v Cambridge City

[Reading Rebel]

Regardless of there not being a good supply to the forwards, or yesterdays lone forward, I think there are glaring weaknesses elseware in the team. The performance of the defence which was good at the start of the season has definately dipped, they were poor yesterday, and lacked any pace, and seemed to choose the wrong option almost everytime. The defence was bad, they seemed to want far too much time on the ball, and any team with pace, wouldnt need to try too hard to get past them.

 

 

Thanks for those wise words Old Ram. Good to see you've started following a team with some supporters  

Edited March 8, 2015 by Reading Rebel

[3spirit]

We did try to pass the ball through the middle yesterday which didn't look easy on a difficult drying bobbly pitch. 

 

The problem was, as Bakes has alluded to, there was no end product, no incisive pass or real creativity to open up the Cambridge defence.

 

Whilst Cambridge were just happy to punt the ball skywards to their forwards and TBF to Cambridge, with the swirling wind, it worked a treat as we seemed to struggle with the high ball all game.

 

IMO at the moment we are short of key players in a couple of areas:

 

Someone who is a leader at the back in the mould of a Darren Purse or a Dave Woozley or a player like the two center backs at Poole. A player who will talk to and rally the players around him when the going gets tough.

 

A creative 'playmaker' in midfield. Again someone in the mould of Steve Devlin at Poole.

 

I think most good, successful teams have these types of players in their ranks.

 

I also know that these type of players don't come cheap and most probably are out of range of our budget but you can always dream.

 

As you and Tom have said, we have really missed a leader at the back.Bit surprised that we never introduced Adam Foulser for the last fifteen minutes,just to get some game time under his belt.

 

I would think that three centre halves out of the five we have, could be the answer ie Jefferys Foulser Yorke,- Hollis Jefferys Foulser, - Moran Foulser Yorke etc would make a big difference to how we are playing defensively.

None of our centre backs are bad ones.We just need to find the right combination.Although one new one may now be an option for next season.

 

As for creativity in the midfield,our injury list has hampered this to a large degree but I think getting our midfield players back fit ie Wazza,Clurgy,Adrian,George,Ben and Adam with Jake and possibly Dobbo,will make a huge difference but I do think there will be a couple of changes in this area for next season[or maybe this one],as too many are alike or just not performing when they get the chance.    

[Reading Rebel]

Excellent and honest views on yesterday's game from Unders.