- Jan 7, 2007
- 3,607
- 3,358
Royal is getting unfair criticism. His crossing in the first half wasn’t up to scratch but he improved it in the second half. He’s also a very solid defender and offers bit more going forward than your average right back. He’s not as good as Aurier at attacking but he’s way better at defending. Royal also links play up nicely and is better than Doherty and Tanganga. So these calls for dropping him are utterly ridiculous.
Our attacking woes are because we only have 3 truly attacking players, which makes it hard for them and allows defenders to double up. The solution is either a midfielder who can defend as well as Hjojberg and Skipp but can attack better. Or one of them becomes so good at defending we can play a luxury midfielder. Or we just get better at moving the ball more quickly to stop defences getting into position to close off all opportunities to play our attackers in. The fact that Royal had all that space to play crosses was a problem; crosses aren’t an efficient way of creating chances against low blocks. We moved the ball too slowly and took the easy pass into space when it was to our least effective attacking outlet.
Our attacking woes are because we only have 3 truly attacking players, which makes it hard for them and allows defenders to double up. The solution is either a midfielder who can defend as well as Hjojberg and Skipp but can attack better. Or one of them becomes so good at defending we can play a luxury midfielder. Or we just get better at moving the ball more quickly to stop defences getting into position to close off all opportunities to play our attackers in. The fact that Royal had all that space to play crosses was a problem; crosses aren’t an efficient way of creating chances against low blocks. We moved the ball too slowly and took the easy pass into space when it was to our least effective attacking outlet.