Thoughts tonight… RVDB and ELL

Lath does some stuff well but it's mainly his closing down and speed. I have no confidence in him scoring though. He doesn't seem to have any composure or confidence when shooting. It's difficult to criticise anyone when you win 4-0 and even though he wasn't directly involved in the goals you would assume he was doing something to keep defenders busy.

I think it's clear this season that we don't have a striker that can do the running and the scoring and I think it will be a priority in January. I believe it is only 4 games in 18 this season where one of our strikers has scored which really isn't good enough. We're doing very well to score so many goals without them but it would be great if we can add goals from that position.
 
I'd stick with LL personally. Think he's a better fit with how we want to play and most Champo CBs would rather face a big target man type than someone with raw pace.

Think it will work well with him creating space for the other forwards too (something Jones benefitted from multiple times last night).
 
Hard to make a meaningful judgement on RVB after last night, they were truly dreadful going forward, but the signs were promising. Likewise with Dijksteel, those are the types of games he always excels in, its the games where he needs to maintain defensive concentration for 90+ minutes he struggles in.

I like ELL and would love it to come good for him, but I cant see him scoring 10+ goals a season. He has pace to burn, makes good runs off the shoulder, but when he does get in the position to pull the trigger he lacks that composure to score.

He also doesn't appear to have that knack of being in the box at the right time to get on the end of crosses, a la crooks, we put a few in last night that he was on his heels for.
 
Nano said:
Lath does some stuff well but it's mainly his closing down and speed. I have no confidence in him scoring though. He doesn't seem to have any composure or confidence when shooting. It's difficult to criticise anyone when you win 4-0 and even though he wasn't directly involved in the goals you would assume he was doing something to keep defenders busy.

I think it's clear this season that we don't have a striker that can do the running and the scoring and I think it will be a priority in January. I believe it is only 4 games in 18 this season where one of our strikers has scored which really isn't good enough. We're doing very well to score so many goals without them but it would be great if we can add goals from that position.
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I think it's the overall goals that matter rather than who scores them.

The bonus of sharing the goals out means you are not over reliant on a Chuba type. As we saw in the playoffs when Chuba was off form or I think playing with an injury, it blunted us.
 
Just watched the 10 minute highlights on MFC and for me LL had a very good game last night, it's not as if he missed a succession of sitters. The best chances fell elsewhere.

Morgan Rogers had a very good game, a couple of good shots, the assist for Izzy's second but also it was him that put Izzy through for his hatrick chance and laid LL in. He also was on the six yard line to clear a cross/shot from one of their few chances/attacks.
 
It’s nice that despite all our injuries , we still argue about a choice of players and tactics on how to win the next game against a club who are up there in the playoffs.
It was not so long that we were looking at the bottom of the table and worrying where our next points were coming from.

We now seem to have a regime, with MC at the head, who can, on the spot, effectively analyse and change tactics as well as motivating players to perform at their best. Long may it continue, please.
 
equaliser said:
Think Dijksteel and Bangura could well end up being our full backs for a while. Dijksteel a bit rusty but he'll get better. No reason not to leave VdB in alongside McNair. Same in a way with Barlaser, who was outstanding along with Howson. No reason we can't get a result at Leeds.
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"Barlaser, who was outstanding"

Really I thought he was the one disappointment on the night, some of his passing was awful.
 
All about opinion of course but as I said in MOTM thread I thought some of Barlaser's passing was really sloppy and a better team may have punished us from same situations.
 
RVDB is destined for the PL. His style is exactly what modern coaches and top teams are after.

We've got ourselves a gem with this lad.

Scouts have done well with this signing. There's a very big chance we make a huge profit on him.

Long may he stay here though.
 
The advantage of having a choice between LL and Coburn is that they offer the opposition a completely different set of problems, so Carrick can pick the player who he thinks will cause the opposition most issues. Clearly it worked last night, for most of the goals did something in the build up or made a run to create space for others.

VDB is just great. I'm sure at some point he will misplace a pass that costs us a goal, but that's the nature of the way we play from the back and the same will probably be true for any of our defenders or midfielders. Great to see him get on the scoresheet.
 
davidmills said:
"Barlaser, who was outstanding"

Really I thought he was the one disappointment on the night, some of his passing was awful.
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Barlaser attempted 26 more passes than any other player on the pitch last night. He also made 25 more accurate passes than anyone else. His pass success rate was 87%, slightly behind the 90% of Crooks (who attempted 46 fewer passes than Barlaser) but ahead of the 83% from Howson.

To come away from the Riverside last night with the view that "some of his passing was awful" is mind boggling.
 
This seems a bit excessive. It's far too early to make any real assessment on RVDB. We've not really seen enough of him in his proper position to be able to make an informed judgement. He did really well for his age to adapt and fill in at right back albeit not overly spectacularly.

He also played well last night but if he gets a chance against Leeds, Ipswich and Hull then we'll get a real insight into how good he is.

Marvanelli said:
RVDB is destined for the PL. His style is exactly what modern coaches and top teams are after.

We've got ourselves a gem with this lad.

Scouts have done well with this signing. There's a very big chance we make a huge profit on him.

Long may he stay here though.
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We look better when Barlaser is playing in my opinion. Him and Hayden would be my first choice pick.

As for LL, I wonder if Carrick was keen to start him due to Preston playing three at the back. Can be more difficult to find space against a back three and thought his runs disrupted their line and created space for other players running from deep/wide.
 
WilliamMunny said:
Barlaser attempted 26 more passes than any other player on the pitch last night. He also made 25 more accurate passes than anyone else. His pass success rate was 87%, slightly behind the 90% of Crooks (who attempted 46 fewer passes than Barlaser) but ahead of the 83% from Howson.

To come away from the Riverside last night with the view that "some of his passing was awful" is mind boggling.
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Maybe Barlaser's 13% of giving the ball away was in more dangerous situations than Howsons 17% or Crooks 10%, stats don't always tell the full story.
This game is all about opinions though isn't it and is why we all love it.
 
Best I have seen Lath play tonight, great work rate and never let the defenders settle. Reminded me of an Almiron type player, let's just hope he starts to chip in with a few goals.
 
Gudintheair said:
Best I have seen Lath play tonight, great work rate and never let the defenders settle. Reminded me of an Almiron type player, let's just hope he starts to chip in with a few goals.
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I'm still not there on Lath as the main man. You'd expect him to be scoring against opposition like that.
 
davidmills said:
Maybe Barlaser's 13% of giving the ball away was in more dangerous situations than Howsons 17% or Crooks 10%, stats don't always tell the full story.
This game is all about opinions though isn't it and is why we all love it.
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I agree stats don't always tell the full story, but these stats do back up what I and most others witnessed last night, which was Dan Barlaser being the most involved player on either side. If you attempt 97 passes in a game, you'll probably give the ball away more times than someone attempting 30-40 passes. Therefore it isn't fair to focus on a few misplaced passes and ignore the 84 successful passes, 3 of which were integral to our 3 first half goals.

You're obviously entitled to your opinion that Barlaser was disappointing and Howson ran the show. What I saw was two players in the middle playing well, but Barlaser for me had a better game than Howson.

Incidentally, not that it proves anything, but the bods at whoscored gave Barlaser 7.8, Crooks 7.7 and Howson 7.1. Being subbed off may have affected the scores of the latter two, but Howson was actually the lowest rated Boro player on the night.
 
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