Lack of creativity...will it cost us?

[walton]

Assuming we don't secure the services of Moutinho/A.N. Other during the transfer window, how much do you think our lack of real creativity in midfield will cost us?

Ok, so we've had a good couple of months and things are certainly looking rosy; I love AVB, and he loves me etc. But on closer inspection I reckon we're riding our luck a fair bit. If you look at our goals over the last few games, very few of these have come from defence splitting passes from midfield...only naughton's ball to defoe against Villa springs to mind in this sense (there may be more). Now obviously, we don't have to score all our goals this way, and in bale and lennon, we have a relative embarassment of riches from wide areas, however having such a lck of creativity in the centre is surely going to cost us I fear, especially against the better sides (just look how we struggled to unlock a terrible Villa defence first half, and very poor sunderland and reading back fours). As much as Dembele/Sandro are my favourite CM partnership for a long long time, neither of them has that ability to spot a killer ball with any regularity...folk obviously look to dembele to do this but he just seems to glide past folk then play the ball out wide or come back into the centre. Certain posters reckon carroll will be the answer and the natural replacement for Modric (who could do this in his sleep), but will he be good enough and more imprortantly, does AVB think so?

A further consideration is how this affects us at home compared to away. Away from home we have close to got it nailed; not many teams can cope with how we counter. But at home when the onus is on us to create from higher up the pitch we struggle...and resort to long shots as an attacking manifestation of high levels of possession we get in most games nowadays (see yesterday, everyone was at it from 30+ yards...). A further further consideration is if we lose bale and or lennon to injuries, but I can't be arsed to type any more.

So what do we do? If we don't remedy in this transfer window I reckon it'll cost us CL football.. There, I've said it.

 

[kcmei]

I dont think we lack creativity

 

[kazzah9]

Well I would assume less creativity = less goals, but that hasn't been the case so far this season.

 

[Timberwolf]

I completely agree. Away from home we look fine, but when teams sit back at the Lane we often don't have an answer. Admittedly it's hard to break down a strong, defensively organised team like stoke at the best of times, but we seem to lack the cleverness to even create chances in these games (unless we're shooting from 30 yards out or lumping it into the box and hoping for the best).

I think we're one playmaker away from having a very good team indeed. That final piece of the puzzle, plus a goalscoring inside forward and I reckon we could be having a stab at the top of the table next season.

 

[HodisGawd]

I annoy myself by saying this, but I still think it's too early to say. I still can't work out how good/bad we are and whether what seems to be a lack of creativity at home is actually part of AvB's style. I hope it's the latter and we now play differently and aren't trying to rely on that swashbuckling pass. Your fears about our home form may be skewed by the fact we've missed a hell of a lot of chances so it doesn't seem like we've scored a lot while we've still created chances. You may be right though. The second half of our season is going to be fascinating.

 

[theShiznit]

When Naughton is your most incisive passer around the box something needs to be addressed...

 

[parklane1]

I dont think we lack creativity

Nor do I.

 

[BPR_U16]

I completely agree. Away from home we look fine, but when teams sit back at the Lane we often don't have an answer. Admittedly it's hard to break down a strong, defensively organised team like stoke at the best of times, but we seem to lack the cleverness to even create chances in these games (unless we're shooting from 30 yards out or lumping it into the box and hoping for the best).

I think we're one playmaker away from having a very good team indeed. That final piece of the puzzle, plus a goalscoring inside forward and I reckon we could be having a stab at the top of the table next season.

But we couldn't break teams down even with the creativity of Modric and VdV at the end of last season - that's what cost us CL plus Harry believing he was a shoe-in for the England job.

This season we are more of a team and trying to build pressure. Although a another play maker would be nice, what we realyy need is a striker to put away chances and create something from nothing.

 

[DJS]

Lennon, Dembele, Siggy (who's starting to find his feet) and Bale provide plenty of midfield creativity for me.

Adebayor is also a rather jolly creative chap even when he looks half-asleep.

 

[chinaman]

Well I would assume less creativity = less goals, but that hasn't been the case so far this season.

But with more creativity and more goals, we could have notched up at least 3 more wins by now.

 

[BPR_U16]

But with more creativity and more goals, we could have notched up at least 3 more wins by now.

says who? How can you justify?
We could equally have conceded more goals by teams exploiting the space left behind that creativity can bring.

We are what we are - a damn good team on the up with a manager who sends his team out with a purpose.

 

[kazzah9]

But with more creativity and more goals, we could have notched up at least 3 more wins by now.

Maybe, our un-clinical strikers could have easily wasted the extra chances

 

[hellava_tough]

In a way I agree with the OP although I'm not so sure we'd be discussing this if we had a top-draw goal scorer upfront

However, it does make you wonder where Moutinho will fit in if we do sign him, because I thought he was more of a all-round central midfielder rather than a creative player (although I have to admit I've never really seen him play)

Will we play Sandro, Moutinho and Debele in the same side, with Bale, Lennon and Adebayor in front of them? If so, won't westill be lacking creativity?

 

[ardiles]

We had 30 shots against Reading but could only score 3 times.

What we need is a finisher.

 

[Blake Griffin]

running fast down the line and either slamming it into the box(bale) or floating it in(lennon) doesn't equal creativity in my book. it's predictable and easy to defend against, the only reason we manage to score is that we do it so many times that eventually one will fall for us and we'll bundle it in.

 

[Blake Griffin]

We had 30 shots against Reading but could only score 3 times.

What we need is a finisher.

whilst we need a real finisher, how many of those 30 shots were actual real chances? most of them we pops on goal from 25 yards+ because we don't have the brains to pick our way through a defence.

 

[brasil_spur]

We lack ball retention and calmness in midfield IMO. This is what Dembele offers and why we are so much better with him in the team. Moutinho would be a vital addition in that he offers similar attributes in a slightly different playing style to Dembele.

That being said i think we can keep our current top 4 status until the end of the season with Parker and a more attacking player or a better striker added as Parker is also good at ball retention and to an extent calming down the midfield and the extra goals and attacking emphasis on the game will stop teams coming at us as much.

So either way i think we'll be fine, but long term (i.e. summer onwards) we'll need a Moutinho type player in our squad.

 

[only1waddle]

running fast down the line and either slamming it into the box(bale) or floating it in(lennon) doesn't equal creativity in my book. it's predictable and easy to defend against, the only reason we manage to score is that we do it so many times that eventually one will fall for us and we'll bundle it in.

I think the difference is that Bale crosses the ball into dangerous areas, it is there that we need the type of striker to anticipate and make a run into that area, Ade is not that sort of player, Defoe should be with his pace and first touch finishing but rarely makes that run preferring to keep 3 6ft plus defenders between him and the ball #shouldscoremore..
Lennon tries to pick out a man more often than not rather than an area and his final ball is easier to defend against.
In conclusion if we are to get a creative player in then we need a striker who makes intelligent runs to compliment said creative player..

 

[Adam456]

Whilst we could do with another creative midfielder/winger I think it's more to do with the starting XI and formation than such a glaring lack of personnel in the squad. As I argued in the Team vs Reading thread about 442 with Defoe:

I'm sure Defoe will start but the reason I don't think he should, as many of us constantly point out, is that his movement is not good enough against sides who park the bus. He's scored 4 in 10 home games and that's not good enough for a striker who brings little else to the table. Maybe he'll have another barnstormer like against the spammers but I'd rather not take the risk. We need to score in the first half. Reading have 2 clean sheets in a row and I can easily see another Stoke

So we got three points but it wasn't straightforward and we only nailed them with 2 fantastic headers from giant players and a hugely fortunate deflection. That's now 4 from 11 home prem games for Defoe. Perfectly happy to play him away from home or against sides who are less ikely to come and defend, btw.

We should be starting Siggy or Dempsey behind Adebayor or, as I suggested, recently - Bale in a completely free role behind Ade with Townsend at LW. Imagine the movement there:

Lloris​

Back____________Four​

Lennon Sandro Dembele Townsend​

< ------------ Bale ------------ >​

Ade​

 

[walton]

We had 30 shots against Reading but could only score 3 times.

What we need is a finisher.

See this is (kinda) my point...the majority of these were speculative long range efforts, they weren't chances per se...