You wake up tomorrow and....you are in charge
1) Evaluate and re-evaluate the players' shortcomings so far.
a) DeRo has lots of technical ability to get past defenders and can finish,
particularly around the box. Long range shooting has been hideous,
crossing marginal. Often holds onto the ball for too long and plays with his
head down, causing our offence to stutter.
Best option: He's a good scorer but a selfish player. We should play him as
a striker at all times; out wide, he can border on disastrous. In the hole,
he's pretty good, but doesn't feed particularly good short balls and holds
onto it for too long.
b) Gerba - Has movement issues, looks and moves a bit unfit, turns well off a player's shoulder; Is a good striker partner when playing two up top in a 4-4-2.
c) White - Still tough to say. Creates space for himself. Moves well laterally off the ball. Hasn't found a knack yet for creating seams between
defenders. Can shoot. Is tall enoguh at 6'2 to be a scoring target man.
d) Barrett - Can beat defenders, very quick first step, can cross, but not
accurately, often leaves it short. Can't hit the broad site of a barn. Links up well on short passing plays. Tackles poorly. Crossing isn't good enough to start him wide, shooting isn't good enough to start him up top. Best option would be as a hole/link player behind a single striker up top or used as a backup only.
e) Vitti. Fantastic dribbling, but again has trouble with shooting and his release is slow. Good lateral movement to create space. Don't know how well he crosses. Might be a wing option. can't play up top and isn't a good enough two-way player to stay in the mid. Play him in the hole, or wide. If he can't play wide, he' either a hole player or a bench player (and as much as Love his techical skill, a release candidate, based on overall value versus salary.)
f) Guevara. Very good technical play and reading of the game, but a lazy
player. He hogs the ball going forward and looks for the "perfect" play,
but has too much confidence in his own skills and gets stripped a lot. Has
days when he performs well as a two-way midfielder but is generally not
reliable enough to be the starter in that respect. If we played with two up
top or a diamond with two strikers and a hole player, he's an option as the
hole guy, same as Vitti and Barrett.
g) Cronin. Right now, far and away our strongest midfielder. He delivers
good long balls, good through balls, good crosses, he tackles moderately
well and his movement/coverage is good. His crossing is so fine, he could
play on the right wing, or as right back. Could also play as right central
mid, going two ways but primarily feeding offensive players.
h) Robinson - Good tackler. Good energy and hustle. Mediocre passer (not
horrible, as recent games have suggested); is streaky. Poor positionally
lately, trying to cover too much ground and being caught up too often.
Panicky distribution lately. Does not marshall the team; temper gets the
better of him.
i) Sanyang - Young, storng, very atheltic, moves well off the ball, reads the game very, very quickly -- perhaps too quickly, as he's been caught out of position a couple of times. But on the whole, a very good prospect. Some concern that he mught be overly aggressive and one-dimensional, although he's keyed a couple of forward moves as well.
j) Jimmy Brennan - Decent winger, gets forward well, crosses very well, cuts isnide well and plays off other players well. Lousy fullback.
k) Gala - Very slight; quick. HAven't seen much of him, but his balance is
exceptional, as evidenced in his first year, when he held off a (Red Bulls?)
defender even though he was being pushed downDon't know what he can do defensively. Tough to peg him at this point. Perhaps a good winger.
l) Adrian Serioux - Good tackler, good passer, reacts slowly to the game
around him and sometimes reads the other team's movement poorly. First
step is quite slow, has a tendency to come in a bit aggressively. Good in a three back line or the second-centre half if his parnter is quick, experienced and strong.
m) Nick Garcia - Seriously overrated right now. Backward movement is very poor, slow first step and poor turn, is easily muscled off the ball and on the shoulder. Reads the game well, communicates well, tackles well. Speed, age and size conspire to make him a liability more ofthen than not.
n) Leslie Fellinga. Who knows? Too early too say.
o) Nana Attakora. Very good positionally, very strong.
Decent-but-not-great in the air. Very solid tackler. Marking is superb, speed is deceptively good. Distribution is mixed and should be watched. Good prospects as a starting centre half, less so as fullback but could fit it in a pinch.
p) Marvell Wynne - Fast as hell, better at interplay that he's given credit
for, shooting favours accuracy over power. Crossing hasn't looked
particularly strong. Positionally weak. Tends to drift inside too much and
hang too far forward. Marks up well, but then tend to lose his man and ball
watch. Tackling has been marginal. Decent wing back, maybe even a winger not-so-good fullback.
q) Danny Dichio - has been used as such an afterthought I almost forgot
about him. I suspect his concussion issues may be having an impact now on playing ability in that he'll go out there even if he shouldn't, but team might not let him. If that's not the case, then he's still our best target forward by a considerable margin and one of our best finishers. Not mobile. Should have a playing partner. Doesn't play well at the top of a 'v' offense, due to poor speed, but plays well in a 442 as a traditional hold-it-up-and-dish-it guy. Finishes very well.
r) Stefan Frei -- Good reactions, good reads, good positioning, good
distribution. Is too slow coming for balls into the box, tentantive. Isn't helped much by defense. Needs more upper body strength to muscle through to ball in the box.
t) Emmanuel Gomez - Almost forgot Gomez! Good tackler, good ball skills
and movement for a defender. needs to put some bulk onto his frame.
Aerial skills look decent. Makes overconfident decisiosn sometimes, takes
risks. Good prospect as a centre half. Might need to start him, even though he's not ready.
2) Eliminate or mitigate the impact of the weakenesses.
Here are some of obvious problems.
a) Our offensive "skill" players have conflicting roles and are individualists.
That means we'll score some goals, but our time of possession will be
poorer, and we'll require "brilliant moments" to get our goals.
b) Our starting midfield has never worked well together. Guevara is just too one-dimensionally offensive and suffers from "carry the team" disease. He's too inconsistent. Robinson's positional play is already suspect and declines when he has to cover for behind Amado. His tackling is good, but he's prone to overaggression.
c) Our wide play is limited, not by our wide options so much as by the lack
of any height or aerial skill inside the box outside of Danny D.
d) Defensively, our supposed starters are only marginally up for the task. I
would say Garcia is done, well past his prime. Serioux is a second centre
half, but well better than Garcia. He whines like a fucking girl, though.
e) We're tactically incohesive, for a variety of reasons, but largely just due to the combined nature of those individual player faults.
3) Here are some proposed
.
a) Adopt a stable backline system. The offensive end can vary depending on what the other team is doing. But our defensive record and lack of quality in depth suggests we need to keep things straightforward back there. At the same time, the general scarcity of overall wide players suggests playing wide backs instead of midfielders.
So, we play a 3-man backline. We bench Garcia, and respect that Serioux
and Attakora read the game better than Gomez at this point, while Gomez
has the obvious advantage in the air:
At fullback, Marvell has too many offensive pluses to leave out, and
his positonal faults are correctable (and have been gettign better as this
season has progressed.) Plus, we need cronin inside.
On the other side, Jim Brennan is a better mid than full, but would be less exposed with a flat back
three.
In the midfield, the Amado/Robbo duo has never been able to hold up the
ball to create more tempo and possession. Guevara is caught forward too
much and I believe age is catching up with him somewhat, limiting him to mainly being offensive. Robbo's positioning and passing this season has been atrocious. Plus, neither man is good in the air, allowing teams to switch fields/headman on us with impunity.
Meanwhile, the best passer on the team right now is cronin, who is being
used as a utility player wherever need. Put him in the midfield as the creativ midfielder, allowed to play both ways.
Amadou Sanyang is hella tall, as well as being mobile and athletic. He
covers as much or more ground that Robbo, is faster, and passes better.
He may be more rash, but his list of positives over Robbo outweights his
negatives. Plus, he looks good in the air
.
I'd play Cronin, the two-way player, on the same side as Wynne, to force
win to track back more and expose him more. He needs to be pushed into
doing it right, and that's easier when he already has Attakora behind him
as cover. If you put Sanyang on that side, he can cover for Wynne, but will end up doing it repeatedly and screwing up our midfield holding.
That leave us with three offensive positions. We change these up , but given that DeRo is only really effective right now as a striker (and I suspect that's his future), the most sensible would be a diamond.
-----------------------Frei--------------------------
------Attakora----Gomez----Serioux------------
Wynne------------------------------------Brennan
-----------------Cronin-----Sanyang---------------
-----------------------Vitti--------------------------
--------------DeRosario----Dichio-----------------
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Originally Posted by prizby
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