Posted January 27th, 2010by Rahoul Baruah2 Comments »
My first midweek game in ages against an “ambitious” side with lots of money and love of merry-go-rounds saw 23500 at the City Ground – a decent attendance for a cold Tuesday night, especially as QPR didn’t bring that many.
Mr Davies saw one change from the team against Reading, with James Perchio replacing the suspended Nicky Shorey at left-back. From the sounds of it we are working hard to secure a loan extension for Shorey, so I hope it’s not the last we see of him in a red shirt.
So the line-up was:
Campo
Gunter Morgan Wilson Perchio
Cohen McKenna Majewski Anderson
Earnshaw Blackstock
And again our unbeaten run continues, our fantastic form continues and our amazing football continues. The players look so confident they could beat anyone and everyone seems to be enjoying themselves – we barely broke a sweat as we banged them in.
One more goal would have seen us go top, above Newcastle – if I were a Geordie I’d be very nervous right now – when was the last time you complained about only winning five nil?
Lastly, Billy was on Radio 5 – he was stressing the importance of building your infrastructure slowly, of taking your time to go up. But the interviewer said if we carry on like this, we’ll have no choice – we’ll be up this year. To which Billy replied “I still have unfinished business in the Premiership – it holds no fear for me”. Absolutely awesome.
With the news confirmed that Matt Thornhill has left for an initial month’s loan (possibly to be extended) at Cheltenham Town, Vital Forest report that combative-and-mardy-but-kind-of-likeable forgotten man Joe Garner could also be leaving the City Ground on loan, to either Carlisle or Millwall.
In the meantime, Colin Neil Warnock has said that Forest have not bid for Victor Moses (despite reports elsewhere suggesting that he could be a Red by next Tuesday), and Messrs Hughton and Calderwood still hope to prise James Perch away from Forest (with Chris Hughton refuting Billy Davies’ earlier claims that Newcastle were playing dirty tricks by publicising the bid).
Other Reds in the news include Lee Camp confirming that he thinks talk of an England call-up is ridiculous (in case you are interested I would pick Hart, Green and Robinson in that order – let Campo play in the Premier League first), and Chris Cohen waxing lyrical about Billy’s touchline antics and tactical nous. The comments on the latter article show just how popular a player young Chrissy has become, and deservedly so!
Some bloke called Stuart Pearce who says that he used to play for us is now saying that we are going to win the league as we have “spent a few bob in the summer”.
As we are planning on spending, not selling, Forest have rejected a “derisory” offer from Newcastle for James Perch, with Billy Davies not holding back (that makes a change for him) on his disappointment at the story being leaked. I say quite right too, and unless we can retain Shorey, we will need Perchio even more.
Speaking of Nicky Shorey, it has been confirmed that he will miss a single game following his red card against his old club. Unfortunately that is the last scheduled game of his loan period, but interestingly there is no comment such as “Shorey is likely to have played his last game for the club”.
Billy Davies is making a case that his signings have proven excellent value for money, and it is hard to argue if Campo really cost £250k; my Dad was also suggesting that £250k for Ando is proving to be a bargain. In fact, out of the players that Billy has signed, only Joel Lynch has not made a real impact this year (although he played well at centre-half during the early season injury crisis, and is potentially one for the future), and Goldie has been the only one who has looked overpriced at times (although he has made excellent contributions at others).
It is with a sense of inevitability that Arron Davies has left the club, although with a little more surprise that the powers-that-be have also decided to release Joe Heath, Aaron Mitchell and James Reid. Good luck to you all (especially Heathy – he looked OK I thought).
Finally, this little gem from the Championship Manager website: “Radoslaw Majewski is too good for the Championship”!
Posted January 17th, 2010by Rahoul Baruah8 Comments »
GeriRed asked (in the comments) why William Davies keeps playing Cohen (left-footed) on the right and Anderson (right-footed) on the left, when you’d expect them to be the other way around.
Well I’m just a punter who bangs on about tactics without knowing what I’m on about; but in my (ill thought out) opinion, there are good reasons.
In the “olden” days, a winger had two jobs.
The first is obvious: cross it. Wing it, cross it, head it and in was the way. It was English football. An essential skill here was running at the full-back, taking it outside, and then getting your foot around the ball to put in the cross.
The second is slightly more subtle: making space. When your winger has the ball near the touchline, the defence has to move across to cover; leaving space, either on the other wing or for a central midfielder to slip free of his marker.
With the way the game has changed, that first job is much less important than it used to be. Alan Shearer is the last striker I can think of who played that way, with both Blackburn and Newcastle using out and out wingers to get the ball to him.
Instead, today, the second job is much more important.
That’s why, when Paul Hart failed to replace Jim Brennan, his diamond formation suffered – no width (in this case, from the advancing full-backs) meant no space for the attackers.
That’s why, against Reading yesterday, Ando wasn’t actually taking on the full-back and trying to go outside him. Instead he and Cohen were there to stretch the defence, to draw the defenders out of position and make space for Madge, or Gunter and Shorey to run into.
And as they don’t need to go outside their man, as they don’t need to push a cross in from the byline, the fact that they’re left or right footed becomes much less important.
However, there is another reason for the switch that is much more important than crossing and making space. Nowadays, there is another job that wingers are required to do. That is defend.
In the olden days the full-back was on his own when the winger ran at him. Today, we expect the opposing winger to have at least two tracking him. And normally that’s the full-back and our winger.
In our side at the moment, we have Gunter and Shorey (alas no more) at full-back. Of the two I would say Gunter’s real strength is bombing forwards, while Shorey is much more content to advance more slowly. This means that, when the attack breaks down, we have a massive gap on the right hand side.
And ultimately, this is why Cohen is playing on the right (and also why Tyson isn’t making the team). While both Cohen and Ando track back, Cohen is that bit better in the tackle than Ando. So if Gunter is caught, Chris can act as his replacement.
But then again, I’m just second-guessing WMD – he’s the tactical genius, unlike me.
Posted January 17th, 2010by Rahoul Baruah2 Comments »
After our cup exploits against Birmingham, Billy reverted back to his (probably) first choice line-up, in an orthodox 4-4-2 – with a surprise return for Earnie and no place, even on the bench, for the Moooooooooooooooose.
Camp
Gunter Morgan Wilson Shorey
Cohen McKenna Majewski Anderson
Earnshaw Blackstock
The first half was as good a performance as I have ever seen; obviously brimming with confidence and ability. But the second half saw complacency sink in and if it wasn’t for Lee Camp it could well have no points, not three.
Transfer rumours abound, with Ipswich interested in Dele Adebola, and Billy Davies quashing rumours about Victor Moses, while reflecting on our cup exit to Birmingham. In the meantime, Billy also says that we should “make the most” of Nicky Shorey before his likely return to Aston Villa.
Elsewhere, not-actually-Irish former striker Tony Cascarino is so impressed by the Reds’ form that he suggests that we are going up, while Lee Camp is keen for a promotion push. There is an excellent appraisal of our current situation on LTLF, showing that there is much to learn from our defeat the other night, that might help maintain our imperious form in the league.
In other news, James Perch is delighted to be back ahead of schedule, whilst poor old Paul Hart is looking for a job again after just five games in charge at QPR.
Finally, I am not sure that I will ever get bored of this goal from last week
Posted January 8th, 2010by Rahoul Baruah11 Comments »
I finally got round to watching “The Damned United” the other day.
There was one point in the film where Sam Longson (chairman of Derby County) said that the hierarchy at a football club was “chairman, directors, players, fans and at the bottom the manager”.
It’s no secret that I was pretty ambivalent about Billy Davies coming on board; I thought he had been shafted by the Sheep’s board, but the thought of playing it long to Howard, diving and time-wasting didn’t appeal either. And as for my brother …
But our current run of success (I write this having returned from the pub watching us demolish West Brom) is entirely down to William McIntosh Davies.
A few years back, Paul Hart took us to the playoffs with a team that was jam-packed with talent. The enigmatic Marlon Harewood (I still love you Marlon), David “dodgy knees” Johnson, Andy Reid (my brother’s favourite), Michael Dawson (my favourite); all fantastic players. And the diamond formation with Scimeca acting as defensive cover and Brennan and Louis-Jean providing the width was awesome.
But I think Hart was lucky. No injuries that season. The diamond relied upon Scimeca offering cover and the full-backs providing width. I think we lost that play-off game because Hart chose Thompson above Hjelde (Hjelde may have had his faults but we wouldn’t have conceded four goals with him in the back four). And when he lost Brennan and Scimeca, Hart didn’t know how to change the formation to fit with the players at hand.
Things are different with Billy. This is a manager who has built upon Colin Calderwood’s “group” and fostered an amazing team spirit. Just look at how the players rally round each other at every opportunity. But more importantly, look at his tactics. Every substitution is calculated. Every time Cohen and Ando swap wings, you can see why. When he has a go at the fans, he knows what he is doing. I’m not convinced I’d want to go for a pint with the man – but John McGovern also said he wouldn’t want to go for a pint with Mr Clough. I think Billy’s team has less talent than Hart’s side (for the record, I think that only Earnie and Madge that are truly gifted, the rest are “just” talented), but his side is better.
There’s no denying that Mr Davies is really good at his job and our current run is down to him. It’s just a shame that the manager is simultaneously the most important man at the club and the first to be fired when things go wrong.
