Cripps wrote:LEF wrote:elkanofan wrote:LEF wrote:I thought we played really well for the first 20 mins as we closed you down and stopped you playing but then we sort of fell into our pattern of keeping the ball but not doing anything with it. We never really troubled you and, if I'm being honest, you were there for the taking. There wasn't any players that stood out in that game for either side. Giourd looked good without being amazing, but I thought Gabriel looked a bit dodgy. Not the greatest of games although I think you probably deserved it in terms of looking a bit more threatening than us. Anyway, all the best for the rest of the season!
Yes, a little biased but fair assessment man
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You did look dangerous and and we did look very passive in the first half. I think the issue you have really comes down to you guys really lacking a playmaker and conductor to make quick decisions with passes in the middle of the park.
players like Barkey who is still young but doesn't make decisions quickly enough, partly a confidence issue, partly an issue where the guy has been playing first team football for 2 years now and needs to keep improving and not rely on his honyemoon seasons from before.
Mirallas, Naismith are like Hazard, attackers, primarily from out wide who have good dribbling skills and are good at running at people but aren't playmakers. If you had one today you would of caused us serious problems.
I think we have been missing a playmaker for a long while, possibly since we sold Arteta. Well, we'll have to concentrate on the next game now. I'll do a bit of moaning on our forum.
I've been meaning to ask.
Was Arteta ever as bad for you as he has been for us?
He played out wide mostly for us, which I thought was frustrating as he was more influential central. The times he did play centrally, he was pretty good at getting forward and trying to make things happen and I thought he'd suit you guys more than us because you have better movement so he'd have better passing options therefore creating more chances.
I'll be honest, I haven't seen him play much lately so forgive me if my assessment isn't that great but from what I've seen he plays in a deep-lying playmaker role but doesn't really get forward much and seems to play the simple passes, which just recycles possession and nothing more. This season I'd forgotten he even played football much less played for you guys.