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Looking at our results and that playing at home is considered an advantage, our away results are good. Currently on a par with Chelsea, much better than the rags and only a bit behind Arsenal.

Are we better suited at present to playing away from home? or the same question the other way round is our difficulty in breaking down teams that sit in their half?
Liverpool and Chelsea tried to play and we beat them, Newcastle to some extent also, But others like Sunderland just sat there and then nicked one, Birmingham were similar.

So looking at that, if you ask me that is where we are struggling and teams are going to see that and do the same, even the rags were sat deeper than you would expect them to be so they could all get back when needed.


Will Balotelli be the poacher we seem to need? or is it a case of more experience together trying to break teams down.. better understanding between players? or do we need completely different tactics at home?

We've often played a more attacking formation away from home. WBA being an example which worked, Wolves the opposite after working for 20 mins.

This could tie in with (and to a certain extent back up) Tokyo's point about teams coming to the coms and concentrating on defending. When we go away the home side will have a different mentality and attack much more (in theory) leaving spaces to exploit on the break which, with the quality we have, we do successfully on many occasions.

Lees Alter Ego wrote:This could tie in with (and to a certain extent back up) Tokyo's point about teams coming to the coms and concentrating on defending. When we go away the home side will have a different mentality and attack much more (in theory) leaving spaces to exploit on the break which, with the quality we have, we do successfully on many occasions.

My own opinion is that it backs up Tokyo's point completely, when you consider how the games went. And it is the fact that teams are obliged to come out and play that leaves them a lot more vunerable to our quality, also making it easier for us.
Might just look at how many we have conceeded away form home too..

conceeded 5 away and 5 at home
scored 8 away and 7 at home

I said it on saturday we're a counter attacking team! Its easier to do that when playing away when the onus is on the home team to come at you

Yea maybe the problem is that a team comes to COMS to defend, we sit back to encourage them to attack but they dont, so we're left with 2 teams waiting for the other to attack.

We end up having to attack, maybe not suiting our game plan, which is why we aint scoring!

Crossie wrote:Yea maybe the problem is that a team comes to COMS to defend, we sit back to encourage them to attack but they dont, so we're left with 2 teams waiting for the other to attack.

We end up having to attack, maybe not suiting our game plan, which is why we aint scoring!

It's exactly the problem - we play best when teams are trying to attack us (so our chances tend to come from counter-attacks, meaning we sorely miss a player in the mould of Bellamy at the moment)

strangely i'm confident about any away game. i think we'll slap fulham about at the weekend.

Crossie wrote:Yea maybe the problem is that a team comes to COMS to defend, we sit back to encourage them to attack but they dont, so we're left with 2 teams waiting for the other to attack.

We end up having to attack, maybe not suiting our game plan, which is why we aint scoring!

Im not sure there is much of a maybe in it Crossie, look back at the games, the team that tried an attacking line up Liverpool got wasted and Newcastle had a go and got beat.

I wouldn't say that we set out to defend at home or even sit back, we are cautious of teams counter attacking plan as we should be, but i would say that the Sunderland and the Brum game were classic examples of presenting the problem we have at home, teams sit there and we have to find a way through ( with a relatively new attacking line up ).

I think we were having this problem at home last season, too. If we don't get an early goal, we're in all sorts of problems and we usually get worse, whilst the opposition grow in confidence. We need to learn from Chelsea, rags, Arse who usually beat everyone, especially the lower teams at home.

The rags won the league a couple of seasons ago without beating any of the other top 4, home or away. They have a knack of beating teams, even if it takes till the 97th minute and often it's done by overloading the attack, despite Mancini's comments about extra strikers not giving goals. Short of getting the dodgy referees, we do need to work it out. Maybe Saturday was an attempt to try something different, but, certainly in hindsight, it was a daft idea. With other strikers unavailable, if Tevez was carrying a knock, I'd rather they'd put Richards on up front and gone (Chris) Samba style. They were coping with RSC, but could they have managed two of them?

brite blu sky wrote:

Lees Alter Ego wrote:This could tie in with (and to a certain extent back up) Tokyo's point about teams coming to the coms and concentrating on defending. When we go away the home side will have a different mentality and attack much more (in theory) leaving spaces to exploit on the break which, with the quality we have, we do successfully on many occasions.

My own opinion is that it backs up Tokyo's point completely, when you consider how the games went. And it is the fact that teams are obliged to come out and play that leaves them a lot more vunerable to our quality, also making it easier for us.
Might just look at how many we have conceeded away form home too..

conceeded 5 away and 5 at home
scored 8 away and 7 at home

I'd say that the quality of the teams we have played away from home has a big bearing on it too as things stand. Aside from spuds, we have yet to play any of the bigger teams, Chelsea, Everton, Liverpool, Rags, Arsenal, Villa.

Could make a tough 2nd half of the season if we struggle against those and fail to break sides down at home. Quite a worrying thought that actually

We had to deal with it last season too & we should now be much better at it rather than much much worse. Our attacking play is fucked up & we need to unfuck it.

Ted Hughes wrote:We had to deal with it last season too & we should now be much better at it rather than much much worse. Our attacking play is fucked up & we need to unfuck it.

Our attacking play is so one dimensional Ted that after 15 minutes any team in the prem who come to defend will reap rewards.If we can see the need for change why cant our Manager?

gillie wrote:

Ted Hughes wrote:We had to deal with it last season too & we should now be much better at it rather than much much worse. Our attacking play is fucked up & we need to unfuck it.

Our attacking play is so one dimensional Ted that after 15 minutes any team in the prem who come to defend will reap rewards.If we can see the need for change why cant our Manager?

I think he can see it but it's not his forte. I think he was probably hoping the players would just do it, which is fair enough to some extent, but without Bellamy or Balotelli it's not working very well. Now he has the problem that he's got to find a blend between the attacking players & he probably wasn't expecting he'd have to do anything much other than let them get on with it. If he'd kept Bellamy he'd probably be right as he would shout at people & sort it out but Tevez/Silva barely speak English & Ade is a certified lunatic. His future rests with Balotelli & the transfer window if he reaches it.

johnpb78 wrote:

brite blu sky wrote:

Lees Alter Ego wrote:This could tie in with (and to a certain extent back up) Tokyo's point about teams coming to the coms and concentrating on defending. When we go away the home side will have a different mentality and attack much more (in theory) leaving spaces to exploit on the break which, with the quality we have, we do successfully on many occasions.

My own opinion is that it backs up Tokyo's point completely, when you consider how the games went. And it is the fact that teams are obliged to come out and play that leaves them a lot more vunerable to our quality, also making it easier for us.
Might just look at how many we have conceeded away form home too..

conceeded 5 away and 5 at home
scored 8 away and 7 at home

I'd say that the quality of the teams we have played away from home has a big bearing on it too as things stand. Aside from spuds, we have yet to play any of the bigger teams, Chelsea, Everton, Liverpool, Rags, Arsenal, Villa.

Could make a tough 2nd half of the season if we struggle against those and fail to break sides down at home. Quite a worrying thought that actually

Too true we do have all the better teams to play away yet.. WBA have about the best home record of teams we have beaten away so far. We beat Fulham last season under Bob didn't we, so it will be interesting to see if we are going backwards or not this weekend.
At home we did struggle to break teams down if we didnt get the early goal last season under Mancini, so that is a continuing problem we haven't dealt with.. may even be worse now for reasons stated earlier in the thread. A fully fit Tevez, Balotelli and a fit Ade would make a difference though i rekon.

gillie wrote:

Ted Hughes wrote:We had to deal with it last season too & we should now be much better at it rather than much much worse. Our attacking play is fucked up & we need to unfuck it.

Our attacking play is so one dimensional Ted that after 15 minutes any team in the prem who come to defend will reap rewards.If we can see the need for change why cant our Manager?

How is our attacking play one dimensional Gillie? Can you explain that?

brite blu sky wrote:

gillie wrote:

Ted Hughes wrote:We had to deal with it last season too & we should now be much better at it rather than much much worse. Our attacking play is fucked up & we need to unfuck it.

Our attacking play is so one dimensional Ted that after 15 minutes any team in the prem who come to defend will reap rewards.If we can see the need for change why cant our Manager?

How is our attacking play one dimensional Gillie? Can you explain that?

We hardly ever create anything from wide, we don't score headers, we rarely score from corners or free kicks, we have very little pace we have mainly one move which is; give it to Tevez & see what he does.