Front six?????

[Nudga]

Now I haven't been to as many games as some of you guys so feel free to shoot me down in flames and tell me that I am talking b*llocks.
In SO'Ds second and third season we saw some amazing football played by having six players interchanging and attacking with speed and precision. SO'D even said on Radio Sheffield about having six attackers when going forward and ten defenders when under the cosh.
From what I have seen in the last two seasons has been more measured and slow, letting the oppo re-group and snuff out our threat. SO'D seems more worried about the oppo rather than trusting his own old game plan and his own players and giving them something to think about.
It hasn't exactly been edge of seat stuff in the last two seasons, which seems to have created a negative vibe from the fans to the players.
I know that we haven't had the personnel over the last few months but the footballing ethos should be the same for every single player in the squad and the way we play shouldn't be affected.
Reading that Xavi interview which was on here the other day got me thinking about this. We used to be so quick going forward with the six players interchanging making it impossible for the oppo to man mark, which is what Barcelona are set up to do and a way in which SO'D wanted to replicate, as said by himself on Radio Sheffield. Why is he so worried by the oppo nowadays? Or am I talking b*llocks and seeing it differently?
I so wish we would have pushed the boat out to keep Wellens and Green like we have done with Copps and Stock. Billy Sharp would have 20+ goals with those around him.

Thoughts anyone.

[Superspy]

well, my first thought is i DONT think you're talking b*llocks, although i think your final statement might be a tad naive....only because i think if we still had the likes of wellens and green we probably wouldn't have gotten sharp

the bit i dont understand, is what has changed THIS SEASON.

the way i see it is like this...i dont think it's something that has disappeared over the last 2 seasons, i think its been intermittent over the last 3, and that's what i personally don't understand.

championship season 1 first half: couldn't score for toffee, but weren't conceding that many either.

second half: scoring all over the place, best team in the league from boxing day.

second season first half: again didn't score loads, and conceded more in general, but still nothing devastating.

second half: form picked up again, and we sorted out the defence.

this season first half: best start to a season in 5 years, although we were leaky, we were scoring all over the place.

second half: we've stopped scoring but are still leaky....

it seems like in 3 years we've gone from a team who can defend, but struggle to score goals, to a team who can score, but can't defend, but this season its flipped on its arse and now we can't score either...

we're so up and down it seems almost impossible to pinpoint what's going on,as BSTs graphs constantly tell us, haha.

generally speaking i agree that i think SOD doesn't have the confidence in our own team to play our game, which by his own admission he says in most interviews that we aren't good enough to do that, which is perhaps why we don't see as much free flowing stuff. i think he believes if we just concentrated on our game we'd end up going down.

[Boycie]

I know the injury situation as meant we have not had our best side playing this season but I think we have changed the way we play from the slick passing side to a hoof ball style at times.
I cannot see the point in our goalkeeper (Woods obviously following instructions aswell as Sully)kicking the ball 40/50 yards to the left side of the pitch to be hopefully headed onto Billy. It very rarely works yet we persist in this tactic week in week out.
We were far more dangerous when the keeper passed the ball to a fullback/centre back who in turn found a midfielder to build an attack.
I hope when we have our fully fit/best team available we will revert back to our slick, fast moving passing game.

[RedJ]

We also use that same f**king kick off too often. Pass, pass, pass, hoof into the corner.

[Snods Shinpad 2]

Boycie wrote:

I cannot see the point in our goalkeeper (Woods obviously following instructions aswell as Sully)kicking the ball 40/50 yards to the left side of the pitch to be hopefully headed onto Billy. It very rarely works yet we persist in this tactic week in week out.

I'd guess the answer to that would be that Hayter is our best chance of winning the ball in the air, so why bother punting it up to someone who has less chance of winning the header. Problem is though, if we all know this tactic, then we can assume that any half decent opposition manager knows it too. The alternative is to welly it up to Coppinger on the right who would inevitably lose more headers than Hayter would.

We were far more dangerous when the keeper passed the ball to a fullback/centre back who in turn found a midfielder to build an attack.
I hope when we have our fully fit/best team available we will revert back to our slick, fast moving passing game.

Maybe the reason we haven't done this recently is that the opposition have rumbled our game. If the full backs/centre backs are tightly marked, no sane goalie should give them the ball. The only alternative then is to punt it upfield. See above.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Maybe I'm still pissed off from wasting 90minutes of my and my 3 year old's life yesterday. Maybe I'm just an argumentative t**t. But I fundamentally disagree with the basic premises in this thread.

There is a comforting myth built up that back in our early days in the Championship, we were playing champagne football and were just unlucky when we only picked up 2 points from 36.

We weren't. We were plodding, passionless and blunt. We played the ball in front of the opposition defence and went weeks without creating serious chances.

What changed from Xmas 2008 was that we realised that we needed to inject some forward momentum into the mix, take a chance, play the fancy stuff at a higher tempo and basically put the opponents onto the back foot.

We did that in 08 by introducing Spicer into the side, who was as close as we had that year to a Paul Green buccaneer, and introducing Heffernan whose style was about coming off defenders then slipping in between them onto balls played in round the back.

In 09-10, we brought in Oster who can play our passing game at a faster tempo than most. We also brought in Sharp who's aggressive style made holes for the likes of Coppinger and Hayter to exploit through the defensive line.

That style (which perhaps culminated in the display at Hillsborough last year which was as close to a flawless Rovers performance as I have ever seen) continued into the early part of this season, when we looked like genuine promotion contenders.

Since then, injuries have ripped the guts out of the side and we have lost all confidence in our ability to out pass sides. Or (scarily) maybe we have finally been sussed and the opponents will always kick the shit out of us and bully us out of the game.

Whatever the reason, I totally disgaree with Nudga's assessment. We have had two years of often sumptuous football, with fizzing passes played at a sometimes bewildering rate. It is the last two years (up to Xmas or so this year) that were the superb periods. That spell has been bookended by two periods of witless, heartless, plodding dross.

I'm desperately hoping that the current one doesn't turn into another October 2008 or we are in 7 kinds of shite.

[RedJ]

That's a pretty good assessment, BST. Although I wouldn't go THAT far in saying we weren't as good as some claimed we were in the beginning in this league, we were bad. And if this run continues much longer, we may as well take a look at who'll be going up in League 2 and readying the maps.