Wingers and tactics

[Dorset Seagull]

Have been thinking about our winger situation after watching the Spurs game and need some views on a thought I had.

All our wingers are exceptionally quick and skillful and are excellent at either hitting the byeline and crossing, cutting inside and having a shot at goal or threading a pass.

However watching the Spurs game I felt that whenever a cross went in it seemed that Kaboul was winning every header and clearing the ball.

Does this mean that as we don't really have a tall target man that much of our quality wing play could be wasted as a large % of it will be of the hit byeline variety?

 

[BensGrandad]

I think that we should try to play through the defenders rather than over them and must get the ball forward to CMS quicker as he is sitting on the defenders shoulders waiting for the ball to come through.

 

[ferring seagull]

Have been thinking about our winger situation after watching the Spurs game and need some views on a thought I had.

All our wingers are exceptionally quick and skillful and are excellent at either hitting the byeline and crossing, cutting inside and having a shot at goal or threading a pass.

However watching the Spurs game I felt that whenever a cross went in it seemed that Kaboul was winning every header and clearing the ball.

Does this mean that as we don't really have a tall target man that much of our quality wing play could be wasted as a large % of it will be of the hit byeline variety?

Perhaps you are quite correct and possibly that is the very thing that Gus has in mind when he says he is looking for an out and out striker.

 

[perseus]

Have been thinking about our winger situation after watching the Spurs game and need some views on a thought I had.

All our wingers are exceptionally quick and skillful and are excellent at either hitting the byeline and crossing, cutting inside and having a shot at goal or threading a pass.

However watching the Spurs game I felt that whenever a cross went in it seemed that Kaboul was winning every header and clearing the ball.

Does this mean that as we don't really have a tall target man that much of our quality wing play could be wasted as a large % of it will be of the hit byeline variety?

I think you have to read the Poyet (understandable) and Hughton (puzzling) tactical advice.

With a small striker the tactics is to thread the ball through for the striker to run on to. Trouble is the defence know this and do their best to prevent it.

Therefore, it makes sense to have another option to meet the quicker longer ball. I was thinking of a Zamora type rather than a target man with his back to goal. The striker arrives late.

My tactical nous: you cannot play on both wings at the same time. I have not watched the Albion that much recently but it seems we have two sitting midfielders and the important (central) midfielder which was Elliott Bennett (sort of, but more right sided). This blatantly did not work against Stoke because Bennett was not good enough. Sparrow might be a better bet in a 4-3-3? Bennett was ideal in a 4-4-2.

GUS TACTICS:

Countering a team that defends deep | Tactics | FourFourTwo Performance

 

[Conkers]

Bergkamp

 

[clarkey]

CMS is good in the air dont forget. Can think of two occasions he got ahead of Dawson to win a header in the box.

 

[perseus]

This is a very abridged way to play the 4-3-3:

Playing with three attackers | Tactics | FourFourTwo Performance


This does not mention the important role of the third midfielder.

 

[perseus]

How to make the opposition play the long ball game | Tactics | FourFourTwo Performance


This is the one that is harder to understand. You can't play a pressing game for 90 minutes. A bigger pitch helps to counteract this cause the passing side can find more space by pushing the right back forward in 4-3-3 (classic style). And the running off the ball for the two front men and left winger.

I hope the crowd are patient at Falmer, because sometimes they weren't at Withdean.

 

[goldstone]

We need someone like that new striker at Palace. What's his name? Glen somebody. Great in the air apparently.

 

[Freddie Goodwin.]

Redknapp produced a masterstroke in moving bale over to the right and exposing Painter. It took too long to spot the danger and give him some help.

Alternitivly, we could have pushed somebody wide right into the space bale left but our main attacks were down our left.

 

[Biscuit]

I think the quality of the opposition restricted us to crossing as we were struggling to find the space to pass between the defense. We won't be coming up against teams as good as Spurs most weeks! And lets face it we still score two great goals.

Can people stop mentioning Bergkamp please? I very much doubt he'll see ANY first team football this year apart from cup games. Barring injuries we'll have CMS, Hoskins, Barnes and Buckley if need be.

 

[Dorset Seagull]

But potentially without a target man much of the good wing play will be lost with nobody to win balls in the air. The main point of having fast wingers is to beat the fullback and get to the byeline to cross to a target man

 

[Seagull27]

Have been thinking about our winger situation after watching the Spurs game and need some views on a thought I had.

All our wingers are exceptionally quick and skillful and are excellent at either hitting the byeline and crossing, cutting inside and having a shot at goal or threading a pass.

However watching the Spurs game I felt that whenever a cross went in it seemed that Kaboul was winning every header and clearing the ball.

Does this mean that as we don't really have a tall target man that much of our quality wing play could be wasted as a large % of it will be of the hit byeline variety?

I don't think we need to worry too much about our wing play. Firstly, as already stated, we won't be coming up against Premiership quality defenders very often this year.

As you point out, our wingers our very good at cutting inside to shoot/thread a pass. You see LuaLua and Noone doing this a lot, many of our goals from wing play last year didn't actually involve running wide down the wing and sending a cross in. Remember Sparrow's goal against Charlton? Kaz went down the wing, then cut inside a fair way before sending it across, at which point all the defenders were already out of the game.

When it comes to it, both Barnes and CMS can both score with headers and have done, so I don't think the target man problem will be much of an issue. In the games it is, I think Bergkamp will be used as that was probably what he was bought for.

If anything, I'd say an attacking midfielder in the Bennett mould is needed more than a target man, which could possibly be Buckley. If the wing play isn't working out then it helps to have someone we can channel play through in the centre to play through balls for the strikers.