Ability & Aggression

[Animis]

When you look at the current crop of players one thing really hits home; we simiply lack the physical attributes to be a solid unit. For example OPR and Leeds have pace, aggresion and physical pressence. Wednesday lack this in abundence at the back and in midfield where most of our problems start. I'm not advocating 6'4'' muscle freaks but Beevers, Spurr, Potter etc are far to lightlight and at times are simply bystanders. We need some hard fookers to complement the skill some of our crop clearly have.

[Guest Big Guns]

ok sign me up

[Dark$ide]

The OP mentioned NO freaks ? Specially ones with 18inch arms

[gurujuan]

With a usual back 4 standing, six one, six foot, six four and six two, physical presence shouldn't be a problem. Likewise three of our regular midfield stand six foot or over. However I take your point as we often seem to be outmuscled by other sides. I think it is more likely to be the mindset of the players, preferring to stand off rather than attack the ball. We do lack pace in centre midfield and centre defence but again this is something that can appear worse if there is no movement off the ball. One of my arguments used to be how we never properly utilized JJ's pace. He would receive the ball in a standing position and then make his move from a standing start, how much better that he be on the move running onto a ball played in front of him. No one would catch the guy. Even players not blessed with JJ's pace can appear quicker by good positioning and making the ball do the work. Most of this I'm afraid is down to the way they are coached.

[oldishowl]

Beevers and Spurr continually get bullied. They did under Laws as well. Just because they are tall does not mean they are strong.

Alan Lee and players like that have knocked them around and will continue to do so until they get stronger.

In midfield we don't have one natural scrapper , or even somebody to do the organising . This was the same last year when we had to put up with JOC and Potter. Coke is an improvement but we require somebody else and I can't believe AI did not fix this in the close season.

Edited December 19, 2010 by oldishowl

[gurujuan]

Its odd then that we have someone in Darren Purse who is known to be one of the toughest uncompromising defenders. Ignore his lapses of concentration but this man had a serious reputation as a hard nut when he joined us.

[oldishowl]

And he still is when he gets close enough to anybody, He is doing just a bit better now than he did in the first half of last season under Laws. He improved vastly when AI came in last season.

Are you seriously suggesting AI tells them to go out and be soft?