missing when it gets tough.