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Mincing in the tackle will cost us promotion

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Exapno Mapcase said:
Tight triangles, flicks and back heels in the box do my head in
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Backheels when in a defensive position is one of my biggest issues. Happened a few times yesterday however there was one in particular in the first half which was criminal, think it was either Neil or Gooch? I suspect the latter as it was down the left side. Caught us completely on the back foot and gave them a good opening for free, when we hadn't until that point managed to come close to creating a chance half as good as that, and we just gifted them one.
 
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Definitely need to add physicality. Doesn't matter if they aren't great players, just get stuck in and hopefully they can manage a 5 yard pass to someone who can play a bit. Proper hard bastard central defender, proper hard bastard central midfielder, a striker because we're fucked if Stewart or broadhead get injured, and a right back because of Huggins injury. Get that in January and I'd be quite confident. Surely, in league one, it can't be hard to find fairly cheap, physical as fuck cloggers?
 
I disagree with the whole ‘hard bastard’ doesn’t matter if he’s crap thing. The game has moved on since then.

What we need is some balance in the team with our proper fullbacks in place. As an aside we really need another right back for the ‘2 players in each position’.

I think we need to look for a midfielder in January but with similar attributes to Neil. Someone who can help as cover, maybe another youngster.

I’d also say we need cover for Winchester as, for me, I can’t see Evans stringing a long enough set of games together to have an impact this year. But it should be a Winchester type midfielder not an old school enforcer.
 
It’s something that needs sorting in January. Don’t think the way we start so many away games helps the matter though. We start very slowly and allow the opposition to get right on top of us and struggle to find any rhythm.
 
PS said:
We can be bullied. Deny us space, harass and get stuck into us... and we struggle. Pritchard has a lovely touch and pass - but someone of his stature can be pushed about. Neil, Doyle and Dajaku are still young and can be pushed out of their stride and denied space.
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When Burns had it on the touchline and was faced up by one of our lads he had all the time in the world to work out how he wanted to get out of the situation. I’m not suggesting our players should just dive in and leave the player free to run away with the ball but it wouldn’t have hurt to put both him and the ball into touch so he thought twice about hanging on to it next time.
 
We did get bullied at times yesterday, in the first half especially.

Hoofball from Hoff to Stewart barely worked once. Dajaku was constantly outmuscled by their left back.

Second half we were more at it. Neil and Winchester put their foot in plenty, as did Flanagan.

Don’t think you’ll ever see Pritchard going to ground… and if you remember Embo at Gillingham I’d rather not see players who can’t tackle just flying in for the sake of looking hard.
 
Easy for us to say I suppose.

Might be a different story if we were playing and knew the officials in this division are so incompetent that you could be on the receiving end of multiple leg breaking challenges a game and your opponent won't even be booked.
 
It's the one big weakness in Neil's game, far too weak in the tackle. Hume is also weak as piss and Doyle and Flanaghan aren't that dominating for centre-backs. Pritchard, Dajaku etc are fannies too but at least they're attacking players. It's why we struggle against anyone who tries to rough us up.
 
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