It is that NIL that worries me Blue. If teams find you relatively easy to stop then you don't win many at any level.
Long ball football is not attractive to watch, but the truth is goals DO tend to come from dead-ball situations and defensive errors.
You could conclude that either the attractive football is for the birds, or for what I think is the truth it is to break down the psychological and physical resistance of the opposition. An effective passing game is a delight for the passers and exhausting for the chasers. If the tiring defenders then make a mistake and concede a dead-ball situation which results in a goal, the stats show a goal from a free-kick - they don't show the minutes of probing and passing that created it.
My conclusion on never seeing more than highlights would be that our failure to score reflects a failure of THE TEAM in all areas - the ball does not come correctly from defence often enough, the midfield isn't using it well enough when it gets it and the forward players don't have enough to make the most of the limited opportunities that result.
If you looked at Paul Cook's team - well obviously they were better - but our full backs were a real threat going forward, in the middle of the park even our most defensively minded players were a real danger going forward too and were constantly looking to pick up the ball from our defence, our attack-minded midfielders looked to get forward, looked to beat a man and have a go at goal or produce a telling pass, and up front, even when we played a lone forward he carried a goal threat and occupied the centre backs. (Our weakness then was our centre back combination was already a bit dodgy and a little too much of our stability came from our keeper IMO.)
It sounds as though we are miles from that sort of team, but I could see Talbot and JBW posing problems from full back, if our central midfield could use their experience to make themselves even a poor man's Ryan and Morsy, then we could have some potential to attack with players like Hines, Shaw, Reid and Carter but I think possibly our man up front has to play better and to start getting his name on the scores sheet. (And we do have four options for the centre back berths.)
Long ball football is not attractive to watch, but the truth is goals DO tend to come from dead-ball situations and defensive errors.
You could conclude that either the attractive football is for the birds, or for what I think is the truth it is to break down the psychological and physical resistance of the opposition. An effective passing game is a delight for the passers and exhausting for the chasers. If the tiring defenders then make a mistake and concede a dead-ball situation which results in a goal, the stats show a goal from a free-kick - they don't show the minutes of probing and passing that created it.
My conclusion on never seeing more than highlights would be that our failure to score reflects a failure of THE TEAM in all areas - the ball does not come correctly from defence often enough, the midfield isn't using it well enough when it gets it and the forward players don't have enough to make the most of the limited opportunities that result.
If you looked at Paul Cook's team - well obviously they were better - but our full backs were a real threat going forward, in the middle of the park even our most defensively minded players were a real danger going forward too and were constantly looking to pick up the ball from our defence, our attack-minded midfielders looked to get forward, looked to beat a man and have a go at goal or produce a telling pass, and up front, even when we played a lone forward he carried a goal threat and occupied the centre backs. (Our weakness then was our centre back combination was already a bit dodgy and a little too much of our stability came from our keeper IMO.)
It sounds as though we are miles from that sort of team, but I could see Talbot and JBW posing problems from full back, if our central midfield could use their experience to make themselves even a poor man's Ryan and Morsy, then we could have some potential to attack with players like Hines, Shaw, Reid and Carter but I think possibly our man up front has to play better and to start getting his name on the scores sheet. (And we do have four options for the centre back berths.)