Probably the worst attribute in our team. Only Ash, Lampard & at times Anelka.

We all moan about the lack of creativity in our team but a pass is only as the run. If we could learn one thing from Barca that would probably be it.

Probably the worst attribute in our team. Only Ash, Lampard & at times Anelka.

We all moan about the lack of creativity in our team but a pass is only as the run. If we could learn one thing from Barca that would probably be it.

Remeber the game when a pigeon landed on Mikel's head? - shocking!

I agree with this, I often watch the football with my parents (lol) and often my dad will sigh or moan when someone takes too much time and loses the ball, or passes to no one - at which point I have to mention they only messed up because absolutely no one was showing for the ball.

I think one player you forgot to mention is Mikel, who constantly makes himself available and gets into space to allow people to pass to him, the problem is that most of those passes are very negative and the easy option. That's not Mikel's fault, that's his role and he does it well, but it'd be great to see people a bit more like that, but in a more positive way and further up the pitch.

What you're forgetting is Barcelona players have been taught to play that way for god knows how long, it's their way of football and it never changes despite the manager and players. Their philosophy of pass and move is clear for all to see, when Xavi has the ball there are about 4 or 5 different players making runs. Give Lampard those options and I'm pretty sure he could hit passes that Xavi would be proud of. We're a mix and match of many different playing styles, when it clicks it's great but sometimes we're just all over the place and it's horrible to watch. Will it change? Probably not but we could improve another 10-15% which would be great.

My biggest problem with the team at the moment is that we don't close teams down well enough, maybe we lack the athletes in midfield to do this but it really needs to be addressed. The amount of time and space some lesser teams get against us is criminal, no other top team affords the lesser teams as much space and time as we do.

Oh and if we could start games well that would be nice. I hate seeing 15-25 minutes of clumsy mistakes and slow football feeling the way into the game while the oppoisiton are going at it full pelt.

The reason we dont close the teams down is because we dont have the legs to do that considering we also play a high tempo game........and if we tried we would not be able to sustain the level of performance week after week. Against bigger teams we usually apply that tactic and have been successful too but I dont think, considering the age of the squad and so on, that we would be able to sustain that kind of thing every game.

Barcelona does press from the front but then they play slow build up and with low tempo. They can afford to but we cant because we dont have players who can keep the possession for long spells unlike them.

I'm not sure it's so much a question of off the ball movement, I think it's more a case of where they move to and how fast they do it.

We seem to be able to move the ball around quite sweetly in the first two thirds of the pitch. Of course it's always going to be more difficult to do that in the final third but I feel we very often don't get players forward of the man in possesion, into that area quickly enough. How many times do you see Malouda/Zhirkov/Cole get into a good position and then look up to see there is only Drogba or Lampard in the box to aim for?

Your basing this whole thread topic on an imbalanced and patched up team.

When Ashley is back at LB, and Bossy returns to RB the whole dynamics of the team will change, you'll start to see players get more confident, runs can be made to pull defenders out of central positions and out to the flanks, weve been missing this for most of the season.

And I havent even mentioned the Bison.

Your basing this whole thread topic on an imbalanced and patched up team.

When Ashley is back at LB, and Bossy returns to RB the whole dynamics of the team will change, you'll start to see players get more confident, runs can be made to pull defenders out of central positions and out to the flanks, weve been missing this for most of the season.

And I havent even mentioned the Bison.

Gods sake coco, i came into this to post exactly what you said you bugger. beat me to it. Our main attacking width comes from the full backs, and though Ivanovic did well he simply isnt as forward thinking as Bossy. Losing Ash and Bossy was like losing our two best wingers as well as 2 full backs. And as you say, losing Essien took a massive amount of dynamism away from our midfield.

Gods sake coco, i came into this to post exactly what you said you bugger. beat me to it. Our main attacking width comes from the full backs, and though Ivanovic did well he simply isnt as forward thinking as Bossy. Losing Ash and Bossy was like losing our two best wingers as well as 2 full backs. And as you say, losing Essien took a massive amount of dynamism away from our midfield.

I echo that echo :(