what are we doing wrong

toffeestillidie · December 30, 2007

http://www.premierleague.com/page/Statistics/0,,12306,00.html

don't know how to post a proper link to it, but click that and sort it for half time league.

i believe once they add in the arsenal game, we'll be in 2nd place there. does anyone else find that insanely frustrating??? if we maintained our 1st half form throughout the entire 90 minutes, and you add that in to all of our victories that came in the 2nd half, we'd easily be challenging for the title.

is there something wrong with our tactics? i remember noting during the first half against arsenal that lescott and yobo were charging forward effectively, but frequently, and i don't know many defenders that can keep up that kind of play for a full 90 minutes. are moyes's tactics tiring our boys out too quickly so we're losing form in the 2nd half, or are we just failing to step up as most teams come out inspired after the interval?

McBain · December 30, 2007

its a simple fact that we arent a team that can play for 90 minutes. Ive always noticed we play great in one half and utter crap in the other.

I dont really know what thats down to, other than the mentality of the players, ad the instruction of the manager.

I read the reports on the Arsenal game and it seems we passed them off the park in the first half, pulled all the strings and the game really doesnt reflect the result.

I read the game thread, and I know alot of posters were really pissed, but we have to play all these teams that scagged us the first time around.

Ive no doubt it will be a season of two halves.

To use the old chesnut.

TheDevils2001 · December 30, 2007

There is a slight problem with us to perform the complete 90 mins at the same level, it was unusual of us yesterday normally 1st half tends to be the half where we stay quite or even against other good team and we comes out 2nd half to finish them off!

although the concerntration of our player are not as good in the 2nd half, but still the performance wasn't as bad as everyone thinks, and most of the early goal from Arsenal was score through linesman and referee allowing them foul there way into the scoring position and possible offside as well, without a doubt they are cheating scum bags!

We could still even things out with Arsenal, we still got to play them away from home and they better watch out, we won't let them do a double over us!

toffeestillidie · December 30, 2007

TheDevils2001 said:
There is a slight problem with us to perform the complete 90 mins at the same level, it was unusual of us yesterday normally 1st half tends to be the half where we stay quite or even against other good team and we comes out 2nd half to finish them off!

although the concerntration of our player are not as good in the 2nd half, but still the performance wasn't as bad as everyone thinks, and most of the early goal from Arsenal was score through linesman and referee allowing them foul there way into the scoring position and possible offside as well, without a doubt they are cheating scum bags!

We could still even things out with Arsenal, we still got to play them away from home and they better watch out, we won't let them do a double over us!

sure we can, but excuse me for being less than confident about arsenal away, not to mention the fact that all of remaining 3 games against the big 4 are away fixtures. This season we've taken 1 point off 4 home games against the big 4, while last season we took 7. Last season we took a respectable 2 points off our away games against the big 4, so considering how much worse we've been doing against them at home, i don't see us lighting things up away.

obviously those goals were mostly bullshit, but it was undeniable that our style of play in the 2nd half wasn't even close to what we were like first half. for the first half, i was blown away by how well we were passing the ball, against arsenal no less. if letting a team level is going to ko us like that completely, we'll have no chance this season. is our poor performance over 90 minutes perhaps caused by a lack of depth?

marekb · December 30, 2007

Is there a possibility that the players are starting to feel a little fatigued, and are struggling to keep the tempo high against the better teams?

TheDevils2001 · December 30, 2007

toffeestillidie said:
sure we can, but excuse me for being less than confident about arsenal away, not to mention the fact that all of remaining 3 games against the big 4 are away fixtures. This season we've taken 1 point off 4 home games against the big 4, while last season we took 7. Last season we took a respectable 2 points off our away games against the big 4, so considering how much worse we've been doing against them at home, i don't see us lighting things up away.

obviously those goals were mostly bullshit, but it was undeniable that our style of play in the 2nd half wasn't even close to what we were like first half. for the first half, i was blown away by how well we were passing the ball, against arsenal no less. if letting a team level is going to ko us like that completely, we'll have no chance this season. is our poor performance over 90 minutes perhaps caused by a lack of depth?

I can see what you are worry about, but it's too early to go too low just yet, West Ham beat Man Utd at home, Portsmouth lost to Middlesbrough at home, Chelsea almost drew today, Spurs coming back strongly against back to form Reading!

I believe the so call big 4 would still drop alot of points in the 2nd half of the season, Portsmouth would be in more trouble, Aston Villa is a inconsistent team and eventually we would pull further away from Villa and Portsmouth, our next 2 games is important it would decide whether or not we could go above Man City or having to chase them afterward!

Bruce Wayne · December 30, 2007

We say this but we also score more goals in the last 10 minutes than any other period of the game. We just have to ensure we keep things tight defensively.

SuitsBlue · December 30, 2007

'the independent will of the opponent'

the clowns that referee games dont help either.

micknick · December 30, 2007

Bruce Wayne said:
We say this but we also score more goals in the last 10 minutes than any other period of the game. We just have to ensure we keep things tight defensively.

Was going to say the exact thing- we can all use stats to question this or that but the fact is we have won many games in the closing stages of matches.

toffeestillidie · December 30, 2007

we've scored the most goals in the last 16 minutes (10), but we've also conceded the most goals in that period of time (9). i'm not worried at all about our first half form, have a look again at the half time table, if a football match lasted 45 minutes we'd be 2nd only to manchester!

i guess the end of the game doesn't concern me too much, it's mainly the beginning of the 2nd half that troubles me. if you look at our goals for / against during these times its slightly misleading, because most of our goals during these periods came from beating up on weaker opponents, from what i've seen we rarely score towards the beginning of the 2nd half against competitive opponents.