Lack of creativity...will it cost us?

[BK007]

Sure, but we need a proper striker.

 

[Wheeler Dealer]

Sure, but we need a proper striker.

A proper striker costs proper money, which we either don't have or are not prepared to spend. Continually adopting this policy will mean we'll remain short of the required quality to really push this club forward as serious title challengers.

 

[dagraham]

It's been obvious all season that we lack creativity, particularly against teams that like to sit back, but I don't think it's going to solve all of our problems.

We could have Johan Cruyff playing for us but if our strikers movement is piss poor and they don't make any clever runs ( yes that's you Defoe) or they get in good positions but have the first touch of a rapist and can't finish a one in one( hello ade) then we'll still struggle.

We need to adress both problems imo

 

[stemark44]

We are a counter attacking team with power in midfield.
We are good when teams play open football against us or when we score first and they have to open up a bit.
Against teams that score first and defend or teams that just get 11 behind the ball...........we struggle.
As others have mentioned,we lack creativity,vision and faster played passes from our middle and I think we have addressed part of this problem with young Holtby coming in the summer.
The qualities he has are good vision for a pass,good vision for space and a very good first time passer, whether he is good enough to get straight into the team is another question but at least the management know what the problem is and are trying to address it.

For me,I would love to see Moutinho signed but to be honest I think it's highly unlikely.
My other wish would be a hard working striker with power and attitude,someone who is constantly looking for space and who makes CB's work their balls off......Adebayor just drives me crazy.

 

[SteveH]

We had creativity and pace last season with Modric Van De Vaart Lennon and Bale against QPR and still lost.

Spot on.

Nothing wrong yesterday creativity wise - teams park the bus well these days - get over it.

 

[StockSpur]

Yesterday was a typical example of Bale and Lennon's lack of ability to find space, I still dont think either puts in a real shift that often, Bale really did fuck all.

 

[$hoguN]

We clearly are lacking creativity this season, and we need to address it or else we are going to find more and more teams doing what Stoke and QPR have done to us this season and leave us with possession until we get into the final third and then pressure us by getting everyone behind the ball.

The real shame about all this is last season we had the creativity but lacked the organisation to really exploit it, so we left relying on moments of magic from certain players to win us games. This season is the exact opposite, we now seem to work harder and are far more organised in attack yet lack the creativity to turn excellent performances into comfortable and resounding victories.

 

[dontcallme]

A proper striker costs proper money, which we either don't have or are not prepared to spend. Continually adopting this policy will mean we'll remain short of the required quality to really push this club forward as serious title challengers.

If Ade had played as well this season as he did last season we'd be comfortably 3rd.

A lot of the players we have bought of the quality we need haven't cost the earth.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

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.

In short, yes, it will. Both in midfield and in our attack we lack vision, craft and ingenuity.

 

[double0]

What we've lost in creativity we have certainly gained in power and strength M'bia Yaya Toure aside there won't be many CM who can go toe to toe add the speed of Bale and Lennon I reckon we have enough to finish in the top 4.

Potentially we have creativity in central positions within our squad in Sigurdsson Carroll IMO but its how to fit them in. It will require a formation change to a 433 a top class striker/on form focused Adebayor to really challenge Mancaster/1-3 positions.

Where i think we can compensate for our so called lack of creativity is to improve from our set pieces. We had so much in games yet our ratio from that side of the game has been very poor considering the size of our team we really should be doing better.

 

[parklane1]

We had creativity and pace last season with Modric Van De Vaart Lennon and Bale against QPR and still lost.

Seems like many have forgotten that. We are doomed

 

[Dempsey2]

There is no lack of creativity. There's lack of finishing. Simple as. People keep calling for a Messi that'll get past two players and put in a through ball or something. But we can all probably name 1 or 2 opportunities in the last 5 games where someone should've scored but didn't.

 

[stevenqoz]

Expecting creativity from our central midfielders is a reasonable thing. What I mean by creativity is a footballing form of subtlety. Touch, vision and timing are all key elements in this. Dembele has a great touch among other attributes but seems to the lack the vision to be our creative player. Sandro is a footballing artisan....fantastic is most things he does but in no way a creative player. If we are to play these two centrally the creativity will either have to come from a number '10' type or more radically a third central midfielder created as a result of playing 3 at the back and maintaining 2 up front. One of our ongoing minor problems is the goal contribution (or lack of ) from all our central midfield players this season. Dembele Sandro Huddlestone Carroll Livermore Sig just do not score enough goals imo