I feel like 75% of our goals are sort of stumbled in to... This half we've started with much more initiative though.
Clinical.... I don't really care about Nations League but a developed a strong hatred for Scotland in our two matches, they are worse the Northern Ireland in trying to suck the life out of football. That official certainly wouldn't have called it.
I don't really have a MOTM for that, we had some players play fine or good, but nobody played great. Worst performance was probably our replacement manager, would have much rather had Holoubek just based on how he did with a makeshift squad. All of our sub decisions today were poor and while the team played fairly well at the start of the 2nd half they didn't have a plan from the start.
This is definitely one of the worst losses in recent NT history since it was still a competitive and meaningful match (Australia and Russia blowouts were friendlies that helped push Jarolim out the door). Everything from the clueless slow start to the game, the finishing, the substitutions, and the general hesitations in the final third was just f**king pitiful. I think we all agreed that after our win in Slovakia, we'd win this group (obviously assuming Covid wouldn't sink our team the way it did), and I do still feel we are right to hold ourselves to this higher-than-normal standard for the NT. Or maybe our dominant victory in Slovakia was more or less a reflection of how bad they currently are which made us look better at the time.. I do believe if we figure out a system that suits any or all of Schick, Hlozek, Jankto, Dockal, and Barak then our attacking play will look much different than what we saw today (I'm confident 4-4-2 diamond is the way), and ultimately more effective. We clearly still can't shutout teams so we'll just have to outscore them (or make Kolar starting goalkeeper/sweeper). Finally, Scotland are truly the epitome of shithousery. It's fascinating listening to their pundits/fans analyze and breakdown a bunker performance like that as if it's some masterclass. I hope Serbia handle them in November because I do not wish to play them again anytime soon. They may have just surpassed Turkey as my most depised international rival.
I am glad I only caught the first half. Sounded like a very poor performance from us. If our C team can almost get a result against Scotland, there was no reason for this group to not get at least a draw. This just shows me how bad our immediate depth is. Once we lose a few players, we are really bad.
Well the start of the 2nd half was probably our brightest spell, then for whatever reason we made questionable substitutions. Scotland's 1 shot on target stat misses a couple of dangerous counterattack chances from the first half, but they barely got past the halfway line in the 2nd. Our depleted striker depth is what ultimately killed us in this match, we had at least 3 good chances that one should have been taken. Vydra put in some good hold-up play but he just doesn't have the composure in front of goal that Schick or even an in-form Krmencik does. Those 2 (and maybe Ondrasek off the bench) are the only proven goalscorers right now, Hlozek is the golden boy but he's a teenager and until I see him score at the senior level I would still consider him a youth player. The other problem was only being able to translate 400 more completed passes and a 67-33 possession into 3-4 real chances. Darida-Kral-Soucek are all good players, but they are sort of redundant without Dockal or Barak to focus on attack. If I was to pick one to remove when we are back to full strength its probably Soucek who (along with Masopust) were invisible in both the last 2 matches.
Agreed, I've been wanting to see a midfield variation without Soucek for this very reason. He's a fine player and a core part our team, but I feel as though he's generally underperformed going forward, or at least Silhavy hasn't figured out how to utilize him like Moyes has at West Ham. Against Slovakia, we played Kral - Darida - Dockal and that worked quite well. I believe Kral plays as a holding, deep-lying playmaker at Spartak anyways and I'm confident in his defensive abilities to be our CDM. I do think Soucek - Kral - Darida can be useful against stronger opponents where we set up to be more organized, do more running, and most importantly have Schick leading the attack. This was seen in their best and most dominant perfomance when we beat England, but outside of that, we've also lost to Kosovo, Bulgaria, and now Scotland with them. That's why I wished Kalvach was given more of a chance last year when he was in really good form. Ultimately, I do feel Silhavy generally prefers having two physical, defensive-minded midfielders in his team because he opted for Pavelka - Soucek at the start of his tenure and continued that approach once Kral emerged (although maybe Dockal and Barak being out for so long contributed to that).
Also, with Masopust I found that he strangely had good chemistry with Dockal depsite them never playing together before. I thought in Slovakia they combined together for a few good moves that often involved Coufal and made our right side very active. Even off the bench in Cyprus they linked up well on a few occasions I recall. Though I would like to see other options explored going forward such as Kaderabek or giving Cerny a chance if he continues this goalscoring run of his.
If Cerny continues the way he started the season then he should definitely be in the next squad, and am actually surprised he didn't seem to be on the radar this time. The offense-defense talent balance of the Dutch league may be notoriously lopsided towards attacking players, but 3 goals and an assist through 4 matches is better than the other wingers we've called up. He's always been more of a wing-striker, and we could use any excuse to get a potential goal scorer on the field. Even though he was part of the comedy of errors that lead to the Scotland goal, I actually am starting to see some potential in Provod to become a good winger. Much better crosser than Masopust and showed some individual ability on the ball.
Kral-Soucek are way too similar in how they play. Neither are really true defensive midfielders but one of them has to play that role for our national team. Darida is also arguably another #8 vs a traditional playmaker even though I know he plays there for his club. I think we need to try Soucek and Darida, then someone with more attacking intent like Dockal. Maybe even Vydra would work there because that is the role he excelled in before moving to Burnley.
Our squad for the November break will be announced Tuesday I believe. I don't think the Czech league being postponed will really affect Silhavy's selections, other than not being able to select any Plzen players (or any team not playing in Europa League for that matter). I'd personally award first call ups to Cerny and Zima. The former in all likelihood will be called up in his current form (another 1+1 performance this weekend, and now 4+4 on the season), while the latter will more likely remain with the U21s, but I do think he will play for the senior team in 2021 at this rate. I believe Schick will technically be fit, but doubt he'll be released by Leverkusen (they've actually probably already delayed his return just to avoid him playing for us). Could possibly see a return for Pavelka as well, though I don't think he really offers much now (apart from physicality and energy) with Soucek and Kral becoming top players in that position. Also, if any of our top three goalkeepers need to be replaced, I'd say Nguyen is now ahead of Koubek as fourth choice.
While I completely agree that Cerny has definitely earned a call up, every time I've seen highlights for Twente matches I'm left with one of two conclusions: 1) Twente are a world class attacking team 2) Dutch league defending is not that different than Czech league Some potential absences: There are 3 Slavia players set to miss Europa League this week due to Coronavirus, and Hlozek may be more seriously injured than originally though. The Czech league will be resuming this weekend according to the latest ruling.
🇨🇿 The national team squad for the upcoming friendly match against Germany and two UEFA Nations League matches against Israel & Slovakia has been announced. David Pavelka is back in the squad same as Tomáš Pekhart (@pegas11). pic.twitter.com/O5H86J1zpY— Czech Football National Team (@ceskarepre_eng) November 3, 2020 Mostly meh - Not calling in Cerny is ridiculous, he's on a roll and has contributed to at least one goal in 6 straight matches. None of Masopust, Sevcik or Vydra have combined this season to equal production -Confirms that Boril, Provod and Kudela are the Slavia covid cases. Boril obviously the biggest loss. -Kalas is back and fully fit. Krmencik is back but seems to only have about 50-60 minutes in him from recent club matches. -Pavelka back does nothing, unless we want to have he, Kral and Soucek for the most redundant midfield in history. Ditto Pehart, although it sounds like he may have Coronavirus too anyway. These matches shouldn't be played
So no call up for Cerny and three Plzen players included in the team despite not playing at all this past month.. Honestly, Silhavy has become so predictable with his selections/tactics. It will be the same old 4-2-3-1 with two defensive midfielders and continued favouritism of Dockal, Pavelka, and Masopust whom he just loves for whatever reason. Pekhart makes his return to the NT after seven years. Looking back at his international track record, his stats are abysmal having just 2 goals (both against Malta) in 19 caps, but with the current options available, I suppose he's better than Dolezal/Poznar/Rabusic. The news about Hlozek is awful and I just hope that it's not as serious as initially feared. If it is, then hopefully Sparta's staff ensure a smooth recovery (seen some talk that the Hancko injury may have been mishandled).
We had to drop some players and call up from the reserve list. Most notable is Cerny is finally included.
The four players (two goalkeepers) added to the squad are Mandous, Koubek (oh god), Jemelka (meh) and Cerny (great). The players withdrawing from the team are Kolar (yet again), Celustka (significant loss) and Sevcik (not a big deal). I would start this team against Germany: ---------------------------Vydra------------------------ -Jankto-----------------Barak---------------Cerny- -----------------Darida---------Soucek--------------- -Novak-------Brabec----------Kalas-------Coufal- -------------------------Pavlenka----------------------- I'm not at all comfortable fielding some random back up XI against this level of opposition, even if they themselves will play with an inexperienced and experimental side. Plus, it's not like we're travelling all across Europe as we did in October, and still have nearly four full days in between our next match with Israel.