Post Season Analysis...

...by me of course! I know this isn't the last game of the season, but we wont be improving anyway so I'll post it now. After losing Rio(I know, it's getting tired now.) we lost all our defensive shape. It took us a couple of defeats, bore draws and near misses to get the defense right. Now that we've almost basically solved our defensive worries, we've created another. Attacking worries.

While we sucked in defense, we were still able to produce good attacking (Ex. the Everton match), but now we could barely even score, and what does that mean? It means that when the opposing team gets one little chance and they take it, we cant find a way back into the match. Now I dont know what it is about this team, but a pattern is appearing. In the first, like, 70 minutes, we barely venture into the opposing team's half, we barely push them back. Then suddenly, when there's like 10 minutes left, we push defenders up, create chance after chance and play some of the best football. When the opposing team clears, our defenders are right there to collect and start another attack.

Now can u please tell me why we dont do that all match? Please tell me why, when the opposing team clears, all our defenders are back in our own half, even when there's like 1 attacking player threatening, and they then have to run all the way down the other end to start another attack? It makes no sense, and it's a waste of time. We're not pushing teams enough.


Another thing that is painfully obvious is our distribution. I dont think even if we had Rio it would've made a difference. To put it lightly, our corners, crosses most of the time are dreadfull. People say we dont miss Beckham because he cant dribble like Ronaldo, but what he gave us was guaranteed pinpoint crosses, passes, freekicks and corners...something we dont have. He also gave us his sweat, blood and tears. Going in to attack, coming back to defend. And when he won the ball back, he then creates deadly counter attacks for us.

It's always nice for our strikers to have clear cut chances most of the time, and now I dont see the sense in selling beckham, when we waste it on 2 to 3 useless players. I'm sure if we kept Beckham we still could've bought Ronaldo, and how good would that have been? So basically, it's like this. It's a domino effect:

Selling Beckham with no real replacements>>>Less clear cut chances>>>Strikers like VN have to come into midfield more to create their own chances>>>Which means they're hardly in a good position to score>>>>Which means they hardly score>>>>Which means they go low on confidence>>>Which means they now miss sitters, penaltys, open goals and lumber around.

It's clear, we need better play makers, and ball distributers. We need them next season.