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Creativity poor

I reckon Angulo and Talbi will kick on big time next season. The problem is we needed players that were up to speed as soon as they came in the door and these are 2 young players with loads of potential looking to make a step up from a lesser league.
No winger in world football would stand out in Regis system tbf
 

There is a valid discussion to be had here but using Saturday as a basis to go off feels a bit pointless. We were a man down for most of it and rightly were prioritizing defending a lead for a lot of the game for that period. Bit of a shame we didn't get to really see how/if the tweak in personnel would have made much difference compared to last week.

In the longer term though I think the creativity problem is mainly in the wider areas. Most teams defend like we do blocking out the central part of the pitch so we need to make things happen in the channels to both assist and score. I don't think it's fair to pick on individuals, as no one in our whole squad has really looked consistently good in those areas. We could well see a new left and right first choice winger come in with Talbi, Angulo and Jocelyn being cover. Le Fee and Rigg are options which only work with properly attacking full backs and a lot more possession and territory, I think. Most their minutes should probably come playing as no.8 and no.10s in our system.
This is the most sensible reply I think. The only thing I’d add is that from my perspective, RLB sometimes seems slow to change a gameplan that isn’t working. Like when we were down 2-0 at Forest he insisted they still piss around and push out from the back. It wouldn’t have made a difference to that game but sometimes we leave it too late to bring on subs imo
 
I think it doesn’t help that we hardly ever get our full backs overlapping the wingers taking the 2nd man away because a lot of teams sit in and double up, I’d like to see a lot more movement and interchange a bit like Bournemouth do in the wide areas, and Leeds the past few months tbh
 
This is the most sensible reply I think. The only thing I’d add is that from my perspective, RLB sometimes seems slow to change a gameplan that isn’t working. Like when we were down 2-0 at Forest he insisted they still piss around and push out from the back. It wouldn’t have made a difference to that game but sometimes we leave it too late to bring on subs imo
Fair. I'm certainly not beyond saying RLB can get things wrong. He did take too long to change things away at Man U when we were getting hammered at 1-0 down and it should have been changed ASAP before it got to 2-0 and we didn't. We then changed once we went 2-0 down and made a fist of the game. If we'd changed it sooner we may have got something out of the game.

Overall though, I see progression for us as being about evolution rather than revolution. Most of what we've done this season has been effective with the squad we have and we can't/shouldn't seek to change too much, too quickly and we could go backwards.

Having more physical, pacey wingers looking to run in behind and tussle with full backs whilst chasing balls down played in behind the opponent's backline (ala Brentford with Schade and Ourttara) would help us a lot however. That should suit the way we play a lot of the time where we like to be deep rather than pressing opponents in their own half. Crucially, it would give us a more direct route out from the back and stop us short passing our way into trouble when we are under a high press like against Forest.

Obviously coaching the team to play to those tactics will still be needed but right now I think the issue is we don't have many, if any, wingers available who have the combination of strength and pace to do that. Maybe Angulo? The likes of Rigg and Le Fee are the last sort of players who you would look to do that with.
 
I get where this comes from and it's perfectly valid to raise concerns etc...

But given that our summer recruitment was all about getting in physical players, and building a solid defensive unit, and ultimately making a team that is capable of staying up, and the fact that RLB miraculously got the whole team hitting the ground running... I think it's a bit daft to complain about our creativity too much.

To expect us to be solid at the back and to score at will, all within our first season back, is unrealistic.
 
I get where this comes from and it's perfectly valid to raise concerns etc...

But given that our summer recruitment was all about getting in physical players, and building a solid defensive unit, and ultimately making a team that is capable of staying up, and the fact that RLB miraculously got the whole team hitting the ground running... I think it's a bit daft to complain about our creativity too much.

To expect us to be solid at the back and to score at will, all within our first season back, is unrealistic.
I think this is largely fair but the vast majority of fans (well the reasonable ones who don’t demand an airstrike on RLB’s house) recognise that we (with the current squad) can only realistically decide one of those options. Either we defend tightly and score “opportunistically” or we attack from goal to goal. With the current squad we don’t have the depth to play both.

I think what’s upset fans is that in the recent run of 6-7 games, we seem to have stopped doing either of those things particularly well. I don’t deny we’ve won and drawn some absolutely massive games and ensured our survival into next season but we have had a massive defensive and scoring drop off
 
We need goals: let’s say 50 for next season;

Defenders 10
Midfielders 12
Strikers/Wingers 25
Penalties 3

Defenders will get their share. We need to sign midfielders who can score goals. Plus a Calvert-Lewin type forward.
 
We're the 4th lowest scorers in the PL.Something has to change,lumping it upto Brobbey isn't working often enough.
We need to sign midfielders who can score goals.
This,it's been so obvious since Xmas.Back then many were expecting GX and ELF to maybe get 3-4 each before the season ends,Sadika and Diarra maybe 2 or 3 each.Unless we sign a 15-17 goal striker it'll not change next season and we'll be down there.
 
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Far too many still overlooking the actual system, set up and tactics. Especially with the role of the wingers and midfielders.

We moved away from it and what made us successful/solid a bit and shipped 9 in 2.
 
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