Holding on to the lead

[Monroe Transfer 0]

Are we trying to break the record for most number of points dropped from winning positions in a season?

 

This year alone; we've either drawn or lost against Spurs, Sunderland, Everton and Bolton when we've been in front for part of the match. That's 9 points dropped.

 

We rarely seem able to push on and its here that our lack of quality and depth shows.

[Neville Neville Neville 0]

Yes I believe we are trying to break the record. But I'm guessing we're a bit short of it at the moment.

 

I don't think its rocket science. The way we've scored a decent proportion of our goals, i.e. from set pieces or crosses or direct/longer balls, don't really require you to be constantly attacking and creating pressure. Therefore we're generally as likely to score at any point during a match.

 

The teams who have scored against us, Bolton, Everton, Spurs, and in general Sunderland although not applicable to their goal in this instance, are generally less direct than us, and are more likely to score goals as pressure builds and they have more men pushing forward and putting more pressure onto our rocking defence. So our defence which looked steady at 0-0 against e.g mainly crouch, defoe and lennon, suddenly looks porous as jenas, hutton, modric and assou-ekotto join the party.

 

In contrast, we don't really carry a lot more of a threat when teams only have 3 or 4 defensive players compared to when they have say 6 defensive players because we're not really breaking in behind and catching them on the counter that much. Beyond Jonas and Jose we lack players who look capable of carrying the ball with pace (and they have questionable end products at best) and we have noone who is going to run in behind the defence as it pushes up. Lovenkrands has done this a couple of times off perfect Barton through balls and failed to finish.

[sammynb 3523]

Recently we also tend to panic when under pressure, especially late in the game.

Instead of holding on to possession and playing the ball out from the back as we were under Houghton.

I don't know if there is somewhere to check the stats but since Pardoo's arrival, to me, Tiote's game/passing has moved square and backward more.