Grecian Max
Very well known Exeweb poster
Eisa is a forward with a very decent record - that he’s looking completely anonymous should speak to how GC sets his team up. Likewise with Sonny, he’s been asked to perform a role that isn’t properly playing to his strengths. He’s not going to be Watkins but there’s a very good player under there with a creative streak.I came down for the game yesterday and actually enjoyed it, we played some nice stuff and defended like Trojans. Cheick was unlucky with their goal, but a draw was a fair result.
I don’t see that our slow build up play after we scored is a tactic from SGC, it’s just what the players do and it frustrates SGC. We started brilliantly but whenever we score we then slow the pace down, Carroll played pretty well but he’s the main culprit. Woods doesn’t do that.
Yanic did well as did Niskanen actually, still needs a better final ball but it was better today and he defended really well.
Two situations annoyed me today and are good examples of my frustrations with this team at times. First was a time in the first half when Carroll got the ball just outside his area after we won a tackle. He had 20 yards of space ahead of him to run into at pace, but his instinct was to stop and look sideways to his right. He slowed it down, made the sideways pass and we slowly built again against an opposition who had regained their shape - he’s hard-wired to play slow, patient football and as much as he has shown quality at times this year, I think we need to replace him if we want to score more goals.
The other example was in the last few minutes, I think it was Allí (who looked very raw, being kind) who broke down the left and pulled a great ball across the 6-yard line. Where was Eisa? Stood stationary on the 18-yard line FFS - he should have been breaking his neck to get to the goal. I can see why MK let him go.
Finally, I said it after the Peterborough game, and I’m sorry to say it, but I’m not convinced by Sonny. He isn’t strong enough to play the ‘holding the ball up’ game and he doesn’t make the clever runs enough, or have enough pace, to play the ‘nippy, tricky forward’ game. Again, too often he also gave the ball away when not under any pressure. The next Ollie Watkins? No chance. He’s young though, I just need to see more evidence that he can improve so I’ll back him from the stands but the jury’s out for me at the moment, I hope to be proved wrong.
Plus it was windier and colder than I’d dressed for. Bloody weather.
Obviously we’ve all be round in circles about this but I believed just bringing in a forward wasn’t enough to stop us looking blunt in a lot of games. And it’s playing out with a very low scoring frontline all season. Caldwell needs to make some tweaks to the formula this summer IMO… I live in hope as the stuff in the midfield can be decent.
I don’t buy into this idea that it’s absolutely nothing to do with Caldwell some of our annoying habits. He has to shoulder at least some of the responsibility. It’s interesting how there is a perspective taken on here that the players just continually go out and ignore GC’s instructions. If that’s really the case, then that is also surely a management issue isn’t it?
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