No room for creative midfielders! | Vital Football

No room for creative midfielders!

devonexlondonimp

devonexlondonimp

Vital 1st Team Regular
Playing the tactical game we have mainly adhered to over the last two seasons do we have room for a ball carrying midfielder.
We are not a team who plays through the thirds and creative midfielders in our side are absent,discuss?
 
It could be argued that Keith Alexander's teams played a similar style of football in his 5-2-3 system, but he found room for Peter Gain. If we could get such quality ball playing midfielder in during the summer it would improve our attacking options
 
sedgleyimp said:
It could be argued that Keith Alexander's teams played a similar style of football in his 5-2-3 system, but he found room for Peter Gain. If we could get such quality ball playing midfielder in during the summer it would improve our attacking options
Click to expand...

Gain did the hard-yards as well, though. He needed to in that formation even with Butch alongside!
 
NottyImp said:
Gain did the hard-yards as well, though. He needed to in that formation even with Butch alongside!
Click to expand...

Absolutely but some of his passes were sublime and to get that back would be great. Woodyard has that in his locker on occasions as shown with some of his assists this season but more is needed
 
sedgleyimp said:
Absolutely but some of his passes were sublime and to get that back would be great. Woodyard has that in his locker on occasions as shown with some of his assists this season but more is needed
Click to expand...

Agreed, Gain could pass - and shoot as well, on occasion. He was a good, quality all-round player. One of my faves of that era.
 
The profile of our current midfielders,3 defensive plus Freck suits the style we currently deploy where we try and load the box out with diagonal crosses from the fullbacks or overlaps from Habergham down the left.(bypass midfield in the main)
Our midfielders are essentially there to break up play and gain turnovers,there are very few instances of midfielders running beyond the man with the ball into box positions.Where does Freck fit in to this pattern.
Our midfielders rarely end up at the edge of the opposition box in shooting positions,they are low on goal threat to the opponents goal.
Our tactics marry with the current line up of the squad deployed.
To me this squad is a big contrast to keith`s teams where individually they were much more comfortable on the ball and played through the thirds without a target man.( quality difference was that a fair number of Alexander`s team moved on to play at a much higher level)
If we are to change playing styles then both Eardley and Woodyard are capable of adapting to a ball playing midfield so we don`t need to look too far for solutions.
 
Alexander developed and added the quality later though. Not many of the first season squad played higher. we had Marriott, Morgan, futcher, weaver, Smith, cropper, bimson, Bailey, sedgemore, Willis etc etc. Much more like this season,,, the success was built on effort and a tight defence.

Having said that, I watched the Scunthorpe playoff game before the exter playoff. Quality finishing by mayo, and Yeo twice.
 
a couple of things in tandem that have held us back from a more creative passing game this season, and that may tip us toward a more fluent passing game next season are nothing to do with the squad.

The state of the home pitch, and the quality of our practice pitches.

We will be able to practice faster accurate passing and build up play, slow build up and lack of counter attack was one thing exposed at Exeter, and highlighted by the fact that they did it much better.

Interesting that tisdale was quoted as saying league 2 is seasonal, so we already have our current plan a for the more agricultural pitches and conditions.

It has been mentioned by one or two here, I also hope we add the method of playing the ball in low to rhead, he would make a great screen and setup/layoff forward.

Add 3/4 better technical players to the group and we can introduce the quality crossing from nearer the byline, the low ball across the six yard box (Accrington showed how dangerous this is), and some quality shooting from around the edge of the box.

Lots of small margins to work on in the summer. Very confident we can address them all.
 
SIMJON said:
Gain passed it forwards, Woodyards are generally sideways/backwards. If we could get him a bit more attack minded i think he'd be a huge asset.
Click to expand...
Although I think a big part of that is patterns of play.

It's win the ball in CM, get it out wide and on the diagonal to Rhead. Or win in CM, out wide and over the full back for a winger.
 
Less diagonals and more byline crosses(as you say and i have been saying for months) with more accuracy, but this means your wide men need to be top drawer and deliver those crosses or force those corner set pieces where we can play to our strengths.
If Greeny had better service from wide positions he could have hit 25/30 goals but he tracked down the right on lots of games trying to open up defences,when he should have been in the box.(criticism of Green still coming from some quarters..unfounded)
Next season the full back positions are very critical and consideration need to be put into this area.(and adequate cover)
see last game at exeter.. right footed.player with most assists playing left back and centre half at right back!
 
sedgleyimp said:
It could be argued that Keith Alexander's teams played a similar style of football in his 5-2-3 system, but he found room for Peter Gain. If we could get such quality ball playing midfielder in during the summer it would improve our attacking options
Click to expand...
Completely agree. And won’t be easy given probably our 3 highest paid players - Bostwick, Woodyard and Frecklington - are all in that position.

You do wonder if Woodyard could be the one to be sacrificed, obviously if an offer the same as or above what was turned down in January came in. £250k was the rumoured amount wasn’t it? If so, that would go a long way in securing some better quality.

That’s no reflection on Woodyard. I rate him as the second best midfielder I’ve ever seen in the red and white (just behind Gain). However, his game hasn’t really developed in an attacking sense, although there have occasionally been glimpses of what he’s capable of (e.g. Crewe and Wycombe away and Carlisle at home).
 
Woodyard has it in his locker to be more than just a holding player and next season let`s hope DC gives him licence to roam forward.
Add 10/15 goals a season to his game and he is worth 500k-750k in the open market and still a young lad to boot.....so much more to his game.
 
It's an interesting point with Woodyard. I think he is probably our ,most consistent player, but is he going to be the odd one out if the midfield is tinkered with and a more creative option brought in. I do think that if he, Freck and Bossie are all available and we go with a midfield 2 he will probably miss out unless we start playing a diamond formation.

It just might be that if a good offer was made some serious consideration might be made. Not convinced it will be a correct decision just a feeling
 
I think we have the players to play a more attractive style, but the pitch at Sincil Bank is not that suited to it. We narrowed the width considerably this season, which has reduced the space out wide for full backs to overlap and for our wingers (when we have played with them). Plus the field has been very very bobbly at times.

Our best recent performance was at Coventry, with a very wide pitch and a perfect playing surface. In fact I think we would have done much better playing Coventry or Notts County in the playoffs - both clubs have wide pitches and great surfaces. The Exeter field was even worse than ours.

We will definitely not see the best of Freck or Woodyard until they get to perform regularly on better surfaces.
 
devonexlondonimp said:
Woodyard has it in his locker to be more than just a holding player and next season let`s hope DC gives him licence to roam forward.
Add 10/15 goals a season to his game and he is worth 500k-750k in the open market and still a young lad to boot.....so much more to his game.
Click to expand...

I don't think he does, any more than Luke Waterfall has it in him to be our next left winger. He is what he is.

Woodyard scoring 10/15 goals a season is as likely as me turning up on the bench on 5 August.
 
devonexlondonimp said:
Woodyard has it in his locker to be more than just a holding player and next season let`s hope DC gives him licence to roam forward.
Add 10/15 goals a season to his game and he is worth 500k-750k in the open market and still a young lad to boot.....so much more to his game.
Click to expand...

Woodward is 25 years old and has scored 5 goals in over 200 games. So not so young and never going to score many goals but brilliant at what he does. He's a league 2 Kante of Chelsea and that is what he does.
If we play him alongside Bozzie we are tight and secure but depend on just 4 attacking players to score goals from open play.
To progress those 4 need a serious upgrade.
IT will be irrelevant if a top lg1 or championship team meet the buy out clause in Woodys contract, if he is to move up the football ladder he really needs to go this summer.
 
Watching some clips of Pett when he was at Stevenage and he was very good at breaking past defenders and quick over the first ten yards. I think he could be an important player next season and think he will be better than some think.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.