Okay so it wasn’t quite the result or performance we wanted and it’s clear there’s a lot of work to be done, but it’s achievable.
I would like us to play a settled side now and give a group of them a chance to really stake their place as ‘first-team’ players. This will give them time to gel and generate some familiarity. At the moment, we’re not quite clicking yet and the constant rotation is not helping matters.
We were lucky to get away with a point in the end. I’m not so sure their late goal was offside and if it was, it was one of those that easily could have been given. But I liked what I saw of Peterborough, they’re a decent outfit and attacked with us with intelligence. The angled balls fed into the strikers and the type of crosses they put into the box meant the service was always good. It was the type of deliveries that our strikers need but haven’t got.
I really liked the crosses they fired in across the 18 yard line. I haven’t seen many teams doing that and although we were never punished from one of those, they were always threatening and creating interesting passages of play in and around our penalty area.
I thought Ben Watson showed touches of class and decision making on the ball that we’ve been lacking. It only took him 47 seconds to play in a quick reverse free-kick that set Hogan Ephraim on his way in the penalty box, only for the referee to pull it back and ask him to take it again. You’d not see many of our other players with the speed of thought to do that in the manner Watson did. But it’s not all rush play either. He knows when to play it short to retain possession and even when he fizzed the ball across one side of the pitch to the other, it was generally to feet and that made it easier for the receiving player to get it under control.
By contrast, despite some good play by Alejandro Faurlin, he was still smashing balls to the head of Wayne Routledge or playing looped high passes to those around him, forcing them to take an awkward high first touch before getting it under control. It didn’t necessarily cause us any real damage, but that type of passing has done before and quite often here it slowed our attacks down or altered the angles and orientations that we could have used because of the time it took for the receiver to get it under control.
One big concern we have defensively is the height, or lack of height, in Gary Borrowdale. He was beaten for most headers all afternoon. He is a prime target for opposing team’s to pick on as a result and Peterborough didn’t really punish us enough for all the headers they won against him.
I felt sorry for Watson for his error that led to Posh’s opener, but it was brilliantly punished and a quite sensational goal. But Ben atoned for that with an excellent tackle that led to our equaliser and his passing was still of a high standard and showed potential. I also liked the way he got into the box for crosses. He never got on the end of anything because the deliveries never really reached him, but he was there and there was an occasion in the second half when Wayne Routledge came off the right-flank and in field as the play broke left and low and behold, Watson veered his run into the box on the right and he almost got on the end of that cross. It’s this intelligence and ability to use the space correctly that makes him useful and effective. The more games he plays the better he should do.
As for what went right and what went wrong…it’s tit for tat really. Jay Simpson was busy at the top end but looks like he needs time to get used to the pace and rhythm of this level again. He often got his body in-between his man but he never really seemed in control of the situation when holding the ball up. I never felt he had control of the ball and the defender’s marking him often got in a little toe here or there, or even stabbed at the ball between his legs, which didn’t help him. The ball was always bobbling about and his passing or lay offs were never quite as clean as they needed to be.
Adel Taarabt frustrated me as well. For all his creativity if he can’t do the right thing at the right time, then he’s not going to be as effective as he could and should be. Even for the goal we scored, you could argue he took a touch too many and on most occasions, would have had the ball nicked from him. I’m still trying to figure him out, because sometimes he will play it nice and simple after getting it under control, and when he does, he’s absolutely fabulous. The pity for him is if he can’t improve the basic decision making in his play and understand that simplicity is sometimes more effective and more beautiful, then he’s going to be resigned to this level of football for the rest of his career. There’s no point in doing tricks for the camera, it’s only a trick if it brings another dimension to the play that the opponents couldn’t see. Zinedine Zidane only did tricks when the time was right, when it was effective and when it could produce an avenue that moved the passage of play onwards. Having said all that, Taarabt still makes things happen around him, so there is some use, but you just can’t be unpredictable to the point that nobody around you know’s what’s coming next because it doesn’t work.
But what bothers me most, and has continued to bother me for a number of years now, is the consistent use of players out of their best or natural positions. People talk about balance, but how can we get natural balance when we have so many square pegs in round holes?
In this match we had Taarabt and Simpson up front, who are arguably a midfielder and winger. We had Hogan Ephraim on the left, who was naturally a striker. We moved a natural right winger in Wayne Routledge to the left when Akos Buzsaky came on, who is arguably more of a left sided midfielder than right. At least that’s where he played most for Plymouth and even then you’d probably want him central. We had Mikele Leigertwood at right-back, and although he’s versatile, it doesn’t make him a natural and even Peter Rammage is a natural centre-back over a right-back anyway. Add into the mix that we’ve often played Matthew Connolly out of position too amongst others, it’s not hard to see why it’s not clicking.
We need to play more players in their best positions and stick to what they know they’re good at. It might be a simple way of looking at things, but sometimes it’s easy to over complicate the problem by trying complex solutions because it seems like other answers are too simple, obvious or easy.
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