Looks like we are the new wimbeldon

[andrew78]

Watching that last night,took me back to watching the dons and fashanu,i hope this is not how we are going to be playing the game now.To be honest i was embarrassed

[Section_31]

That's a bit strong but yeah, even in the first leg it was clear Carroll's prowess in the air was going to be a temptation to play the long ball, it's going to require coaching and discipline to make sure it doesn't happen - I'd like to think Dalglish will be all over that shit, seeing as he built arguably the most entertaining and attacking side English football has ever seen.

 

That being said, when you have an aerial weapon in your armoury there's no harm in exploiting it if the circumstances are right. The mancs murdered us a couple of times by hammering high balls to Sheringham and then having people playing off his knock-downs. You'd take ages trying to build an attack against them, they'd nick it and hammer it long to Sheringham, bypassing our entire midfield. Nothhing wrong with that. Just ask Arsenal fans about the tradeoff between good football and winning.

[JohnnyH]

Watching that last night,took me back to watching the dons and fashanu,i hope this is not how we are going to be playing the game now.To be honest i was embarrassed

 

It is a bit strong. But it is right. The only difference being Wimbledon would haev scored and beaten Braga. That was the ugliest effort at football I'd seen in a long time.

 

But Wimbledon would not have been able to play like we did against the Mancs, or quite a few other games these season.

 

I hope Kenny takes aside a number of our players and fucking slaughters then for the long ball shite we put up with for the entire match. And if it was Kennys idea, then I hope the players tell him they are not doing that shite again.

 

I'd like to hope that if Stevie and Suaraz were on the bench then they would have demanded the ball into midfield.

[piscinin]

Watching that last night,took me back to watching the dons and fashanu,i hope this is not how we are going to be playing the game now.To be honest i was embarrassed

 

The tactics were all wrong IMO and made it look much worse than it really is. If we'd played 3 in the middle as we've been doing, there would have been passing options. There weren't so no prizes for guessing what the next best option was.

 

Hopefully this 442 gets gibbed off until we actually have the players you need in order to play it.

[Red Banjo]

What annoyed me more was everybody's complete refusal to go forward. I was fucking fuming. Everyone playing the game as if we were up in the tie. Im not gonna lie, i swore, a lot. And there was a child a few seats in front. Im not proud but i'll admit i was as angry with those players last night as i've probably ever been. Infact im still as angry now i was last night.

[Guest ShoePiss]

I don't even understand why playing it long to Carroll was seen as tempting, it wasn't effective really. If he has to battle like mad just to get his head on the ball we just get what we saw from him last night, a load of headers won that didn't go to anyone. Just winning every header is useless.

 

Hopefully we can supply him better in future, with Suarez, Gerrard, Kelly and Agger (I know) in the side that is more of a possibility and it would also mean we would have more variation.

[lifetime fan]

You don't spend £35m to then copy Wimbledon's footballing philosophy.

 

Whilst last night was fucking garbage and i have reservations about carrol last night can not be blamed on him.

 

We will use Carrol's ability in the air but it will come from crosses whipped in to the box for him to attack rather than aimlessly hoofing the ball from the back.

[Guest ShoePiss]

You don't spend £35m to then copy Wimbledon's footballing philosophy.

 

Whilst last night was fucking garbage and i have reservations about carrol last night can not be blamed on him.

 

We will use Carrol's ability in the air but it will come from crosses whipped in to the box for him to attack rather than aimlessly hoofing the ball from the back.

 

Agree.

[WrongIslander]

Buy another CB and bring Kelly through at CB and it won't be an issue.

 

Skrtel and Carra both hoof because it's all they will ever do.

[Guest San Don]

You don't spend £35m to then copy Wimbledon's footballing philosophy.

 

Whilst last night was fucking garbage and i have reservations about carrol last night can not be blamed on him.

 

We will use Carrol's ability in the air but it will come from crosses whipped in to the box for him to attack rather than aimlessly hoofing the ball from the back.

 

Exactly. Did we become 'the new wimbledon' when crouch was here!?

 

This place is seriously fucked up at times.

[Red Banjo]

I don't even understand why playing it long to Carroll was seen as tempting, it wasn't effective really. If he has to battle like mad just to get his head on the ball we just get what we saw from him last night, a load of headers won that didn't go to anyone. Just winning every header is useless.

 

Hopefully we can supply him better in future, with Suarez, Gerrard, Kelly and Agger (I know) in the side that is more of a possibility and it would also mean we would have more variation.

 

Said to my mate just before kick off that it was gonna be a horror show. Without the players you mentioned - we don't really have any footballers in the team. Suarez was the reason we beat the Mancs, without him we were always going to struggle, Gerrard hasn't been right for months, but he's still Gerrard so the possibility of something happening is always there. Johnson was the only player who was prepared to have a go last night and that is the real problem for me. The 'wingers' were horrific, truly as bad as i've ever seen. Cole offers nothing, i've forgotten what the point of Maxi is, im bored of saying how utterly toothless and wasteful Kuyt is - but when you have these 3 as the focal point of your attack you are doomed to fail. And look what happened.

[WrongIslander]

Exactly. Did we become 'the new wimbledon' when crouch was here!?

 

This place is seriously fucked up at times.

 

No but we had a much better team then.

 

I'm sure we'll be fine. We'll make improvements to the team and squad that will give us width and allow us to open up the pitch, press the opposition better and get to the byline.

 

Then there's the small matter of Suarez.

[Red Banjo]

Buy another CB and bring Kelly through at CB and it won't be an issue.

 

Skrtel and Carra both hoof because it's all they will ever do.

 

I lost count of the amount of times the ball left the defence, got into the midfield, went out wide, came back inside then either came back to Carra or Skrtel to clear or Reina to pump it long. Whilst i accept Carra shouldn't always take the option to hoof it, the players infront of him have to take a large portion of the blame for why Carroll was on the receiving end of 50 yard balls all night.

[Tyler Durden]

I dont mind us exploiting one of Carroll's biggest weapons as long as its done in the right way, hanging balls up from defence everytime is not exploiting it, getting diagnal and crossed balls in is. I really hope Carra is pulled on it before he gets into the habit.

 

I think we missed Gerrard last night to be honest because anytime the ball was played up to Carroll, Kuyt would for some reason run in about 2 ft away from him instead of looking for the inevitable flicks, Suarez looks a ideal player for Carroll, cant wait for them to play Sunday

[Il Fenomeno]

I lost count of the amount of times the ball left the defence, got into the midfield, went out wide, came back inside then either came back to Carra or Skrtel to clear or Reina to pump it long. Whilst i accept Carra shouldn't always take the option to hoof it, the players infront of him have to take a large portion of the blame for why Carroll was on the receiving end of 50 yard balls all night.

 

The reason for that is they had more people in midfield, meaning they could close our midfield down and still have a spare man. If we hadn't played 4-4-2 the hoofing would've been a lot less, but people are ignoring that and trying to blame it on the CBs or on the midfielders...

 

There was really no need for 2 strikers in this game, we would've been much better with Spearing in the midfield instead of Kuyt...

[Red Banjo]

The reason for that is they had more people in midfield, meaning they could close our midfield down and still have a spare man. If we hadn't played 4-4-2 the hoofing would've been a lot less, but people are ignoring that and trying to blame it on the CBs or on the midfielders...

 

There was really no need for 2 strikers in this game, we would've been much better with Spearing in the midfield instead of Kuyt...

 

We went into the game 1-0 down. I have no problem with going 442 at home and going for a win, imagine the furore if we'd set it up defensively. The shithouse performances of Raul, Lucas, Kuyt, Maxi and Cole cannot be underestimated, dress it up how you will. I let Lucas off last night as he's got a baby on route and his mind may have been elsewhere, but he shouldn't have played if he wasn't ready. The rest of them can get to fuck with their efforts last night. Only players coming out of that without complete embarrassment were Johnson, Pepe and Carroll, and they were far from good.

[Il Fenomeno]

We went into the game 1-0 down. I have no problem with going 442 at home and going for a win, imagine the furore if we'd set it up defensively. The shithouse performances of Raul, Lucas, Kuyt, Maxi and Cole cannot be underestimated, dress it up how you will.

 

They were disappointing and could've played better, just like Man City away, but it was more to do with the tactics than the players IMO. The 4-4-2 just wasn't what we needed in this game, it brought out the worst in players like Wilson, Carra, Lucas, Meireles & Maxi.

 

So far under Kenny we've set up brilliantly against the bigger teams, probably due to Steve Clarke's influence and knowledge of how to stifle teams, but when we're the team expected to attack, we've struggled. Games like Wigan, Sparta x2, Braga x2, West Ham and Fulham we've struggled to do anything against them. Kenny deserves the chance to show what he can do with a proper squad, as he's not had a fit Number 9 yet and he hasn't had a chance to add his own players in, but it's just my early concers over Kenny's tactics and approach to lesser teams. It could be just the squad doesn't suit what he's trying to do, but we'll see next season.

[Gym Beglin]

Anyone who knows Kenny Dalglish and what he's about will not worry for one second about whether or not we're turning into Wimbledon.

It aint happening, not on Kenny's watch.

Yes, we used it last night, but don't be naive enough to think that Kenny was happy with that. He can't control what the back four do with the ball once they cross the white line.

[G Richards]

It's a work in progress. Carroll will show more to his game when Suarez is in and around him. And they will both show a lot more when we add a quality, pacey winger in the summer. And then all three of them will show more to their game when the midfield and defence is right.

 

As we've shown in the league under Kenny, we are not a bad side at all. But there is no depth. The UEFA Cup is making that abundantly clear.

 

Three first teamers in the summer (or more if we dare hope for more than three) and we will be in the mix next season, I'm convinced of that.

 

1. Top notch winger

2. Top notch central defender

3. Top notch midfielder

 

Lots of people have said we need a left back. We could get Taiwo on a free, or I'd be more than happy to keep Johnson there, as he has done very well for us since he switched over.

[Scousa Tomo]

You don't spend £35m to then copy Wimbledon's footballing philosophy.

 

Whilst last night was fucking garbage and i have reservations about carrol last night can not be blamed on him.

 

We will use Carrol's ability in the air but it will come from crosses whipped in to the box for him to attack rather than aimlessly hoofing the ball from the back.

 

Nail on head.

 

We missed creativity in the middle last night ->:whatever:<-, but Kenny can only do so much with the raggady arse squad and players available so although i wudda liked us to have gone all out to win this cup..... at the same time im not 2 arsed coz i just want this season to be over so we can start a fresh an let Kenny do his ting.

[andrew78]

Exactly. Did we become 'the new wimbledon' when crouch was here!?

 

This place is seriously fucked up at times.

 

No but that was shocking last night,evey ball nearly was a hoof ,and someone said in this thread what is the point when no one was getting on to the ball when he was bringing it down or holding it up

[Monkeywool]

What did you expect? We had no creative midfielders in the team, other than Maxi (who did a nice bit of football to put Carroll through and he was offside by a toenail btw) and no pace upfront.

[Hermes]

Against Braga only Cole or Merieles were capable of creating anything, nothing could be expected from the dazzling skills of Maxi, Kuyt or Lucas. When we get some decent players in Carroll's aerial prowess will be an option , not the only option.

[PaulMcC]

Someone will have to have a word with the defenders, Carra in particular, to tell them to not take the easy option to kick it at Carroll's head.

[lifetime fan]

Against Braga only Cole or Merieles were capable of creating anything, nothing could be expected from the dazzling skills of Maxi, Kuyt or Lucas. When we get some decent players in Carroll's aerial prowess will be an option , not the only option.

 

That really says it all.