VOR was referring to some of the last regular season games. To me, it seemed Derby, Wednesday, Rotherham and Reading had all done some work on how to match us up. Swansea just defended too well for us. They also managed to limit Brentford to two 1-1 draws. That might be a worry for Brentford going in to the final.
That’s not being found out though as being found out would indicate they overran us in defence creating lots of chances are us not being able to create any chances . In all the games weve played against Swansea we’ve created by far the most chances . They may have been more clinical than us with the few chances they’ve had and scored most of them but say going on chances created and chances given we had the better of Swansea so imo it would be they that were found out but were more clinical than us in the games .
I just took it to mean they identified a way to nullify our threat. Perhaps better to say we became less effective in the last few games?
I look at it this way . If they adapted their games to try to nullify us it didn’t work because we still created enough chances to win these games and on chances created we missed rather than the opposition stopping us . I know chances created doesn’t mean anything if you don’t take them but the point is we did create so they didn’t stop us we did it ourselves. Also we gave the opposition in many games less chances than we got within the games so I’d say wet were more effective but less clinical which is different to being found out etc.
He hasn't played a target man this season he's usually played to the right of the main striker in a front 3. How do you suggest we should have played to his strengths as you say the last 2 managers haven't and he isn't the fastest or strongest? I just think he himself will be disappointed with the amount of goals he has from.open play this season and I think if you look at the best strikers in the championship toney, solanke, ayew, Lowe... they all have pace I like cauley but to suggest we should have played to his strengths and we would have done better as a team? No we wouldn't not for me.
He'd played as the central one of the three with Chaplin and Frieser either side of him earlier in the season where balls were launched at him to deal with as a focal point and the lead trigger of the press, which he did superbly well in that unit I thought. We don't play to try and utilise pace anyway do we? If you look at other teams that have pace, they often start deep and fly at you. Bournemouth and Brentford both set up that way from what I've seen. I'd play him as Stendel played him. As someone off a striker. I'd also play him on the left so he could cut in and shoot on his venomous right foot. I'd also take him off corners. He can't score from there (though Mowatt fluked one) either can he? I also seem to feel he's appeared more on the left and taken the ball very deep near the touchline a lot. Again, he's not going to score from there, though he has often shown some good touches. We'll not know, unless he moves in the summer, but like others have said, if he were in Brentfords or Bournemouths team, I fancy he'd have more goals than he's managed this season, just because he'd be in positions he is comfortable where he can score. What he has done this year is have more assists to his game than before, and perhaps that starts to demonstrate how he's been asked to play differently.
No we don't try to utilise pace as I don't think our team has a great deal of pace in it especially in comparison to bournmouth or brentford. He has been playing off dike alot this season and like I said I think he will be disappointed with his goal tally from open play. I don't think he should be taking corners, someone posted the other day if he was playing at Swansea he would score 20 a season I don't think so especially if they have a different penalty takers. And yes he has 5 assist this which is good but to have the season we have just had as a team then to suggest we should have played to cauleys strengths asif we would have finished higher is silly.
Those who read my stuff will know that I did not enjoy the way that we played last season. However, if you judge only on the results and the points accumulated by that team and the players available, then in my view, the system allowed those players to garner more points than the overall quality of the individuals suggests they were capable of. In that sense, the system was a success. Nevertheless, the play-offs are a different competition. It is not a league any more. It is a knockout competition, and the opposition will play in a way that they believe is the best way to win the match against that opposition. Back in January, I started thinking about the way to defeat the press. The press works because it is designed to win the ball back in the opponents half of the pitch. If our opponent wants to stop that happening, their coach tells their defenders not to dwell upon the ball, not to try to pass the ball in the final third and to hit the ball back at us into the space beyond our defensive line. In that sense, they are using the same tactics as we use. When the opposition does that, there will be no point in us playing a forward press, because there will be nothing and no-one to press. Two of the three players who normally press have to be used in a different way. Did this make our team less effective? Of course it did. Our owner wants the team to press, our coach wants the team to press, the team was assemble using players with the energy to press, but when there is nothing to press our team has had its main method of play taken away from it. However, our team has been assembled to play that way, and I doubt very much whether they would have been able to win the game by playing any other way to the way that they have been coached to play all season. I would prefer to see my team playing in a different way, and I do think that the coaches of the rest of the teams in the Championship now recognise what they must do to make Ismael's system of play less effective. Nevertheless, if all that you judge by is results, there is a difference between recognising that the system has been rumbled, and devising a system that would work better using those same players. Personally, I would settle for a more entertaining system, but that is not going to satisfy those who judge only by results and points.
I think we have played to the strengths of the team as a whole. Youth, energy, ariel strength in defence and just making life difficult for teams. When playing in the central role, Woodrow needs to either do what he did the other day, and make a late run from deep, or get into positions in the six yard box when the ball goes wide, which is how Dike got the majority of his goals. Too often he's taken up a position too early, around the edge of the box. Makes it almost impossible to create a chance for him.
I agree to a certain extent, Swansea were the team I wanted to avoid, they knew how to stop us,so credit must go to their coaching team. I felt if we had drawn one of the others, we had a chance to make the final game. Not to worry though, it's been a far greater season than anyone could imagine. I do feel the team needs more quality and experience, otherwise we will go backwards.
the perennial need for a target for the Oakwell faithful never lets you down. It’s always someone. I mean I bet there are thousands of forwards who could score 49 goals in 2 and a half seasons while being played out of position.
still think the only things that really cost us were , the final ball and inability to score enough goals
Not having a go at him because every striker has a dry spell, but he played in pretty much every position up front at some stage , had a fair amount of chances which he failed to put away or hit the target, that's nothing to do with systems
The game should be judged on chances created and we did exactly that . It’s no good any system if you squander chance after chance . Saturdays game wasn’t about systems it was about taking chances presented . Swansea didn’t play a system that depended on us missing these chances . Our system was better in that we stopped them creating chances it was that they scored worldys to beat our system . A system can change the way you play and that’s fair enough but we had a system on Saturday that prevented them with easy opportunities and provided us with good goal scoring opportunities as frustrating as it was the system proved good the finishing wasn’t the systems fault .
I don’t think we missed any obvious chances in the second leg. We huffed and puffed but didn’t create a great deal. We missed a couple of chances in the second half at Oakwell but only Britain’s was a good chance that should have been put away the rest were half chances.
When I first started going properly in the mid to late 80's, a Barnsley player getting into double figures of goals seemed a utopia. MacDonald, Lowndes, Wylde, Agnew.... a player to get 10 in a season..... for Barnsley.... is that even possible, I thought!?!?!?!?
Think most teams have hated playing against our style this season and it can be successful again next season with a few tweaks and added personnel. For such a high intensity press we don’t make many changes from game to game, I think that showed towards the back end as we weren’t as nearly as in your face as a couple of months before which is understandable due to the schedule and like I said the lack of depth in the squad. Matty James left a big hole in the Side, as much as people will say look at the results and palmers done this and that,James consistently won the ball and very rarely gave possession away, freed mowatt up abit to get on the ball and make forward runs. Lastly the long balls, the vertical football. I get it, the more the balls up In there half the less chance they can score. I’m all for it but with decent balls, into the channels to run onto, defence splitting balls, pulling a target man out to the full back and working off that but more and more we just saw hopeless long clearances. I’m just praying the board invest, we keep the squad and gaffer together.