Okay I'll get it out of the way - we were stung by The Bees... . Moving on... . Gary Bowyer said that the emotion uppermost in his mind was frustration -you said it Gary! Frustration, that despite scoring at key times we kept conceding poor goals, frustration that as soon as we score we seem to lose the initiative, frustration that again, even after our recent burst of form, the team returned to type. Still, things could have been worse last night - we could have been Arsenal crashing out of the Europa Cup to a vastly inferior team!
Despite many positive attributes, this Rovers team seems to have two negative modes: either freely scoring and freely conceding or not scoring and not conceding but prone to falling behind early doors. Bowyer's main policy appears to have been playing five in midfield but this has led to the team adopting too defensive an approach. I would hazard that the reason for this is that we don't have anyone in midfield who can burst past the main striker leading to the team tending to play in front of opposition - particulary at home.
I'm not blaming Bowyer and I don't think that there is too much wrong with the team. We have to remember that he is very new to being a manager and he is still learning.
The glaring need is to improve defence. Defence has been poor ever since Chris Samba and Ryan Nelson departed and the case for improving the defence has never been stronger. Time again sloppy defensive errors and a lack of defensive concentration has cost us. Bowyer needs to get back to basics and just make us hard to beat - and then we can kick on from there.
A solid defense would allow us to play with two strikers up front and would enable us to switch more nimbly between defensive and attacking formation. 4-4-2 whilst much maligned can fluidly switch either to 4-2-4 if you are attacking or a more defensive approach if the the midfield hangs back.
I rest my case for the defence! Any (clean) feedback appreciated
Michael
No comments:
Post a Comment