Midfield Mind Games

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Unofficial Newcastle United Football Club BBS : One Thread

The midfield area appears to attract a lot of posts of late,rightly so IMHO, but after instigating the midfield minefield thread and finding a few variances of opinion , the same worries are coming thro loud and clear again, or are they I ask?

(a) No matter who we use the overwhelming opinion is that we are too lightweight in that department. Solano, Dyer.Bassedas, Glass. Acuna to name but 5. Please define lightweight as a football term ! , do we think that as a unit they are small and fragile? (b) Others use the term lightweight when describing the midfields inability to win the ball , lack of tackling, closing down the oppositions playmakers , is this what we are getting at,

(c)*at this stage I lost my train of thought cos its 10.45pm, Scots TV is blasting out Blaydon Races , Ronnie Simpson is being interviewed , more later from Celts in football.

(d) Back to the original and a couple of thoughts on this >>>> Billy Bremmer and Johnny Giles were knee high to grasshopper, but they were as well as being class footballers were spittin, snarling, nasty pieces of work who dominated the midfield where more often than not they were outnumbered. So you can be small, and lightweight, mmm ,ok insurance of Big Jack and Norman Hunter behind them. BTW LR I rate that Leeds team as one of the best I have seen in reference to your post.

(e) Admittedly we have not got a Viera/Keane type , or even a Batty Wise type, are we making too much of this?

(f) Personally I feel our biggest problem over the years is to divide the team into segments, def/mid/att judge their merits but collectively tend not to look at the team as a whole part. What I am attempting to say in my usual confused style is to play to our strenghts and to a game plan which should have been formulated pre-season .

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2001

Answers

What % of tackles in your average EPL game ,are cleanly won and a attak stemming off it as opposed to interceptions and faulty passes?? Just a thought!

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2001

Buff (you Big Ugly F@t F***er, you!) when I referred to "lightweight" elsewhere, it was in relationship to "midfield bite". I referred to the likes of Wise and Butt in other current successful teams, so as they say, size isn't everything.

To a certain extent, it is attitude rather than stature tho a frame like Vera Lynn or Woy of the W@nkers certainly make their presence felt just on sight alone (Disco Des is the exception to prove that rule!)

Another thing is mobility (and I'm not talking about your firm). ManUre have it in spades. So do @rse and I believe 'pool are getting there too.

Sadly, we have neither mobility or presence. A ballwinner in midfield and someone who can pass direct to feet would suddenly make the defence look a lot better by taking the pressure off them.

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2001


Screach (B52 to u 2 blue), Re your comments, I never once in my post gave the impression that you were an instigator of the "Lightweight Theory", but as they say `truth will out`, interesting to hear about any other views, come in Tommy Harmer, Tony Green, Ernie Taylor , your time is up.

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2001

Another thing Screach, where do you get this mobility from ?, I was under the impression this was a £30 Govt Allowance to allow one to run a Ford Fiesta, Its painfully obvious that me and Dan the man have been pi££ing against the wind this season, movement man , movement or in our case ,lack of it, ah I see where you get this MOBILITY from now!!!

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2001

you both have a point I feel, the midfield needs someone that sweeps in front of the back four -

We also MUST have mobility as this is essential in the modern game, otherwise yer just CR*P....its not ball winning we need its the creative elemnt we need which we have had in fits and starts when two 'smallies' in Dyer and Solano have got it together....

-- Anonymous, March 03, 2001



I reckon the problems in midfield are the fact that the players take too long on the ball. Watching good teams, they play two touches one to control the ball , one to pass. We fumble around looking to see who they can make a safe pass to and give the opostion too much time to settle into thier positions. We have to play with more urgency, the forwards have to make themselves available to recieve the ball.The other problem with our midfield is the lack of balance. We desperatly need another Ginola on the left....

-- Anonymous, March 03, 2001

so we vome back to the question everyone keeps asking - what exactly is wrong with Stephen Glass???

-- Anonymous, March 03, 2001

Bobby doesn't rate him. QED.

-- Anonymous, March 03, 2001

Not sure if I mentioned it last night (probably couldn't think of an appropriate song title) but the MF yesterday was a huge improvement on the shambles witnessed against ManCity. Mind, don't get me wrong - there is still a huge opportunity for improvement, but at least the effort was there and they weren't afraid to put he foot in.

SOlano was OK, but he's clearly in a dip of form. If it was up to me, I'd tell hime to imagine the edge of the penalty area was extended to the other box and not to stray inside that line unless cutting in on goal. His positioning for me is not what it should be. Give us some width Nobby and we'll stretch the opposition a lot more. With two good heareds (well, Shearer is and Ameobi's a tall lad, and one day CC might play again) we need to get round the back and cross. Look at Leeds' goal if you want to see how to beat a good defence.

Bassedas was still absent for too long, and I wonder how long he's going to need to acclimatise. Acuna wasn't fit but still covered a lot of gound. IMHO, Rob Lee made the difference this week. Somebody who understood the English game. Perhaps becasue he grew up playing it??

Glass only came on for the last 5 mins. Not enough time to comment (I never saw him do anything to comment about).

-- Anonymous, March 04, 2001


reminds of another piece of advice....

"you've got to hold and give but do it at the right time,

you can be slow or fast but you must get to the line,

they'll always hit you and hurt you, defend and attack,

there's only one way to beat them, get round the back...."

-- Anonymous, March 04, 2001



That useless bugger Keegan had the team playing perfect football, he knew basically how to play to beat 95% of the teams in the Premiership.

The ball pinged around, as suggested elsewhere, one touch control, second touch pass. (It was often one less than that for some). I always believed this had a knock on effect in that we had no injuries. As no one ever had the ball in possession there was no way, unless you had Cantona and Keane after you, that opposition players could injure you.

Once or twice this season we have moved the ball around and it has been Dyer and Solano who have made it happen.

Of course we need an enforcer in midfield, everyone does. Size doesn't matter as Buff rightly raised Bremner and Giles weren't big, neither was nippy little Archie Gemmell. Robert Lee can do it but he's got nothing else to offer. This shouldn't matter as Solano is his alter ego, he can't tackle at all but can play, sometimes.

-- Anonymous, March 04, 2001


Attitude, lack of it , committment , lack of it , playing for the shirt, playing for the fans,the managers role , our views on here. I have given the matter some thought , tried to pull examples out of the hat, starting from my usual base, ie `There has always got to be a reason` and Why , What , When!!, Having been very much involved over the last 30 years in amateur football as coach/manager I tried at first to draw a anolgy between committment in the non paid ranks and the pro`s, football being the simple game it is.

Not so easy , in the amateur game I have witnessed more bone crunching tackles than in the big game, and in the process of elimin- ation this narrows dow somewhat. My teams have been made up of various trades, professions etc , the brickies, the joiners ,farm hands have without reservation more committment to the cause than my bank employees , white collar workers , estate managers, never in my experience shirking a tackle or getting stuck in. The best in my current team is an asst bank manager , bags o skill , reads the game, too quiet tho ,anticipates situations rather than meet them head on, but when the chips are down ,the battle is still raging,its your joiners that win the war. As most pro`s come thro the system from a early age this does not really back up my theory , apart from a few late developers. So where do we go from here, lets go back in time a few years ,check out the regions , North -v- South , Jock players down here, the Mackays ,Bremmers et al , were they harder more committed from "oop North" ?, could have been but that does not hold water now , the EPL being a global league, taking the argument further is the South American less committed than his European counterpart , does he lack the bite?,the urgency, the bite factor.

After watching two games this week, Milan -v- Parma , and Man U -v- Panth , I forward the following as a reason why we feel that the Toon are too lightweight, the Italian game 2-2 was to my eyes noticeable for the amount of physical tackling that took place, resulting in a stop/start game as 90% were given as fouls , there was no continuity at all and I became bored rather easy, anytime a move looked anyway dangerous , a player went down. In Man U case , with Butt missing I counted the tackles that Roy "The menace" Keane put in Ten, lower, eight lower , 6 lower , Oill give you 5 , players were closed down to a degree,but misplaced passes, bad first touches,and lack of instant control were the main cause of getting the ball back.

Here comes the crunch question mainly directed to those who attend the games, With the changes and more rigourous interpretation of the rules, in particular in regards to the physical aspects of the game , do we maybe, just maybe observe this as a lack of committment?

2 random observation, now SAF knows what it is like to have no shape, tell me a worse sight in football than a Neville bombing down the touchline, knowing he will stop, check back , and put over a ch ball, hold all bets on Phil Mitchell, what are the odds that David B can or will beat an opposing player on the outside, at times I despair.

-- Anonymous, March 08, 2001


Just thought that if anyone mentions Rugby Union that can damage my occupation theory , well if anyone thinks Jeremy Guscott was a site brickie they have my sympathy!!

-- Anonymous, March 08, 2001

He was a labourer not a brickie!

-- Anonymous, March 08, 2001

A brickies labourer then ? deffo not of the hod carrier variety,back garden barbies as opposed to Anderson shelters eh?

-- Anonymous, March 08, 2001


Tell me in your view what stands out if anything with these m/f stats,

Acuna (p 19 goals 2), Lee (p 20 g 0), Dyer (p 30 g 6 ) Glass(p 3 g 2)

Speed (p 31 goals 6), Bassedas (p 11 g 4 ), Gallagher (p 8 g 2 )

Solano (p 27 g 3 ), c.mon Bobby wake up and tell me why?, why , why.

-- Anonymous, March 08, 2001


Moderation questions? read the FAQ