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Use your noggin. Look at the defence. Two attacks two goals. The real problems are in front of your nose. Yes Fulham defended with their lives, got lucky on a few occasions, couple of great saves from their keeper, lost of last ditch tackles on the ground from their centre backs too. United created dangerous situations. Like I say, United scoring twice should win us the match. Howver those goals come - crosses, penalties, free kicks, own goals whatever. If we leak 2 goals at home from such soft situations we are gonna drop points. £#%&! all to do with the ( actually successful ) tactic of using crosses at the attacking end. |
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The first is that crosses have the best chance of success when some kind of interplay has forced or dragged at least one central defender out from in front of goal. Whipping in a cross the second you get the ball - which is the only way you can manage 80+ crosses in a game - means you're probably aiming for targets who are marked, by defenders who are comfortably in good defensive positions. I'm not so sure what counts as a 'successful' cross either. Quite a few times we pulled balls back behind the runner, who had to check back to get a touch and just lay it back to a deeper player. That's not my real-world idea of a 'successful cross.' There's also the Fulham-specific problem of crossing a million balls at a back four whose main strength - because of their level of play - is dealing with balls in the air, rather than tracking runners and disrupting clever combination play (which our front players are capable of). But don't take my word for it: Former Darlington defender Burn said the aerial assault reminded him of his days in non-league football, adding: “I've never headed that many balls since [playing in] the Conference.” “At the end of the day I'm happy for them to play like that. We knew that we were going to defend our box well. We were going to keep our back four quite narrow so that we were between the goal and the wingers were going to look after the wide men. “We've been working on that in training. I thought it worked well." |
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I wonder if they spend most of their time trying to drill the defence, hoping that with a bit of finishing practice the attack will take care of itself? maybe if so the manager needs to sack that off for the time being cus half his defence won't even be there come august anyway - just concentrate on keeping the back door shut and get that attack purring try anyway |
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It was like watching an extended training session or an exercise in self-parody. It used to crack me up when Valencia spent the whole game brainlessly thumping the ball towards the box, appears he was just the outlier. |
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It's about variety. Yes, Giggs used to cross it for Hughes and Cantona, and later Ronaldo, and so on. But it wasn't all the team did. Those teams were so devastating because they had countless ways they could hurt you- one-twos between Scholes and Keane, Cole and Yorke, imaginative through balls from Eric, even - the horror - shooting from distance now and again. The problem was that yesterday it was the only approach. It was the only way the team tried to get anywhere. Literally the second any player received the ball over the halfway line, he'd instantly look to give it to someone standing still on the touchline - note, standing still, not running at full pelt like Hill or Kanchelskis - who would then just loft the ball into the box without even looking. You need to vary the play to keep the opposition on their toes, and this team is not doing it because, seemingly, they are being told not to. I see no imagination, no variety, just one tactic - cross it in. It's soul-destroying to watch. Ok, two crosses eventually led to two goals, but this is the bottom team we're talking about. Players like Van Persie, Rooney, Mata, Kagawa, Januzaj have the ability to destroy them. It should not be a case of chucking in 80-odd crosses and hope that 2 of them lead to goals so you can just about win against a team as shite as Fulham. It was criminally wasteful to resort to the same, repetitive tactic over and over and over again. Apart from anything else it's just £#%&!ing dull. Change it up ffs! Try something else. I agree the defensive mistakes were to blame for the points being thrown away, but you cannot honestly compare that tedious cross-a-thon yesterday with the days of Kanchelskis and Giggs or Coppell and Hill flying at speed down the flanks. It's worlds apart ffs. And by the way, Fulham's first goal wasn't from a cross. |
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I'd like to also say that although Fulham did defend the majority of what was thrown at them, they didn't really defend it particularly well and they didn't really have to. They constantly gave the ball back cheaply when better players would have been able to keep hold of possession and looked flustered at times which would have also been lessened against better teams, but due to the outrageously monotonous nature of the type of crosses being pumped into box it didn't really matter and they were comfortable for the majority.
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