This Guardian chalkboard shows how much Stephen Ireland's attacking threat was blunted today. He didn't make a single successful pass within eighteen yards of United's goal-line. At Goodison Park two weeks ago, he made five into the area and attacking wide positions. And with the strings left unpulled, City had no attacking threat today. A testament to the persistence of the underrated Darren Fletcher.
by Guardian Chalkboards
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3 comments:
sorry for him...out muscled out of the game, not through lack of effort, thought he and elano and caicedo tried..but the tempo was killed everytime the ball fell to the two defensive mids.
robson missed fluffed the chances and left out unarmed.
strange performance, wasnt that bad..but no tempo or drive ..very odd derby. oh well.
Tommy
At last, somebody who actually watched the same game as I did!
Stevie has been off the boil for about 6 weeks now. Don't know what that's about, but he isn't pushing foward constantly any more.
That, in conjunction with Kompany and de Jong's total inability to make a forward pass, and Elano being played 20 yards too deep, meant that we had lost the midfield battle from the opening minutes.
The only possible conclusion you can draw from the initial midfield setup is that he went there to hold out for a point. Not the most sensible option, given United's current form, but whatever.
With 45 minutes to score a couple of goals, it was time to pull off a defensive midfielder. It didn't really matter which one, although as de Jong had been doing well at winning the ball with his tackling, my preference would have been to leave him on. At the same time, Caciedo should have been swapped for Bojinov, Petrov thrown on up the left, Robinho tucked in to pair with Bojinov, and Elano pushed forward behind the front pairing.
Instead we carried on as we were, without a care in the world. When the changes finally came they were too little, too late. But even then, Robinho and Petrov nearly pulled us back into the game.
As you say mate, it was a very odd derby. I just wish our manager had had to put up with the shit we got as we came away from the ground - it was hard to disagree with some of the comments...
Definitely agreed that Ireland was muscled out of the game. the rags clearly saw him as the danger man and Fletcher certainly wasn't afraid to go in hard on him the few times Ireland had a chance to break at pace.
I'm not quite sure any blame really lies with DeJong and Kompany. I think one of the things the rags do quite well is immediately stopping the opposition from breaking quickly when they lose the ball (which often includes fouling high up the pitch to lessen chances of a yellow card).
Dejong and Kompany are there to protect the back four and to help City retain possession. The impetus is on Robinho, Elano, Ireland to launch counter attacks and Richards and Bridge to push up the flanks in support.
As much as I'm a fan of Elano he really went missing. As superlative as his passing can be, he can also be blunted out when he's closed down quickly and I think he was dropping back deeper to create room for himself, not because Hughes instructed him to do so. This game was really crying out for SWP given his ability to run at defenders. something Elano despite his skill is not as effective at as he doesn't have the pace.
Robinho really went missing as well. He did not look confident and he really should've been running at Rafael as much as possible. His miss early in the 2nd half bordered on inexcusable for a player of his calibre.
I was glad to see Petrov and Bojinov brought on and while they were the right substitutions I agree they should have happened much earlier. (I also do wish we'd change to a 4-4-2 using out and out wingers when we have to chase a game).
While its clear the Rags game plan was to blunt our attacking trio it still doesn't mask the fact Robinho went missing for large periods of the game while Elano and Ireland were essentially rendered ineffective. I don't think Hughes can be blamed for that.
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