2ND REVIEW OF FRIENDLIES

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vancity eagle
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2ND REVIEW OF FRIENDLIES

Post by vancity eagle »

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.
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Re: 2ND REVIEW OF FRIENDLIES

Post by metalalloy »

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.
If you know that the pass is not coming as your teammate will put his head down and take on 4 players, you will stop running too.
We have been brainwashed by the Premier League that it's the best in the world. Nonsense. It's the best brand
Roy Keane: ITV 02/25/14

He says that we are currently "brainwashed" into believing that the Premier League is the best competition in the world, and that we are now a long way off dominating the Champions League again.
Gary Neville: Mirror: 12/23/14

I think Spain’s by far the best league.
Scholes. UK Guardian 9/6/16
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Re: 2ND REVIEW OF FRIENDLIES

Post by waka-man »

Amazing how much VanC has grown up in the last 5 years.
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Re: 2ND REVIEW OF FRIENDLIES

Post by kali »

First half was a disaster. England basically outnumbered our defensive midfield by playing a blitzing five man midfield. We failed to stop them because Mikel, Iwobi and Moses who failed to drop back to shore up the midfield.

In the second half Rohr realized what England were doing and not only added an extra defensive player but had Iwobi playing deeper and exploiting the space England left between it's midfield and it's backline leading to our first goal. After that England adjusted their midfield blitz strategy and relied on counter-attacking.

The lesson learnt IMHO is Mikel has to do a better job against such teams. He has to play deeper and leave playmaking to others. This is why Rohr had Iwobi switching to.playmaking and even tested Ogu passing out of the back.
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Re: 2ND REVIEW OF FRIENDLIES

Post by muzines »

This was actually a very astute analysis from VC. I clicked this thread to see what else he had to say, and hopefully call him a moron, but was pleasantly surprised. I actually learned something... :clap:.
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Re: 2ND REVIEW OF FRIENDLIES

Post by waka-man »

muzines wrote:This was actually a very astute analysis from VC. I clicked this thread to see what else he had to say, and hopefully call him a moron, but was pleasantly surprised. I actually learned something... :clap:.
Right?
Amazing.
The young shall grow.
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Re: 2ND REVIEW OF FRIENDLIES

Post by theYemster »

muzines wrote:This was actually a very astute analysis from VC. I clicked this thread to see what else he had to say, and hopefully call him a moron, but was pleasantly surprised. I actually learned something... :clap:.
The dude for all the insults he gets (and often times deservedly so), rarely gets into fights with forumers, only saves his venom for the coaches/players. He doesn't get deterred from posting his opinion however nonsensical it is. lol

Very persistent fella.
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Re: 2ND REVIEW OF FRIENDLIES

Post by Synopsis »

:clap:
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Re: 2ND REVIEW OF FRIENDLIES

Post by BigMuze »

muzines wrote:This was actually a very astute analysis from VC. I clicked this thread to see what else he had to say, and hopefully call him a moron, but was pleasantly surprised. I actually learned something... :clap:.
When he isn't emotional he often delivers
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Re: 2ND REVIEW OF FRIENDLIES

Post by metalalloy »

muzines wrote:This was actually a very astute analysis from VC. I clicked this thread to see what else he had to say, and hopefully call him a moron, but was pleasantly surprised. I actually learned something... :clap:.

:rotf: :rotf: :rotf:
We have been brainwashed by the Premier League that it's the best in the world. Nonsense. It's the best brand
Roy Keane: ITV 02/25/14

He says that we are currently "brainwashed" into believing that the Premier League is the best competition in the world, and that we are now a long way off dominating the Champions League again.
Gary Neville: Mirror: 12/23/14

I think Spain’s by far the best league.
Scholes. UK Guardian 9/6/16
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metalalloy
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Re: 2ND REVIEW OF FRIENDLIES

Post by metalalloy »

BigMuze wrote:
muzines wrote:This was actually a very astute analysis from VC. I clicked this thread to see what else he had to say, and hopefully call him a moron, but was pleasantly surprised. I actually learned something... :clap:.
When he isn't emotional he often delivers

He always provides very sound analysis. Its unfortunate that its often mixed in with language guaranteed to elicit a response.
We have been brainwashed by the Premier League that it's the best in the world. Nonsense. It's the best brand
Roy Keane: ITV 02/25/14

He says that we are currently "brainwashed" into believing that the Premier League is the best competition in the world, and that we are now a long way off dominating the Champions League again.
Gary Neville: Mirror: 12/23/14

I think Spain’s by far the best league.
Scholes. UK Guardian 9/6/16
EMIR KONGI JAFFI JOFFA
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Re: 2ND REVIEW OF FRIENDLIES

Post by EMIR KONGI JAFFI JOFFA »

:rotf: :rotf: :rotf:
OCCUPY NFF!!
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Re: 2ND REVIEW OF FRIENDLIES

Post by deanotito »

Is this one elaborate way of simply saying “all my predictions of doom were wrong”?
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Re: 2ND REVIEW OF FRIENDLIES

Post by Odas »

muzines wrote:This was actually a very astute analysis from VC. I clicked this thread to see what else he had to say, and hopefully call him a moron, but was pleasantly surprised. I actually learned something... :clap:.
... and you were not successful in your aim :rotf: :rotf: :rotf: :rotf: :rotf: Well, at least you admitted to your intentions
And the BIBLE says: The race is NOT for the swift, neither is the battle for the strong nor ... but time and chance makes them all.
Ecclesiastes 1:18: For in much wisdom is much grief and he that increases knowledge increases sorrow.
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Re: 2ND REVIEW OF FRIENDLIES

Post by cchinukw »

Tactically we were no match for England in the first half. Full stop.

England took advantage of attacking the wings and spreading the width. Its almost like we allowed them free reign on the flanks.

I think we've talked about the number of misplaced passes and bone headed decision making like people who had never played with each other before.
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