[Albion] Less Hectic Not Busy

[Bold Seagull]

CH has already said that transfer activity will be down on last season, so don’t expect too many incoming players and some who are already fringe players will be retained imo.

Max of four incoming is my guess.

Agreed, quality not quantity is the order of business.

 

[sydney]

Charlie Adams, reminds me of an out of work brickie, who huffs and puffs his way through a game, minus a bacon buttie!

he will do well in the championship unless some daft prem manager signs him....

 

[Stat Brother]

It's such a bizarre argument.

"We need more goals from central midfield - so let's break up the partnership that was heavily responsible for not conceding goals".

All the while ignoring the fact only Murray has scored from the centre forward position.
While Dunk and Duffy have had the ball laser guided to the middle of their foreheads at over 80% of all corners taken.

 

[Bold Seagull]

Players do get replaced, its the way it goes. We were happy with Goldson, but he brought in Duffy. We were happy with Stockdale, but he brought in Ryan, we thought March would be great in this league, but he went and got Izquierdo. Its continual incremental improvement, and one day we'll possibly incrementally improve the manager as well.

Of course its been 4 (?) years since we sold a player we didn't want to (Ulloa), and we've continuously improved the team since then. That will change at some point when one of our stars gets plucked

I think the answer will be Dale Stephens, btw

I'm pretty sure I didn't think that.

 

[Papa Lazarou]

It's the default response, because since he arrived CH has never played a goal scoring 'box to box' midfielder.

The 2 in midfield's primary role has been to break up opposition attacks, retain the ball and/or get the ball out wide, quickly.

If CH were to drop either Stephens or Propper they would be replaced by a player who, like them, would first and foremost NEVER be behind the ball when the opposition are attacking, no matter how quick the break is.

You can't have it both ways.

You can't have a new 'attacking goal scoring midfielder' (as somehow Gross doesn't perform that role) and Chris Hughton.

The only way we could accommodate another midfielder would be to only play 1 winger at a time, but giving them licence to operate on either side, with 3 behind Gross and the striker.

 

[Stat Brother]

The only way we could accommodate another midfielder would be to only play 1 winger at a time, but giving them licence to operate on either side, with 3 behind Gross and the striker.

As our 'popular' Spurs fan favours that disjointed approach, I think we can safely say:-

'That's horseshittery of the finest order'.

 

[Kalimantan Gull]

So you're another who wants the club to replace Hughton.
Strange.

If you offered us Pep Guardiola....?

Is it impossible for us to outgrow CH...?

Is it possible to say these things and not be treated as a Hughton-outer...?

 

[Kalimantan Gull]

I'm pretty sure I didn't think that.

Ok. I did

 

[Stat Brother]

If you offered us Pep Guardiola....?

Is it impossible for us to outgrow CH...?

Is it possible to say these things and not be treated as a Hughton-outer...?

No
No
No.

 

[Kalimantan Gull]

No
No
No.

Have a read

 

[Billy the Fish]

If you offered us Pep Guardiola....?

Is it impossible for us to outgrow CH...?

Is it possible to say these things and not be treated as a Hughton-outer...?

Stoke, Southampton, WBA, Swansea, West Ham have all demonstrated this season the depth of the proven manager pool. The pool isn't a pool at all, it's a puddle of cockroach infested shitpiss.

I'd say that it is impossible for us to outgrow CH. Any equal of CH who becomes available will be snapped up by a bigger club than us. We'll be in the same position as Watford taking risks on managers from Spain or Italy.

 

[Bob!]

I agree with both of you. I worry about the full-backs, but only against the best teams, BUT, as they club have given Bruno and Bong new deals, plus we'll still have Suttner and Schelotto, the club (who know better) have confidence in them.

And to chip in on the 'goal-scoring' midfielder subject, we've been very lucky to be able to cover 3 positions with 4 players this season (Gross, Propper, Stephens and Kayal) and we never had periods with 2 or more of these out together, but I'd suggest we need 2 more players in that group. These 2 players need to have more pace, and more of a goal-scoring threat from deep (other than Gross). And how do we fit them into our team? Well, they have to be as good or better than what we have, so they either replace (sacrilege I know) the current players as 1st choice OR they alternate, perhaps starting from the bench until bedded in, like Izzy.

Think of it this way - when Chris makes his usual 60-70 min midfield substitution, imagine having someone like Nick Powell* on the bench to come on and offer MORE attacking threat rather than simply defending what we have. (*Or someone else just as exciting).

We probably won't be as fortunate with injuries this season, and that's when we'll need good cover in depth.

We did have Izzy Brown as Gross' cover whilst he was here.

 

[Papa Lazarou]

As our 'popular' Spurs fan favours that disjointed approach, I think we can safely say:-

'That's horseshittery of the finest order'.

Lol.

Out attacking efforts often rely upon width and pace in these positions. In games where we don't effectively engage the wingers or full backs we get 'stuck' and under pressure, which is most apparent away from home.

I think that at times, IF we had pace or something different centrally we could play a single winger (away from home) and offer 2 threats going forward. I would mean the winger being capable to switching, which they all have done at times.

 

[Papa Lazarou]

We did have Izzy Brown as Gross' cover whilst he was here.

Yes, he was very unlucky with injuries. Ideally we would have had the following players for the midfield berths.

Gross, Brown, Propper, Stephens, Kayal and Sidwell.

Sidwell got a long term injury and was out of the picture for almost the entire season.
Brown got injured after about 17 minutes and never really got back in the frame before another long term injury.

Which left us with 4 to cover 3 positions. We need to replace Brown and Sidwell for 18/19.

 

[Stat Brother]

Lol.

Out attacking efforts often rely upon width and pace in these positions. In games where we don't effectively engage the wingers or full backs we get 'stuck' and under pressure, which is most apparent away from home.

I think that at times, IF we had pace or something different centrally we could play a single winger (away from home) and offer 2 threats going forward. I would mean the winger being capable to switching, which they all have done at times.

For me the problem comes where we don't effectively engage the wingers or full backs, and Gross becomes marked out of the game.

He doesn't get the yard of space because nobody is pressing either or ideally both fullbacks.

This happens so often it has to come direct from the manager.
I just can't see a very different home v away attacking set up.

I fully expect next season to be more of the same, but with targeted away matches where the team is encouraged to play more like they do at home.

 

[Nixonator]

Your default response seems to be that we should be replacing Hughton because of our belief that we need to score more goals.

I think Chris knows this as well surprisingly - hence I'm quite comfortable him staying.......

Stephens probably btw if you are so desperate to know - but it could be Propper............

We play with two midfielders who sit back. In other words you want to change the shape of the team.

Spot on.

Our sitting midfielders don't score because they rarely get into positions to score. It's true that they probably could and maybe should have had a couple of goals between them through chances, but nothing more. This isn't a limitation of Stephens and Propper, both are quite capable, but how our manager sets us up to play. You could stick an in-his-prime Lampard in place of one of them, but if he's following the manager's instructions he won't score many. We do have a rather good midfielder in an advanced position who scores and assists a fair bit though...

If we are analysing our scoring metric as a team throughout the season, the biggest concern for me is our missed opportunities at set pieces, particularly from our centre halves.

 

[Papa Lazarou]

For me the problem comes where we don't effectively engage the wingers or full backs, and Gross becomes marked out of the game.

He doesn't get the yard of space because nobody is pressing either or ideally both fullbacks.

This happens so often it has to come direct from the manager.
I just can't see a very different home v away attacking set up.

I fully expect next season to be more of the same, but with targeted away matches where the team is encouraged to play more like they do at home.

But surely in that scenario having a little more guile or pace or even numbers in the middle might make all the difference.

To be honest I think I agree with you assessment of how next season will pan out in terms of tactics - but it would be nice to have the personnel to try a different approach at times, or to change a game.

 

[Stat Brother]

Spot on.

Our sitting midfielders don't score because they rarely get into positions to score. It's true that they probably could and maybe should have had a couple of goals between them through chances, but nothing more. This isn't a limitation of Stephens and Propper, both are quite capable, but how our manager sets us up to play. You could stick an in-his-prime Lampard in place of one of them, but if he's following the manager's instructions he won't score many. We do have a rather good midfielder in an advanced position who scores and assists a fair bit though...

If we are analysing our scoring metric as a team throughout the season, the biggest concern for me is our missed opportunities from set pieces, particularly from our centre halves.

Is the correct answer, with the exception of one thing.

Stephens isn't capable of scoring, with the exception of an anomaly season, DS is a 2 goals a season player.

One year 50% of his goals came from an overhead kick that was played below sea level.

As has happened with March and Knockaert DS has fallen into the expectations trap where for some unknown reason posters on NSC assume he is better than he is and are then outraged when he doesn't live up to their inflated expectations.

 

[Stat Brother]

But surely in that scenario having a little more guile or pace or even numbers in the middle might make all the difference.

To be honest I think I agree with you assessment of how next season will pan out in terms of tactics - but it would be nice to have the personnel to try a different approach at times, or to change a game.

Yeah we're definitely talking around similar ideals, but as with the others your last line makes me wonder.
What you're talking about don't appear to be CH's strongest attributes.

 

[Nixonator]

One year 50% of his goals came from an overhead kick that was played below sea level.

Not correct surely, Stephens scored in some of the most important games in that season.

From memory Burnley and Boro both at the back post.