v Sheffield Utd (a) - 23/2/22 - Match Preview

[Bbrovers2288]

17 minutes ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

I’d play Buckley deeper and leave Rothwell out.

100% agree, what I said last week, buckley needs to be deeper and we need to sacrifice one of the three at the back for more up top. 
all those saying yea but it worked for a time are in the mowbray head in the sand camp. It very much is not working now. Football changes constantly and we have to adapt to that change. Quite simply we aren’t creating enough at the moment to win games 

[Bbrovers2288]

1 minute ago, roversfan99 said:

Play him deep and you dont have his pressing. All of his good performances have been higher up, maybe he can play a deeper role but its an unknown.

What’s the point of pressing if it’s not leading to anything?!? I’m amazed at this view 

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

6 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

Play him deep and you dont have his pressing. All of his good performances have been higher up, maybe he can play a deeper role but its an unknown.

You can play Dolan in the sheepdog role.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

8 minutes ago, Bbrovers2288 said:

100% agree, what I said last week, buckley needs to be deeper and we need to sacrifice one of the three at the back for more up top. 
all those saying yea but it worked for a time are in the mowbray head in the sand camp. It very much is not working now. Football changes constantly and we have to adapt to that change. Quite simply we aren’t creating enough at the moment to win games 

We’re making one maybe two good chances per game. If we don’t take them we’re relying on our defence to have an error free game. It’s not happening at our level.

[Oldgregg86]

10 hours ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

I think he plays Gally for his defensive headers. It can’t be for his goal threat. His one strength is running on to balls played in front of him. Teams just play deep and deny him the space nowadays.

That’s exactly how I see it and probably Mowbray. 

[roversfan99]

1 hour ago, Bbrovers2288 said:

What’s the point of pressing if it’s not leading to anything?!? I’m amazed at this view 

To clarify, I have been very critical of his performances lately and he certainly needs dropping.

I was just saying in general that he has always played further up really, that is where he impressed up until a month or so ago. His pressing was also coupled with us carrying a goal threat mainly through Brereton with Buckley often slipping him through.

To play him deeper would very much be asking him to do something he has never proven to be able to do, it would be a new position for him. Im not convinced that he would dictate games and to be honest we arent a team that suits dictating games anyway, I wouldnt drop Travis or Rothwell for him to try him there. 

[Bbrovers2288]

31 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

To clarify, I have been very critical of his performances lately and he certainly needs dropping.

I was just saying in general that he has always played further up really, that is where he impressed up until a month or so ago. His pressing was also coupled with us carrying a goal threat mainly through Brereton with Buckley often slipping him through.

To play him deeper would very much be asking him to do something he has never proven to be able to do, it would be a new position for him. Im not convinced that he would dictate games and to be honest we arent a team that suits dictating games anyway, I wouldnt drop Travis or Rothwell for him to try him there. 

I see his strength in passing the ball about and pressing , both of which are suited to a deeper role. If he is to make a career higher up he needs to learn to shoot , be more creative and generally be a lot more usefull than he currently is. Is he a top class talent, I’m 50/50 , can look really good or really crap. 
As I said in his thread I’d like brereton in the deeper forward role as he is good at running with the ball and beating players, much in the Matt jansen mould. Problem with that is we don’t have a genuine striker up top which we needed to address in the summer and even more so In January. A Jordan hugill type might have been scorned at but it’s exactly what we needed. Im not totally convinced on either rothwell and to a lesser extent travis either. Few of our lads need to beef up a bit, brereton, rothwell and travis can all get bullied at times and that’s why we need the three bigger lads at the back 

[roversfan99]

44 minutes ago, Bbrovers2288 said:

I see his strength in passing the ball about and pressing , both of which are suited to a deeper role. If he is to make a career higher up he needs to learn to shoot , be more creative and generally be a lot more usefull than he currently is. Is he a top class talent, I’m 50/50 , can look really good or really crap. 
As I said in his thread I’d like brereton in the deeper forward role as he is good at running with the ball and beating players, much in the Matt jansen mould. Problem with that is we don’t have a genuine striker up top which we needed to address in the summer and even more so In January. A Jordan hugill type might have been scorned at but it’s exactly what we needed. Im not totally convinced on either rothwell and to a lesser extent travis either. Few of our lads need to beef up a bit, brereton, rothwell and travis can all get bullied at times and that’s why we need the three bigger lads at the back 

Brereton was clearly in the right position hence the 20 goals.

How is pressing suited to a deeper role? Surely its best high up when as we have seen on a number of occasions this season can lead to us creating chances very quickly once we win the ball. Totally agree on his shooting, prior to the last month he did add to the attack with his passing although aside from the ball for the Brereton goal when he strayed offside v West Brom, even that has gone off the boil. Hence why he should be dropped.

[Bbrovers2288]

1 hour ago, roversfan99 said:

Brereton was clearly in the right position hence the 20 goals.

How is pressing suited to a deeper role? Surely its best high up when as we have seen on a number of occasions this season can lead to us creating chances very quickly once we win the ball. Totally agree on his shooting, prior to the last month he did add to the attack with his passing although aside from the ball for the Brereton goal when he strayed offside v West Brom, even that has gone off the boil. Hence why he should be dropped.

Pressing anywhere on the pitch is useful, for ages we had an issue with allowing opponents far too much time and space in our own half in front of our own D, he can pinch it back there and float a through ball for our speedsters to chase is a great way to counter attack 

[USABlue]

On 24/02/2022 at 04:35, Mercer said:

Hugely disappointing last night.  I think SU wanted it more and showed more passion and bottle.  A big opportunity missed.

Let's be honest, we could have been down and out by half time as SU should have been, and deservedly, 2 goals to the good.

Much better 2nd half but if your opponents are down to 10 men, you miss a penalty then you can ultimately pay the price, as we did.  The penalty miss was huge - a real shot of adrenalin for SU's players and fans, you could plainly see and hear the effect.

We've hit a barren patch at the wrong time and our confidence is bound to wane.

IMO, too many question marks against too many of our players; IMO:

• Buckley - too weak and went missing in action again last night.
• Travis - just concentrate on your feckin football and stop all the antics and trying to be the 'hard man' as you are not and going back over the years, many a player would have had you for breakfast.
• Rothwell  - not been the same since the transfer saga and I doubt he'll be fit for Saturday as he took a bad blow and ran it off to a degree but clearly carrying his leg right to the end
• Gallagher - stealing a living from the game.  Woeful for a £5million man and never on earth should he have been given a new contract
• Hedges - FFS, we've not scored for 5 games and he can't get on the pitch, WTF does that say about him

We need to give Vale a chance - can he really do any worse and make us less effective?

It's not over yet and we can still scrape 6th but I think Mowbray needs to stop looking through rose coloured spectacles, bang a few heads together and shake things up a bit.  But PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, no new contract for the man.

Vale's never getting a game with ToMo, unless it's fullback or someother stupid thing.  Mowbary bought a striker who he claimed was the best player in training then refuses to let him play so what chanch does young Vale have..... NONE.

What is erong with this manager if ours, why ih why does he persist with things he knows don't work.  Why does he hate Nyambe?  Why does he firce the Gallagher out wide, why does he even play Gally.  We are done, we were after the Hull debacle.  I said 8th to 10th, at the moment I think that may have been a bit optimistic.

Edited February 25, 2022 by USABlue

[roversfan99]

There is a growing push it seems for Vale to play. We are desperate and maybe it is worth a go but for perspective, he scored 1 in 10 this season in non league. I get that he can score against kids but it would be a huge ask.

And this nonsense about hating Nyambe keeps cropping up. 9 times out of 10 he starts.

[SuperBrfc]

I've never seen Vale play, so can't comment on his ability. However, there was a similar clamour for McBride and Butterworth to be given a chance and that didn't work out. In fact, one poster was saying we didn't need to sign a striker back in August as we had Butterworth, McBride and Vale as options. It's wishful thinking hoping that one of those kids can come in and do the business.

As we are in a desperate situation, of our own making at that, I'm not against giving Vale a chance but it would be asking a lot of him to get the goals needed to help us in a play off push. This all goes back to the manager and his arrogance in thinking we didn't need another striker.

"I probably should have got them the striker that they needed in January".

How likely is it that we will hear the above at some point in the future? Just as he said after leaving Coventry in relation to not getting them the big centre back that they needed.

[roversfan99]

4 hours ago, SuperBrfc said:

I've never seen Vale play, so can't comment on his ability. However, there was a similar clamour for McBride and Butterworth to be given a chance and that didn't work out. In fact, one poster was saying we didn't need to sign a striker back in August as we had Butterworth, McBride and Vale as options. It's wishful thinking hoping that one of those kids can come in and do the business.

As we are in a desperate situation, of our own making at that, I'm not against giving Vale a chance but it would be asking a lot of him to get the goals needed to help us in a play off push. This all goes back to the manager and his arrogance in thinking we didn't need another striker.

"I probably should have got them the striker that they needed in January".

How likely is it that we will hear the above at some point in the future? Just as he said after leaving Coventry in relation to not getting them the big centre back that they needed.

Totally agree on the Vale point but why is it down to Mowbray's arrogance that we didn't sign a striker in January?

I do think that we should have got one and I was disappointed that we didn't but I am under no illusions that with a minimal budget, it was a very tough task to bring in a striker that could improve us. We spent around 700k, 500k was on a young player with no first team experience for us to mould who unfortunately got injured. The other 200k was for an attacking player due to the desperation of his club to get a fee. Its not much, perhaps there are loans we could have got but it isn't as clear cut as many make out.

[Gav]

I saw the highlights of the game earlier today for the first time, if that would have been a Premiership game the penalty wouldn't have stood, the keep was off his line and 2 more Sheff Utd players would have had an early bath, dirty bastards.

But its down as a loss in the record books and we move on.

[SuperBrfc]

2 hours ago, roversfan99 said:

Totally agree on the Vale point but why is it down to Mowbray's arrogance that we didn't sign a striker in January?

He said himself that we had the chance to sign a striker. We were offered number 9's from Premier League clubs according to him but turned them down because they didn't suit our system. He was almost crowing about it in the LT. As if our system could be relied upon until May and as if it is too good to take on a Premier League striker.

We all knew that one injury to Diaz would leave us in trouble and now we have a situation where fans are calling for Vale to start. It could have been avoided.

I get that we didn't have the budget to sign a top striker. However, we made a bid for Dembele who went for £1.5m. That would suggest we did have some funds to play with, even if that isn't seen as a significant amount these days. To see us struggling for goals now, and having read Mowbray effectively say "We could have got a Premier League number 9 if we wanted" really grates. I view that as arrogance from Mowbray, others might disagree.