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Team Sheet & Tactics Board For Blackburn

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Good morning and I mean that most sincerely, folks.

We’re but a day away from our lot offering up some tangible hope. Blackburn have conceded 13 goals in their last 6 games. Which tells even someone as hair-brained as me we need to be attack minded. 

fig.’s 1, 2 & 3 = Routes of über simple, yet incredibly intelligent passing from the back-line players. fig 4. Modders plays every ball one of 3 ways, Rafa, Ade or Bale fig.4a = Azza outwits repeatedly, I say, repeatedly their lot and heads for the near post like a heat seeker. 

I’m resting Pathe News Boy and Gallas thus leaving us with options on the bench for once that are neither rash or makeweight. I do not expect our master tactician and current incumbent Mr Redschnapps to follow suit. I fact I am convinced he will play King.

This is perhaps, the ‘easiest’ of the four remaining games. Which isn’t to say we take our foot off the gas, that’s not what I’m suggesting. But we must box clever. 

Tactically there is no point in leaving Parker and Billy on the bench if you only deploy one of them in the 74th minute should we go a goal down. You need to be able to read the game and deploy one of them to shore up a situation before it happens. 

If Blackburn are by some miracle continually making us look threadbare at the back then if there’s a pattern whereby Sandro and Rose are looking vulnerable (perhaps thanks to Bale being in a different post code), then you bring in Parker for Livermore. Not Rafa. 

Yeah, yeah Bale on the left on the Tactics Board but we all know that he has ‘his vision’ and Arry doesn’t give a hoot so it’s unlikely to happen. The sad thing is, the most likely to be sacrificed in the event of a substitution is Rafa as he’s a player Arry fundamentally doesn’t understand.

Yet it’s Rafa, if was allowed to stalk that horizontal corridor (or channel) as they call them in Association Football between Bale and Azza off the shoulder of Ade, we’d be in for some magic.

Rafa playing off of Modric and the inevitably roaming Ade allows for some crackerjack creative attacking play in the final third. Yet another reason Bale’s presence here mostly ends up feeling like those moments in the UK Office when David Brent sees a group of colleagues having a laugh and goes over grinning asking what the joke was so desperate is he to join in.

I should, depressingly have the following saved somewhere so I can just cut & paste it every week. Bale to stay out wide and terrorise people. No Benny, but has Arry said to him, ‘push up when you get a chance son’? I hope not. I don’t want Walker doing it either.

Pace is a many splendid thing, but brains are where it’s at.

Azza and Bale need to be fed a third the way into the Blackburn half  to a give them time to think as they start their runs as to what their final ball will look lie. They are the players that can potentially do the most damage. They draw markers and pull men out of position. But not when given the ball just 25 yards out.

If you cast your eye at the Barclays Premiership form guide, you see we head up a miserable trio of sides who are in top half of the league table, but in terms of the form table, find themselves courting relegation. Liverpool and Swansea are the other two if you can’t be bothered to click. 

The grim reality is that we all know we have the ingredients to make a  sumptuous banquet. This is who at home team beat Liverpool 4-0, QPR 3-1, Villa 2-0, Bolton 3-0, Everton 2-0, Newcastle 5-0… yet the stuff coming out the kitchen since the Newcastle game has been inedible.

Ripping performances apart online is all good but I’m not one for booing our our own players or protesting during a game. That’s just poison. But if our lot aren’t managed properly tomorrow then choruses of, ‘We want you to go, Harry Redknapp, we want you to go.’ will be ringing in the the N17 air’ at full time.’ 

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278 comments

  • rich g says:

    one center back, keep smokin that shit H

  • rogerspurs says:

    If we’re to believe Arry we could have had Tevez and Cahill lining up for us …..does anyone believe what he says anymore however?
    I said weeks ago that the WHL faithful would be calling for his head by the end of April…sadly I have this gut feeling that they will be after tomorrow’s game. I’m struggling to see where a win will come from.

    • johnhalloween says:

      arry is full of cow-dung? Who would pay Tevez’s wages? Not us.

      • david says:

        We tried to sign Cahill last minute on the cheap last Summer because he had 12 months left on his contract but ran out of time. How often has this happened with us ?
        He looks outstanding for the Chavs, exactly what we needed.

        • Essexian76 says:

          ‘On the cheap’ you say, when it took Chelsea with all their oil money, weeks of haggling because Cahill’s excessive wage demands, and you honestly expect us, with our limitations, to break the bank and go all out to secure his signature? Perhaps a little realism as to what we are as a club and what we can offer should be addressed?

        • david says:

          The point I was making is that we tried to buy him at the eleventh hour but ran out of time. That was the offical line. I don’t know for certain what the stumbling blocks were, nor what Cahill’s wage demands were/ are but he was supposed to be available for less than 10 million because he had one year left on his contract.
          From what I can recall, the club line was we could not agree a fee with Bolton and that was why the deal fell through, hence my reference to trying to buy him on the cheap.

        • Essexian76 says:

          Nah,that’s not quite true, he spent time at the club and had lengthy negotiations after Arsenal baulked at his demands, but ultimately no deal could be reached because of his resolve to get 120k per week which we couldn’t get close to-our wage cap is 70k, and rightly so, and with that in mind perhaps some of ‘fans’ should take that into account before bandying their wishlists. It’s not a case of the board being tightfisted, just more a case of business pragmatism and common-sense.

        • david says:

          That’s interesting, how did you find all that out ?

        • david says:

          Still waiting …..

  • david says:

    Think you will find several of your starting eleven went on holiday in February and will not be returning until the transfer window, when they will empty their lockers and move on.

  • nipper says:

    …a dozen corners for Spurs, all failing to beat the 1st man, one lucky free kick for Blackburn….I hope not, but it seems to be a pattern. It’s last chance saloon time….

  • hoofing says:

    I could be arsed and name a team, put names in positions and and various plans to overcome the enemy…but if their heads are thinking last orders in the pub….then what’s the point. All out attack…no prisoners.

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