Rival Watch

[morganb]

Big day Saturday now. If we win then, at worst we'll be 5pts clear of 7th.

Would probably plump for Barnsley & Bournemouth drawing and Cardiff beating Watford along with us winning. Open the gap below, whilst closing the gap above.

Really though, don't care too much as if we win we will be in a stronger position than we are today.

We surely want Watford to win right?

I would have thought that if we accept that automatics are out of reach then yes, we would want the teams below us to drop points. Perhaps a draw in both games would be best?

[NewCorkSeth]

Big day Saturday now. If we win then, at worst we'll be 5pts clear of 7th.

Would probably plump for Barnsley & Bournemouth drawing and Cardiff beating Watford along with us winning. Open the gap below, whilst closing the gap above.

Really though, don't care too much as if we win we will be in a stronger position than we are today.

We surely want Watford to win right?

I would have thought that if we accept that automatics are out of reach then yes, we would want the teams below us to drop points. Perhaps a draw in both games would be best?

A drop in pressure from behind allows us to focus on those above us.

Better to chase than be chased. Mostly..

[Stranded]

Big day Saturday now. If we win then, at worst we'll be 5pts clear of 7th.

Would probably plump for Barnsley & Bournemouth drawing and Cardiff beating Watford along with us winning. Open the gap below, whilst closing the gap above.

Really though, don't care too much as if we win we will be in a stronger position than we are today.

We surely want Watford to win right?

If we win, no, I don't think so. Cardiff are 6 back. Best case scenario for us this weekend (thinking realistically - as not everyone will lose, though be lovely if they did) - in my opinion is:

We win
Brentford win
Swansea lose
Watford lose, Cardiff Win
Bournemouth and Barnsley draw

Would leave the table as - ignoring Norwich:

2. Brentford Pts 66
3. Watford Pts 66
4. Swansea Pts 66
5. Reading Pts 63
6. Barnsley Pts 59
7. Cardiff Pts 57
8. Bournemouth Pts 57

Likelihood is that Swansea will get at least a point but the above would be perfecton in my mind as blows the top 2 wide open and means that we would need to drop 4 pts on Barnsley and 6 to either of the other 2 to drop out.

Appreciate, others may prefer to look at widening gap to 7th, in which case we want Barnsley and Watford away wins - to be 7 clear of 7th and 9 of 8th.

[Mid Sussex Royal]

Interestingly last night Derby went much more direct than usual to counter Barnsley's high press....might be something for us to think about in a couple of weeks

[NewCorkSeth]

Big day Saturday now. If we win then, at worst we'll be 5pts clear of 7th.

Would probably plump for Barnsley & Bournemouth drawing and Cardiff beating Watford along with us winning. Open the gap below, whilst closing the gap above.

Really though, don't care too much as if we win we will be in a stronger position than we are today.

We surely want Watford to win right?

If we win, no, I don't think so. Cardiff are 6 back. Best case scenario for us this weekend (thinking realistically - as not everyone will lose, though be lovely if they did) - in my opinion is:

We win
Brentford win
Swansea lose
Watford lose, Cardiff Win
Bournemouth and Barnsley draw

Would leave the table as - ignoring Norwich:

2. Brentford Pts 66
3. Watford Pts 66
4. Swansea Pts 66
5. Reading Pts 63
6. Barnsley Pts 59
7. Cardiff Pts 57
8. Bournemouth Pts 57

Likelihood is that Swansea will get at least a point but the above would be perfecton in my mind as blows the top 2 wide open and means that we would need to drop 4 pts on Barnsley and 6 to either of the other 2 to drop out.

Appreciate, others may prefer to look at widening gap to 7th, in which case we want Barnsley and Watford away wins - to be 7 clear of 7th and 9 of 8th.

Fair enough.

[NewCorkSeth]

Interestingly last night Derby went much more direct than usual to counter Barnsley's high press....might be something for us to think about in a couple of weeks

Something we are well capable of as well.

Joao, Puscas and Meite are all well capable of utilising that to their advantage.

McIntyre has a very good ping on him too. Might want to look at playing him ahead of the slightly less comfortable on the ball Holmes.

[tidus_mi2]

Logically a high press can only work if they opponent holds the ball in their half long enough for the press to start, so if Derby were just pinging it direct whenever they could, it would certainly have blunted the Barnsley press.

I do remember Barnsley giving us lots of trouble with their high press earlier in the season before they got the red card, to the point we never really got to see if it would tire them out as we were hoping.

[NewCorkSeth]

Logically a high press can only work if they opponent holds the ball in their half long enough for the press to start, so if Derby were just pinging it direct whenever they could, it would certainly have blunted the Barnsley press.

I do remember Barnsley giving us lots of trouble with their high press earlier in the season before they got the red card, to the point we never really got to see if it would tire them out as we were hoping.

Young team who have been pressing like this for almost 2 seasons. Reckon they are pretty fit and seem to have a lot of drive. Wouldn't be surprised if we looked more tired by the end of that one given how Pauno uses subs.

[Hound]

Logically a high press can only work if they opponent holds the ball in their half long enough for the press to start, so if Derby were just pinging it direct whenever they could, it would certainly have blunted the Barnsley press.

I do remember Barnsley giving us lots of trouble with their high press earlier in the season before they got the red card, to the point we never really got to see if it would tire them out as we were hoping.

Young team who have been pressing like this for almost 2 seasons. Reckon they are pretty fit and seem to have a lot of drive. Wouldn't be surprised if we looked more tired by the end of that one given how Pauno uses subs.

I'm not sure thats quite how the press works - one of the ideas is they want you to hoof it long so they can regain possession. Better off trying to draw them in then break the press with a pass through the lines if you are good enough. And yes, mix it up to keep them guessing

Think we should have enough different options to cause most teams issues to be honest, including Barnsley. Can either play short or long quite effectively. They won't want Joao to isolate on of their CBs, likewise Meite their RB. But then they won't want to give Olise and Ejaria space in the middle either

[tidus_mi2]

Logically a high press can only work if they opponent holds the ball in their half long enough for the press to start, so if Derby were just pinging it direct whenever they could, it would certainly have blunted the Barnsley press.

I do remember Barnsley giving us lots of trouble with their high press earlier in the season before they got the red card, to the point we never really got to see if it would tire them out as we were hoping.

Young team who have been pressing like this for almost 2 seasons. Reckon they are pretty fit and seem to have a lot of drive. Wouldn't be surprised if we looked more tired by the end of that one given how Pauno uses subs.

I'm not sure thats quite how the press works - one of the ideas is they want you to hoof it long so they can regain possession. Better off trying to draw them in then break the press with a pass through the lines if you are good enough. And yes, mix it up to keep them guessing

Think we should have enough different options to cause most teams issues to be honest, including Barnsley. Can either play short or long quite effectively. They won't want Joao to isolate on of their CBs, likewise Meite their RB. But then they won't want to give Olise and Ejaria space in the middle either

You would certainly nullify more effectively that way but if you aren't capable I could see going long as being another way of dealing with it. You'd imagine Barnsley do the high press because they see getting goals by winning the ball deep in their opponents half is their best way to score so it might be preferable to have them build from their own half instead.

[Hound]

Young team who have been pressing like this for almost 2 seasons. Reckon they are pretty fit and seem to have a lot of drive. Wouldn't be surprised if we looked more tired by the end of that one given how Pauno uses subs.

I'm not sure thats quite how the press works - one of the ideas is they want you to hoof it long so they can regain possession. Better off trying to draw them in then break the press with a pass through the lines if you are good enough. And yes, mix it up to keep them guessing

Think we should have enough different options to cause most teams issues to be honest, including Barnsley. Can either play short or long quite effectively. They won't want Joao to isolate on of their CBs, likewise Meite their RB. But then they won't want to give Olise and Ejaria space in the middle either

You would certainly nullify more effectively that way but if you aren't capable I could see going long as being another way of dealing with it. You'd imagine Barnsley do the high press because they see getting goals by winning the ball deep in their opponents half is their best way to score so it might be preferable to have them build from their own half instead.

yep thats fair enough, Certainly if you defenders aren't much cop with the ball at their feet, best bet would be to go long early.

Derby were super-shit at passing out from the back earlier in the season if I remember.

[Vision]

Logically a high press can only work if they opponent holds the ball in their half long enough for the press to start, so if Derby were just pinging it direct whenever they could, it would certainly have blunted the Barnsley press.

I do remember Barnsley giving us lots of trouble with their high press earlier in the season before they got the red card, to the point we never really got to see if it would tire them out as we were hoping.

Young team who have been pressing like this for almost 2 seasons. Reckon they are pretty fit and seem to have a lot of drive. Wouldn't be surprised if we looked more tired by the end of that one given how Pauno uses subs.

I'm not sure thats quite how the press works - one of the ideas is they want you to hoof it long so they can regain possession. Better off trying to draw them in then break the press with a pass through the lines if you are good enough. And yes, mix it up to keep them guessing

Think we should have enough different options to cause most teams issues to be honest, including Barnsley. Can either play short or long quite effectively. They won't want Joao to isolate on of their CBs, likewise Meite their RB. But then they won't want to give Olise and Ejaria space in the middle either

This really.

If our ambition, as Derby's appeared to be , is simply to avoid gifting them a goal with little thought of creating anything ourselves then going direct as a tactic would probably work up to a point. We're at a different point though and it should be our ambition to move them around as much as possible. They were never going to tire based on how Derby went about things last night.

I haven't seen enough of them under the new manager but under the previous guy they absolutely ran out of steam after about an hour or so and I would argue that the sending off in our game against was a result of this because for the most part we moved them around when they were pressing with just the occasional longer ball up to Joao. They may be at a better level of fitness under the new guy or it maybe that teams are more cautious when passing the ball around at the back.

Brentford at our place stuck to their guns despite us having a lot of success pressing high against them for an hour believing that eventually we would run out of steam.

[South Coast Royal]

Can we get Forest and Birmingham out of the way before worrying about Barnsley and Derby?

Stranded has summed up things pretty well and we just have to focus on 2 games where I would be happy with 4 points, not so with 3 or less but really happy with 6.
The much used cliche of there being no easy games in this division was made clear to us when we played Wycombe so hopefully we don't underestimate the two upcoming sides and go into the international break on a high with 2 wins achieved.

BTW Bournemouth fans seem to believe that it is only a matter of time before everything just clicks (let's hope not) and that Barnsley won't provide much of a problem after they lost 4-0 to The Cherries earlier in the season.
Brooks is still injured for them though and worse luck they have finally realised that left-back Rico is a liability and that Mepham also wasn't worth the £8 million or so that they paid for him.

[Vision]

Don't think anyone is "worrying" about Barnsley and Derby.

Just discussing the most recent game played by Rivals on the Rival Watch thread.

[South Coast Royal]

Don't think anyone is "worrying" about Barnsley and Derby.

Just discussing the most recent game played by Rivals on the Rival Watch thread.

Not sure Derby are a rival but point taken.

[tidus_mi2]

Don't think anyone is "worrying" about Barnsley and Derby.

Just discussing the most recent game played by Rivals on the Rival Watch thread.

Not sure Derby are a rival but point taken.

They were playing Barnsley and we were primarily discussing how to counter Barnsley's high press and what Derby did to contain them.

[South Coast Royal]

Don't think anyone is "worrying" about Barnsley and Derby.

Just discussing the most recent game played by Rivals on the Rival Watch thread.

Not sure Derby are a rival but point taken.

They were playing Barnsley and we were primarily discussing how to counter Barnsley's high press and what Derby did to contain them.

Did Barnsley play the high press last night?
From the stats Derby were offside 9 times so it does sound as though they are still be doing it.

Will report back after they play Bournemouth on Saturday.

[NewCorkSeth]

Bournemouth have lost Lewis Cook to an ACL injury. That's not good for them.

[Hound]

See Chris Wilder is leaving Sheff Utd

Did a ridiculously good job there up until this season. Be a good appointment for someone

[Zip]

See Chris Wilder is leaving Sheff Utd

Did a ridiculously good job there up until this season. Be a good appointment for someone

A bit like McDermott he over-achieved and ended up paying for it. They could have given him the first half of next season.