Playing ten against eleven against a team that is leading by two goals wasn’t easy for us. When we went into the dressing room, the Manager changed things around and we pushed forward, pushing the right and left backs more forward and that changed a lot for us.
I’ll do the Telegraph density maps later in the week, but from them it’s clear that Simon Davies was operating as a second forward, playing, in total, further forward than both Zamora and Johnson. Now we get confirmation from Paintsil that the full-backs were pushing on. I noticed Paintsil roving in the second half, and thought he did that quite well, but Paul Konchesky worries me somewhat when asked to do too much attacking.
Paul Doyle of the Guardian has something about Roy’s subs too, incidentally.
That could be construed as an admission of the lack of his squad’s depth, and certainly the absence of a specialist left winger was punishing, though either Seol Ki-Hyeon or Clint Dempsey could reasonably have been expected to be more visible than the ghostly Zoltan Gera. Chris Baird and Toni Kallio may also have been more reliable in the full-back berths than the negligent John Pantsil and Paul Konchesky. But not “definitely”.
“Definitely” was the key word in Hodgson’s explanation. By using it he left himself open to accusations of indecision or excessive caution. If we reflect on a record of success that extends well beyond last season’s great escape, we may instead deduce that his refusal to gamble on a substitution attests to the strength of his conviction in his methods, a belief, borne of his rich experience, that if you keep performing well you will eventually be rewarded.
Fair enough, all this. I think that, as usual, we’re slightly overreacting, but it’s a trend that does bear watching. Roy must have purchased the likes of Andreasen, Andranik and Etuhu for a reason; I’m sure if we’re patient we’ll see them.
The main thing is points on the board, and we’re about par for the course at the moment. No need to panic just yet.
