You select players not only position wise but who they will be against.

This is why it's called tactics.

Richards was exposed last night because Olise was advanced forward and not fit enough to cover the distance otherwise he may have been fine with some support (he still is not a full back or wing back he is suppose to be CB)

We could have tried something different 3 CB which would make more sense.

Schlupp was being picked no matter what have you even been paying attention all season it does not appear so only this last month Schlupp has been out a few times.

We have Ayew playing left wing most of the time if Olise is out he plays on right.

Many options we have but he wont play the likes of Ahamada, Franca, Ebiowei, Ozoh from the start if lucky they get 10min.

No excuse last night why he could give likes of Franca some match time.

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I think it's very simplistic to blame Richards for the first goal - Guehi somehow ended up miles out of position tracking McBurnie 20 seconds into the game, and they then had an overload on Richards side to exploit. He could probably have got tighter as Diaz got into the box, but the damage was done when McBurnie took Guehi out of the game with his flick round the corner, and Hamer switched the play.

Look at the still as Hamer hits his pass - if Richards is any wider there, he's got a simple pass to put the central player through on goal, which is far more dangerous - Richards was correct to be narrow, and the bigger question is why we're exposed 3 v 3 20 seconds into a game...

Edited by EverybodyDannsNow (31 Jan 2024 4.18pm)

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Yes. but the issue is which substitutions the manager makes. Last night we were clearly the team on the attack when both Eze and Olise were on the field.

When they came off, Hodgson seems to have taken the decision to hand the initiative over to Sheff U by bringing on Schlupp and Ozoh. Our attacking options were clearly and drastically reduced. The inevitable happened and we just held on and scraped the win.
Did Hodgson have other options?

Of course he did! He could have brought on Edouard and Franca and adjusted the team as follows:
- switch Ayew to RW
- play Edouard at LW
- play Franca as the No 10 (which, by all accounts is his more favoured position).

That would have retained a more balanced team and enabled us to still have an attacking threat, obviously not one of the same standard as what we'd had with Olise and Eze playing, but it would IMO have given us a better chance of maintaining our front foot position. Instead, as soon as Wilder and his team saw the defensive nature of our substitutions, they gratefully accepted Hodgson's invitation to go on the offensive.

It is no coincidence that we have conceded so many late goals this season and nearly did again yesterday.

It's not an exact science, but it's very obvious there are things in matches which are linked to management/coaching decisions, and others which are not.

Broadly, structure out of possession, patterns of play in possession to create chances, set-pieces, team selection and substitutions, are things you can attribute to a manager.

Individual mistakes and individual moments of quality are what you would not.

I make you right that we won predominantly because of the latter yesterday.

I thought the best thing Roy did yesterday was start Hughes as the 6 rather than Richards - our ability to turn over the ball and find forward passes was greatly increased as a result.

There seemed a vague plan to try and get Olise 1v1 with his man and overload the box, which paid off for the first goal - Eze even alluded to it in his post-match interview when he said he knows where he needs to be when Olise has the ball in that position.

Yes, I agree with everything there. I love Hughes but still doubt him however equally make you right and thought he did very well yesterday.

On the Olise and Eze thing that may well be all Roy's doing but even if so, I wouldn't regard it as managerial genius. It may equally just be reflective of the relationship between the two and their mutual footballing understanding however.

Now Zaha's got a bit of green grass ahead of him here... and finds Ambrose... not a bad effort!!!!

I think it's an enormous stretch, to the point of silliness really.

A player of Eze's quality will score goals like that all through his career, under a whole range of managers - the common denominator is Eze's talent.