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Post by shatter2 on Sept 13, 2022 20:03:55 GMT
A chance to get our first home win of the season when we take on Covy at Kenilworth Road tomorrow evening. We thrashed them 5-0 in September last year a repeat would be great but a scrappy 1-0 will do me! COYH let's get moving up that League!!  |
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Post by rutlandhatter on Sept 14, 2022 9:44:37 GMT
Only once have I seen Coventry away (at the Ricoh) --and then not the whole match as the A14 was gridlocked. To cap it all we got caught up in the middle of Luton fans after the match as large doors were opened and fans surged out --my other half is claustrophobic so not a good experience for him. COYH
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Post by lutonloyal on Sept 14, 2022 9:55:56 GMT
I'm afraid attending my 1,936th Luton match and 1,259th at Kenilworth Road is going to have to wait until at least Saturday, as I've been off work sick since returning from Amsterdam on Thursday night.
Therefore I will not be adding to my 21 Luton v Coventry clashes at Kenilworth Road from 1971 - 2021..............of which the record is:
Played 21, Luton wins nine, 3 draws and nine defeats.
Including Kenilworth Road, Highfield Road and the Ricoh - I have seen Luton lose to the Sky Blues SIXTEEN times out of a total 30 attended. More defeats than against ANY other Prem/Fl club.
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Post by 8two on Sept 14, 2022 11:08:36 GMT
Not a great record vs Coventry: Won: 28 Draw: 17 Lost: 41 First game: 1908, won 6 - 1 Last game: 2022, won 1 - 0 Biggest win: 1908, 6 - 1 Biggest Loss: 1909, 6 - 2 And finally:   |
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Post by 8two on Sept 14, 2022 21:51:17 GMT
Ok Nathan, first job in the morning is to introduce the players to each other as this evening they played like they had met for the first time today.
The best team only took a point, bad luck Coventry you deserved all three. And while I'm in a negative mood, pity it wasn't cricket, then we could have brought on a runner for Bradley. Slow or rather dangerously slow is probably underestimating, I bet Lockyer was spitting feathers stuck on the bench.
It's a job to ascertain what formation we were attempting to play, but if Fred was a wing back, then the wing part was fine but you would expect him to have a nodding acquaintance with the back bit.
Got a lot of work to do before Saturday but I did enjoy League 1, none of this international nonsense.
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Post by Wimbo on Sept 15, 2022 5:58:01 GMT
A good entertaining game and a draw was probably a fair result against a Coventry side that have a couple of very talented players in Gyokeres & Hamer; I would be very happy to field a striking pair of Morris & Gyokeres in our side; what a handful that pair would be together.
For me, there were a good number of positives last night; the class of Morris & Clark, and the endless work of Campbell but sadly in defence there were way too many negatives. I thought in defence Bradley & Potts had poor games and always looked to be very vulnerable to well, almost anything coming at them on the deck. Osho improved as the game went on and I thought Bree was mainly sound enough apart from his simply dreadful dead ball kicks that were absolute gifts for the Coventry keeper. It’s nice to see Fred's pace going forward but what a big hole he leaves at the back. Thankfully the excellent Clark was able to cover so much of that shoddy play by our defenders.
Do we miss Naismith well yes and no. We miss the good side of Naismith but not the accident-prone defending that he demonstrated yet again at Norwich last night. Our best CB is without a doubt Reece Burke and let's hope he is fit again for Saturday. Alongside Burke, I would go for Osho although he is still learning he has the necessary pace and then depending on the style of the opposition either Potts or Lockyer. Bradley for me is just too lacking in pace at this level to be in the starting 11 even when yesterday's lack of match form will have passed. We are short of a defender in the squad but I would not criticise our management team for that, simply difficult to attract the right player with our limited resources.
It's a shame that Alfie Doughty remains injured as he seems an ideal wing-back whereas Fred knows how to attack but sadly is just not up to playing the defensive side of the role which in turn puts extra pressure on our midfield allowing very fast players such as Coventry possess, the ability to counter-attack with freedom in the vacated space.
Turning to Adebayo, he is just not getting into space or anticipating in the way that he did last season but I feel sure that with a goal or two behind him that he will be back to the player we appreciated last season.
A difficult one Saturday against some decent Blackburn forwards and our defenders will have to be way better than they were against Coventry if we are to get that first home win.
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Post by lutonloyal on Sept 15, 2022 9:34:27 GMT
Got a lot of work to do before Saturday but I did enjoy League 1, none of this international nonsense. The financial implications to LTFC would be catastrophic if we were to get relegated to League 1. |
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Post by proudhattersince74 on Sept 15, 2022 11:50:04 GMT
What we did well we did VERY well. Unfortunately, what we did badly was VERY bad. Anyone to blame? TBH, I don't think the players did anything but give their all - sadly, that wasn't enough because of a lack of game time together - that led to a multitude of minor (IMO) misunderstandings that always seemed to compound each other and made them look like catastrophic cock-ups!
Did NJ select the right team? Not IMHO. Without having Burke available and then deciding to bench Lockyer (who is probably the best CB we have who understands the requirements of his role in a back three ... plus he can be a nasty ba5t4rd when needed and hadn't done anything particularly wrong in the preceding matches!), it was asking for Osho, Bradley and Potts to be right on top of their games. Two of those were distinctly off of their games, although I believe that a godly chunk of Potts' positional and spatial mistakes were down to him trying to cover Bradley's complete lack of pace and match sharpness. So Potts was dragged more centrally whilst also trying to cover the acres of grassland behind Fred down our left flank. Basically, Potts didn't know whether to sh1t, shave or shower whenever they broke down our left.
Potts has shown he can play adequately on the left of a back three but his neighbouring defender needs to be far better than Bradley was. Plus having a left back or left wing back who can sense danger early and knows he cannot simply stay too far up the pitch would help. Fred ain't a wing back, let alone a left sided wing back.
Freeman was pretty anonymous last night - certainly wasn't as influential as recent previous matches. Worked hard but no rewards and doesn't have the legs to chase a breakaway ... and Coventry had plenty of those! Bizarrely, Coventry's most dangerous breakaways were nearly always from OUR free kicks that, with the exception of Adebayo's skied chance, floated gently to their GK who instantly dispatched the ball to runners whilst our tallest defenders were still adjacent to the GK awaiting a free kick that they may have the slightest chance of winning ... they may still be waiting for that right now!
Driving home last night I couldn't help but think about how we could protect a lead last season. Naismith is an obvious miss: his alleged mistakes appear to have been passed on to the other defenders but two things he did offer were (1) the ability to bring the ball out of defence at his feet and then pass it going forward to midfielders who continued to move it forward and (2) the ability to hit accurate long balls if midfield options were unavailable. IMHO, I think this is a big part of why Adebayo is 'lost' this season - Naismith could hit him far more accurately than Lockyer, Potts, Horvath or Bell when they try long passes ... and Eli isn't the best at heading, timing his jumps for headers or winning 50-50 aerial battles with his back to goal.
However, when I looked at Coventry's team, they had pace, athleticism, height, physique, strength, desire, a good passing ethos, decent organisation but, above all else, high energy levels. Okay, that has to be tempered against some of our players looking lethargic and disjointed as a team but, to me, it looked like they had several 'Pelley' type players in their team. So when NJ says that we haven't been keeping clean sheets, apart from Naismith, maybe the absence of Pelly's defensive influence is far greater than it may have appeared.
Oh and what a signing Morris is proving! Just a crying shame that Harry's hamstring (and Doughty's hamstring for that matter) seem susceptible to innocuous injuries as they look like they could be quite lethal as a partnership.
COYH
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Post by hatterinSW19 on Sept 15, 2022 14:16:37 GMT
There's an interesting comparison to be made with this time last season; remarkably similar...
2021-22
Played 9 W2 D4 L3 For 13 Against 16 GD -3 Points 10 Position 16th
2022-23
Played 9 W2 D4 L3 For 9 Against 10 GD -1 Points 10 Position 18th
Last season's 10th game was the 5-0 win against Coventry, who were probably quite motivated to avoid a repeat last night. You'd suspect Blackburn won't be quite so accommodating, but who knows...
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Post by rutlandhatter on Sept 15, 2022 15:00:41 GMT
In my opinion we saw too much backing off Coventry players last night thus allowing them to progress up the field. We need more early challenges. That suggests a midfield being prepared to challenge and, if the don't win the ball to track back and try again. I think I might be describing Pelly here!
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Post by 8two on Sept 15, 2022 15:13:25 GMT
In my opinion we saw too much backing off Coventry players last night thus allowing them to progress up the field. We need more early challenges. That suggests a midfield being prepared to challenge and, if the don't win the ball to track back and try again. I think I might be describing Pelly here! yes Gale, Pelly denies space and makes the opposition make early decisions. Good as Campbell and Clark are they are relatively lightweight as is Osho. Some steel is needed and unfortunately Lansbury is made of glass. |
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Post by shatter2 on Sept 15, 2022 17:14:13 GMT
There's an interesting comparison to be made with this time last season; remarkably similar... 2021-22Played 9 W2 D4 L3 For 13 Against 16 GD -3 Points 10 Position 16th 2022-23Played 9 W2 D4 L3 For 9 Against 10 GD -1 Points 10 Position 18th Last season's 10th game was the 5-0 win against Coventry, who were probably quite motivated to avoid a repeat last night. You'd suspect Blackburn won't be quite so accommodating, but who knows... Puts it in perspective, we do seem to have a good home record against Blackburn of late. And aren't we three points of the playoffs?!! As someone elsewhere said I'm not putting the rubber sheet on my bed just yet! |
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Post by proudhattersince74 on Sept 16, 2022 17:03:16 GMT
Just had a chat with a Coventry fan thru work. He and his brother attended KR on Wednesday and his brother is an academy coach who sometimes get sent on scouting missions (before you ask, he's not at Coventry, but is also a fan of theirs). His brother's comments were mainly about Adebayo's movement in that he didn't appear to try to run into spaces - rather that he ran straight at defenders, making it far easier to defend against.
I mentioned the way that Coventry's front two kept running fast diagonals across each other and they did this between our back line and our midfield before bursting through our back line towards goal. Their clever swapping of positions 4-5 yards in front of the back line makes it hard for CBs to follow players as the responsibility is passed on to a team mate depending upon where they are on the pitch. Plus, doing this between our defence and midfield causes extra confusion about whether the defenders expect the MF to pick up the runners or vice-versa.
He was as impressed with the Morris/Cornick movement/interchanges as he was with that of Coventry's front two ... but he wasn't impressed with Eli's movement and put it mainly down to a lack of anticipation more than anything else. In most instances, Eli reacted after the Coventry players around him so they had an advantage over him in virtually every challenges. If it had been one of his academy players, he would be telling him to pull away from the CBs (playing slightly further away from the opposition goal) - then, especially with Eli's pace and physique, he could then be running much faster at the opposition back line whilst choosing the best zig-zag route between them. Possibly with the ball but, more importantly, without it as it should free up more space for incoming crosses ... at which point I wondered if he saw the quality of our crossing on Wednesday night!
Bearing in mind that Adebayo only played one half of the Coventry match, I did wonder if he knew most of this info before the Coventry game even took place. His club did, apparently, look at Eli last season but they lost interest after he was injured. I assume some of his comments were gleaned from scouting reports prepared before Eli got crocked. Oh and both my contact and his brother are worried about losing Gyokeres in January to a PL club.
Seeing that Adebayo was limping when he left the pitch on Wednesdsay night, I don't know that he will be on view vs Blackburn.
COYH.
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Post by 8two on Sept 16, 2022 17:33:33 GMT
Seeing that Adebayo was limping when he left the pitch on Wednesdsay night, I don't know that he will be on view vs Blackburn. COYH. Silly question proud: Nathan said he needs to find a co-striker for Morris, isn't that what Woodrow is? Think he was No. 9 at Barnsley. |
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