A major problem in our play

[CharlieMansonsSquint]

1) these so call 'heroes' of ours that Rafa has assembled aren't quite up to scratch.
2) Rafa like GH tends to have a safety first approach to football.

The other 3 are better than us, have more attacking players and thats it.

Agree with you apart from point 2. We go at teams at home but not away, and I have no idea why.

Home or away we should be dictating the game from the first. IMO our first half performances away to the bitters, Bolton and Sheffield United were a disgrace. We were content not to concede, there was a lack of urgency. Not good enough, though I suspect as Pete suggested that certain players just aren't up to it, that's a big part of it.

[BrooklynRed]

Upfront its Kuyt plus a.n. other and I personally would go with Crouch

I agree with this because both players can hold up the ball so well and bring our midfield into the attack, IF and only IF we can play more through the middle. If we're only whipping in mediocre crosses for Crouch to head comfortably at the keeper's chest and not mixing up the point of attack, well, it's useless.

[Craig_H]

A month on, and these problems are exposed more and more with each game....

[marcgerard]

We are making a slow, painful transition from the type of football that was so effective in Europe away from home. Two banks of four quickly forming to smother any attacking threat but also making it difficult to get numbers into the box, quite often even when playing well we did nt score as many as we should and in tight games such as at Old Trafford and Stamford Bridge last season if we missed the few chances we had we were punished.

The buying of Gonzalez and Pennant was supposed to give us increased width but away from home we do not use the full width of the pitch as effectively as we do at home. I think the transition has been made harder by three factors a) Poor individual form so far b) Fitness levels below the levels needed for such an approach. This has also affected the tempo of our game too. The exception here is Sissoko, but even so we have been exposed through the centre more this season already than we have for a long time c) Teams working our left side in order to get two players at the back post to out jump Finnan. Last season virtually all teams tried this on but mostly they failed, this season has been very different; this has nt been just a problem away from home either.

Fitness levels being improved is an ongoing process but individual form must be improved quickly, especially in the use of the ball and in movement off it.

As things are I do not see this happening until some time after Christmas.

[Howard_lfc]

DJS - dunno if you've seen any of my posts of late but I've been banging on about our forwards being detatched from the midfield - and we have no 'runners' a la scholes, cahill, lampturd as your correctly say. This is a major flaw in our play.

The game against Boro was a classic example of Xabi sitting ontop of the two centre halves - leaving SG with a huge gap to fill (on his own) up to the front men; and he couldn't do it.

Houllier always said that he wanted his centre halves to pass forward and hit feet - and if they couldn't do it then he'd get somebody who could. Xabi seems to have taken this responsibility from them.

[dww]

The game against Boro was a classic example of Xabi sitting ontop of the two centre halves - leaving SG with a huge gap to fill (on his own) up to the front men; and he couldn't do it.

Houllier always said that he wanted his centre halves to pass forward and hit feet - and if they couldn't do it then he'd get somebody who could. Xabi seems to have taken this responsibility from them.

It's an interesting point about SG having to fill the gap between midfield and attack on his own. I was thinking about why Pennant in particular seems so keen to come inside. I think that the plan must be for the two wide midfield players to do this - which is why SG on the wing would be a better option should we have two other good CMs. Similar to how Arsenal used to play before Fabregas came through.

I was quite surprised that neither Bellamy or Kuyt came deep against Boro which would seem a natural way to link midfield to attack, it might also help Bellamy keep onside. Do you think this is just poor decision making on their behalf or are they instructed to keep two up front?

I think that Alonso has had to drop deeper due to the poor form of the defenders. Even Agger was wasteful with the ball out of defense against Middlesbrough. Hopefully if we can keep a settled back four then people will find form and Xabi can push up which will in turn narrow the gap between midfield and attack.

[Michael]

DJS... I agree 100% with your first post!

[Depth_Charge]

It is a problem - we don't get enough players in the box in dangerous situations and we're asking a lot of our strikers on these occasions.

The Chavs, Utd and Arsenal all have a number of players who will pop-up in and around the box when they are surging forward, whereas we seem reasonably content to leave it to the frontmen and hope that occasionally a stray winger might make his way in there too.

Couple this with the fact that we don't really have a player who is willing to run at people and take them on and the result is that we rarely commit defenders or pull covering players away from their designated job of marking our frontmen. Bring back John Barnes I say.