Peterborough were playing in a manner that was quite risky, particularly behind their 18 yard line: but they often had 5 or maybe 6 players involved and quite stretched out with options to the opposite side and to the front, the midfield are fully involved and they had the capacity to turn a move quickly into attack, our press needed to be four or five players in layers, with the midfield and the wing backs providing a second layer. Peterborough made enough mistakes whilst pissing about last night, that critchley and his team should have seen it and taken action. If Peterborough had been caught a couple of times they would have probably gone a bit more direct and probably tried to play more long balls.
We have a very tight routine for playing out from the back, which is incredibly predictable and relatively easy to press with just a couple of players, our midfield isnt really involved in the playing out because they are so far advanced and relatively static and particularly our so called anchor player doesn't move from a zone which is about ten yards through the centre of the pitch, so hubby in particular ends up getting the ball and having no options, also because coulson is usually not available to play to. With Connolly on the other side he doesn't have a great deal of vision so whatever he does is likely to mean a pass back from whence it came or a long pass (hoof) forward. I'm pretty sure that these routines are practiced they are just too predictable to not be, players have set positions on the pitch where they are supposed to be in these situations. Peterborough on the other hand were playing with a level of freedom in those areas which we cannot muster or the players are too scared of making a mistake, which ultimately leads them to making even more bigger mistakes.
Players are not played to their strengths whatever they may be, and at least three players last night were just passengers and yet two of them stayed on till the end.
its a cup competition - a semi final - and nothing to lose already being a goal down, why not bring on a third striker instead of the wholesale like for like changes and just go for it.
