by Sabre » Sun Feb 04, 2007 1:04 pm
I heard Rafa called them a small team? It's not surprising, because they played like a small team away. They played with a 4-5-1 with Arteta on the right (not an attacking winger but a midfielder). They pressed our midfield well to be honest, and after the first mad 15 minutes, they hand tied our midfielders. ALonso couldn't get much of the ball, neither did Gerrard who came to deep positions in order to get some of the ball.
We tried too much to do harm from the middle, and we should have used more Pennant, as the wings are the key against this small team tactics.
Bellamy made the role of Luis Garcia. He put more work than Luis, but less abilty to break up defences. But I think that even if LG was in the pitch, the path to victory wouldn't come from the middle, but proper use of wings.
When Rafa put Fowler in the pitch, he did so because the small team did not press up any longer and seemed very happy with the point, so they sit back waiting for us. With an scenario of 15 minutes, an ultradefensive oposition, and our midfielders having more space, perhaps it was the moment of Fowler. But Rafa should have awaken the left wing just after the half time, and I missed a substitution in the early stages of the second half.
Everton did their small team work well, to be honest. For instance it's very typical to try to surprise the way Bellamy did in the disallowed goal. But they were aware enough to remove the man in the post in that corner and putting Bellamy off side. They did their stuff well.
But we should be more clever not to stumble twice in the same stone. We did the same mistakes in their small stadium.
Last edited by
Sabre on Sun Feb 04, 2007 1:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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