[Archived] What Is Souness Doing With The Midfield?

[Hughesy]

We will see.

[Jan]

So we blow 5 points against eminently beatable sides, just so that we can confuse Arsenal, who nobody has beaten for over 12 months?

If I give you money, will you go on holiday again?

That's one of the best posts I've seen for a long time- answering one of the worst.

[Tom Pringle]

American, I don't, but I cannot believe that every Rovers player is magnificent playing out of position in training and suddenly is as awful as they are in a match.

Remember who they go against in training

[Jan]

And we used to wonder about the training injuries they got!

[Lathund]

Just got back from 2 weeks away in malia.

On my return I cannot believe we are trying to sign another midfield player.

Why? How many midfielders do we want. We need a striker not a midfield player.

The problems are obvious.

Nissa is not good enough - Put Matteo in Centre Defence.

The midfield is un-balanced. Play 2 wingers and 2 centre midfielders.

I for 1 however believe we will be fine and give it a few more games before we start to worry.

That's exactly why we need a central midfielder, to be able to put Matteo in defense. A defensive, holding midfielder would be a great partner for Ferguson. We don't have a player like that, at least not one of high calibre.

[CAPT KAYOS]

Great post American,

When we win with 4 central midfielders,no one complains and Souness is a genius for lining up four of the same to close down opposition.But today in a match where we were the better team for quite long periods,but lost over the most blatant of mistakes from the referee and two other poor defensive mistakes,it was bad.

Think you'll find I was , commenting that we couldn't continue in that fashion especially into this season - which looks entirely what we are doing.

Think FLB covers it the best

[speeeeeeedie]

All the ranting and raving about Souness and his formations may be justified to those who are expecting much of last year, but I'll reserve my judgement until 10 games in. If we are still tripe then, we need to do something. As for right now, Souness is trying his hardest to make us harder to beat, and but for idiotic mistakes we would have had 6 points. Souness' tactics weren't at fault for Clement's free kick, it was a soft player in the wall. He changed it at half time in that game and we got a draw.

On Saturday at Southampton, all the goals conceded were from bad defending, not tactics. We played well and deserved to win, but were undone by sloppy play. Craig Short was at fault for the first and third. He must not be sure of playing with Johansson, that's why he went for the ball, missed and it fell for Phillips. People have moaned about Emerton's contribution to not picking him up, but if Short would have stayed where he was and let Nissa go for it we would have been OK. Even if Beattie won it he would not have scored. The same applies for the penalty, Short was scared Beattie would out jump Nissa so he ran over to challenge. We can argue until the next bad decision we get about the penalty (it was never one IMO) but because Short felt the need to go for a ball he had a harder chance winning it cost us. If Amoruso was in there it would never have happened as he is very commanding in the air; Short would hopefully have felt more comfortable. The second was horrible from Gray as was the lead footedness from the lads when the ball was played back to Svensson.

Once De Pedro loses his girth, Thompson gets fully fit, and Souness decides to omit Flitcroft and Matteo from midfield we will be OK. I'd continue with Disco Dwight up front and bring on Dockov for 30 mins as he's hard work, especially when defenders get tired, they can't be bothered chasing around after him. Souness has never been the most tactically astute defensive coach, but he is trying, it's now up to the players to concentrate and start playing.

[blue phil]

You don't need to wait for another 8 games , Speeeeeeeeedie , to conclude that the first two games were disappointing - to say the least - and this was largely due to the manager's decisions. Correct to say that Clements free kick , or D'Urso's corruption, aren't down to Souey (well not directly !) but a total of 90 minutes out of 180 have effectivlely been wasted .

Cataloguing the number of mistakes in terms of selection and positional play would make for a post of a length that would make AESF blanche so let's just look at the ones that you allude to in your final paragraph - an unfit De Pedro taking to the pitch , Flitcroft and Matteo not only on the pitch but out of position , and the ne'er do well Yorke starting ahead not only of the enthusiastic , impressive Dickov , but also ahead of Gallagher who always livens things up and who , inexplicably, hasn't featured at all yet. And why "save" Dickov for the last 30 minutes when surely you should start with your best 11....Madness I call it , madness...

[thenodrog]

Good points Speeeedie and very good observations but you really need to take off your rose coloured spectacles. The fact that GS made drastic unforced changes to his tactics during the half time intervals in both games is an obvious admission that he got them very wrong in the first place.

Sure those changes improved the team performance but a blind man on a galloping horse could see the obvious weaknesses he created to the team with playing players out of position in his strange midfield / defensive tinkering.