To Scared To Put A Foot In !

[WayneTheOwl]

Its been bugging me for ages now. Last season we showed teams no respect by giving him a good old fashioned "kicking" at times.

It seems to me now that all of our players except probably Reda are too damn scared to get a heavy challenge in on the opposition.

Other teams give us a good kicking, especially Antonio (he got a right challenge in the first minute last home game (a fair one). From the off this type of challenge puts fear in the opposition players to a degree.

When was the last time any of you can remember a proper heavy fair challenge from one of our players? None of the central midfielders do it, especially Barkley. Semedo does to some degree but not often at all.

As for the Buxton & Jones, they very rarely get any challenge in, often just allowing crosses into the box (as per Forest on Saturday).

So is it just me thinking this or have many of you thought/seen the same void of challenges. Just to add as well, we always outscore the opposition in terms of fouls but 99% of these are stupid silly challenges often 20-35 yards from goal!!

[BRADDAZ]

Erm... Maybe it's down to tactics?

It's very evident that we don't pressure opposition players. But it's all of the players that do this, which tells me it's what they're told to do.

[PeteG_1984]

I don't think it's so much a need to 'give em a good kickin' but at least close players down and don't give them so much time on the ball - that's what everyone else does to us.

[Guest zico sterland]

Liera against Leeds leathered owt that moved,good lad.

[cross owl]

well if its tactics then its time we bulldozed the opposition and let them know in no uncertain terms that they're going to have to fight for everything , starting with leicester because if we show them respect they're going to smash us to pieces .

[Spookone]

I seem to remember the first few games of the season we did close players down and looked very good doing it.

It is one of my bugbears that teams dont close the opposition down, it puts the opposing team on the back foot and gets the crowd behind the team.

Cross Owl is right, we need to get at their players and fight for everything against Leister, Cardiff etc. dont show respect, bully them or we will come off worse and DJ may then be on his merry way.

[Guest Sheff Owl]

Remember VS Blackpool their player (Eardley i think) went in hard on Antonio and should a signal of intent - that was in the first minute..

Thomas Ince and Matt Phillips ran the show and we just ALLOWED them all the time and space they wanted.

I don't think we put one decent, hard, fair challenge on them through the whole game.

We constantly back off and back off...we don't seem to want to do any sort of tough challenges, we come across as a set of wimps..if it be tactics or not.

[WayneTheOwl]

Remember VS Blackpool their player (Eardley i think) went in hard on Antonio and should a signal of intent - that was in the first minute..

Thomas Ince and Matt Phillips ran the show and we just ALLOWED them all the time and space they wanted.

I don't think we put one decent, hard, fair challenge on them through the whole game.

We constantly back off and back off...we don't seem to want to do any sort of tough challenges, we come across as a set of wimps..if it be tactics or not.

This is the one I was thinking of. Straight from the first whistle - bang have some of that.

I'm not saying that we should kick the crap out of teams, that is not allowed nowadays. The first few games we seemed "up for it", closing down etc etc. That was excellent and worked. Now we just stand and admire, we don't have one single hard tackler in our starting 11. It is probably down to tactics again, but its not working. D Jones doesn't have the skills that Nigel Worthington had (he always allowed the player to come at him but 9 times out of 10 won the ball), come too think of it, he has no skill.

Another missing link from our squad and wee wees me right off!