2ND REVIEW OF FRIENDLIES
Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2018 4:25 am
WC about to begin and I just watched the England match for a second time. Will do Czech next.
Here are my thoughts as we are about to begin our quest for WC glory.
The first half, though not great, was not as bad as I thought when I watched it live. What really destabalized us was the headbut incident, in which the ref was a complete fraud for not blowing the whistle in what was clearly a clash of heads. The refs ARE SUPPOSED TO BLOW PLAY IMMEDIETLY. For some reason the ref who had a clear sight of the clash let play continue and even awared England a free kick. You could see Moses complaining to the ref saying "why are you not stopping play" The ref made another bone headed decision to our detriment in the 2nd half where Ighalo was fouled but Musa was moving at pace into the box in what was clearly an advantage, and the ref pulled it back without even seeing what would become of this decent chance. Ref was a clown.
The main problem of the first half for me was that Lingard and Alli who were in midfield were making runs from deep into attacking positions and Joel Obi and Onazi were not doing a good job of tracking them. Also it seemed that Shehu and Iwobi were confused about who to mark in terms of Young.
Despite England dominating the first half, we still had some nice passing and movement, mainly with Iwobi and Mikel pulling the strings.
Onazi while making about 4 missed passes, 1 leading to the goal, was actually covering a lot of ground and broke up a few plays. Joel Obi while not making any clear mistakes was not able to impact the match from either a defensive or offensive stance. His main failure was his inability to really disrupt the England midfield.
Victor Moses was a major dissapointment. Biggest dissapointment of the match for me, perhaps Onazi with all his misplaced passes, but frankly I expect more from Moses, and Onazi's poor passing has been known for a while.
Troost was turned inside out by Sterling on one occasion, and he other than Onazi(giveaway) was responsible for the 2nd England goal. It seems Troost had been assigned to mark Kane, as he even tracked Kane at one point all the way beyond the halfway line. However on the 2nd goal Kane recieved the ball, and there was absolutely no pressure from Troost. Had Troost rushed at Kane, I dont believe that 2nd goal would have happened. Troost improved in the second half though with some key blocks and tackles.
Balogun did well in the first half, I dont know what some people were saying. He did not put a foot wrong and had a few key blocks and tackles, like he usually does.
Ighalo did well on the goal, but watching him, I think he really needs to be smarter about the runs he makes. He tends to just jog along and post up against defenders. I think he needs to make better runs into space, and this will likely increase his chances on goal, or at least drag out defenders and makes space to create opportunites for others. He is far too static. I had been wondering if the problem was him not making runs, or attackers not passing to him. A few times I rewinded as Moses had the ball, and I dont recall in the few situations any runs being made by Ighalo. A few of the times Moses kept dribbling, he legitimately had no options to pass to.
Idowu needs to improve his attacking game, but the guy made a lot of key tackles. He may actually have made the most tackles of any player on the pitch. Very solid defensively.
Iwobi was our undisputed best player on the pitch, just as I remember, He was everywhere and is thriving in the middle and this gives our team shape and ability to be unpredictable in attack. He will be key to our succcess.
Mikel did OK, but really he needs to step it up a notch, and keep things simple when they need to be kept simple. He used to be a master of this. It seemed at times he was trying to do too much by himself.
Overall the team showed a lot of positives and I am confident that the attack and passing game will be very good with Mikel and Iwobi in the middle and Ndidi cleaning things up.
Moses needs to up his game big time. Also I am not sold on Ighalo. I think Iheanacho needs to play no less than 45 minutes every match. We simply cannot afford to keep our top scorer off of the pitch for that long.
Here are my thoughts as we are about to begin our quest for WC glory.
The first half, though not great, was not as bad as I thought when I watched it live. What really destabalized us was the headbut incident, in which the ref was a complete fraud for not blowing the whistle in what was clearly a clash of heads. The refs ARE SUPPOSED TO BLOW PLAY IMMEDIETLY. For some reason the ref who had a clear sight of the clash let play continue and even awared England a free kick. You could see Moses complaining to the ref saying "why are you not stopping play" The ref made another bone headed decision to our detriment in the 2nd half where Ighalo was fouled but Musa was moving at pace into the box in what was clearly an advantage, and the ref pulled it back without even seeing what would become of this decent chance. Ref was a clown.
The main problem of the first half for me was that Lingard and Alli who were in midfield were making runs from deep into attacking positions and Joel Obi and Onazi were not doing a good job of tracking them. Also it seemed that Shehu and Iwobi were confused about who to mark in terms of Young.
Despite England dominating the first half, we still had some nice passing and movement, mainly with Iwobi and Mikel pulling the strings.
Onazi while making about 4 missed passes, 1 leading to the goal, was actually covering a lot of ground and broke up a few plays. Joel Obi while not making any clear mistakes was not able to impact the match from either a defensive or offensive stance. His main failure was his inability to really disrupt the England midfield.
Victor Moses was a major dissapointment. Biggest dissapointment of the match for me, perhaps Onazi with all his misplaced passes, but frankly I expect more from Moses, and Onazi's poor passing has been known for a while.
Troost was turned inside out by Sterling on one occasion, and he other than Onazi(giveaway) was responsible for the 2nd England goal. It seems Troost had been assigned to mark Kane, as he even tracked Kane at one point all the way beyond the halfway line. However on the 2nd goal Kane recieved the ball, and there was absolutely no pressure from Troost. Had Troost rushed at Kane, I dont believe that 2nd goal would have happened. Troost improved in the second half though with some key blocks and tackles.
Balogun did well in the first half, I dont know what some people were saying. He did not put a foot wrong and had a few key blocks and tackles, like he usually does.
Ighalo did well on the goal, but watching him, I think he really needs to be smarter about the runs he makes. He tends to just jog along and post up against defenders. I think he needs to make better runs into space, and this will likely increase his chances on goal, or at least drag out defenders and makes space to create opportunites for others. He is far too static. I had been wondering if the problem was him not making runs, or attackers not passing to him. A few times I rewinded as Moses had the ball, and I dont recall in the few situations any runs being made by Ighalo. A few of the times Moses kept dribbling, he legitimately had no options to pass to.
Idowu needs to improve his attacking game, but the guy made a lot of key tackles. He may actually have made the most tackles of any player on the pitch. Very solid defensively.
Iwobi was our undisputed best player on the pitch, just as I remember, He was everywhere and is thriving in the middle and this gives our team shape and ability to be unpredictable in attack. He will be key to our succcess.
Mikel did OK, but really he needs to step it up a notch, and keep things simple when they need to be kept simple. He used to be a master of this. It seemed at times he was trying to do too much by himself.
Overall the team showed a lot of positives and I am confident that the attack and passing game will be very good with Mikel and Iwobi in the middle and Ndidi cleaning things up.
Moses needs to up his game big time. Also I am not sold on Ighalo. I think Iheanacho needs to play no less than 45 minutes every match. We simply cannot afford to keep our top scorer off of the pitch for that long.
.