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Central midfield 17:09 - Jan 19 with 5713 views

Christ! We miss Luongo and Cameron. Cousins and Scowen today, and even Freeman when he moved more central we’re awful today. You could count on the fingers of one hand how many tackles they won today. We miss Luongo so much in there winning the ball in the middle third kick starting attacks.

Obviously everyone had poor games, but the core problem was Scowen and Cousins.

Cousins off made sense, but not for Matt Smith. We changed to a diamond, which actually suited them even more.

Dreadful from McClaren and the players today.

Central midfield on 17:12 - Jan 19 with 4347 views

BklynRanger

Yeah. Cousins managed one toe poke tackle. That was the only thing I saw him do that actually worked. Scowen seems a shadow of himself at the minute. Should have put Hall on for Cousins and let Scowen try to be a bit more Luongoey.

Central midfield on 17:21 - Jan 19 with 4278 views

paulparker

Cousins is a league one player and is never going to improve on that it’s time to give manning a run but Mclaren doesn’t rate him

And Bowles is onside, Swinburne has come rushing out of his goal , what can Bowles do here , onto the left foot no, on to the right foot That’s there that’s two, and that’s Bowles Brian Moore

Central midfield on 17:31 - Jan 19 with 4186 views

Match82

Central midfield on 17:21 - Jan 19 by paulparker
Cousins is a league one player and is never going to improve on that it’s time to give manning a run but Mclaren doesn’t rate him

Cousins has shown flashes and I've been saying he should be given a few games in his preferred position to see what he can do. But he hasn't made the most of them, I'd agree with you that it's time to give manning a run while Luongo and Cameron aren't available

Central midfield on 17:38 - Jan 19 with 4146 views

davman

Yep. Woeful in the centre of the park. If Jenas was Casper the friendly ghost, Cousins is friendlier and much more ethereal. Totally ineffective.

That first goal killed us. We are not good enough to play it out from the back. Shocking from maclaren to get us playing that way, shocking from Lumley, worse from Scowen.

Then we were bullied out of it.

Horrible day.

	Can we go out yet?
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Central midfield on 17:47 - Jan 19 with 4068 views

corse

cousins have shown flashes yes but they are much too rare and i think he is nothing else than a decent league one player. what comes to scowen im not sure he is even that...
i really miss luongo and cameron.

Central midfield on 17:53 - Jan 19 with 4010 views

BlackCrowe

Absoulutely this. Midfield non-existant, not helped by our deciding on route one as the tactic from the off. and we're not very good at it.

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Central midfield on 17:58 - Jan 19 with 3980 views

johncharles

And yet and yet, how many post have we had on here digging out Luongo for not putting in a shift ?
Gerry used @ to get the same shit but God did we miss him when he wasn't playing

Strong and stable my arse.

Central midfield on 18:02 - Jan 19 with 3944 views

Hayesender

Awful today, and not so good last week either. We seem to have gone back to the bad habits of the first four games

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Shamima Beghum

Central midfield on 18:32 - Jan 19 with 3793 views

ManinBlack

Central midfield on 18:02 - Jan 19 by Hayesender
Awful today, and not so good last week either. We seem to have gone back to the bad habits of the first four games

Perhaps we have reverted to poor form to coincide with playing the same opposition as in the first four games. As Sheffield Utd and Preston were two clubs where we were dire right at the start, maybe we will be equally awful when we face WBA and Bristol City again. Maybe the manager and players woke up in a cold sweat reliving the horrors of August and mentally disintegrated...

Central midfield on 18:34 - Jan 19 with 3780 views

DejR_vu

Freeman makes us tick, pretty much everything good goes through him. Preston crowded him out which should been a perfect platform for Eze to take advantage of the space but he might as well have been in the stands with the rest of us. Scowen was dreadful, Cousins was worse. We were effectively playing without a functioning midfield.

We miss Cameron’s physical presence and Luongo carrying the ball.

That result has been coming for a while. We were dreadful against Reading and poor first half vs. Ipswich.

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Central midfield on 18:43 - Jan 19 with 3731 views

Hunterhoop

Central midfield on 18:34 - Jan 19 by DejR_vu

But I really don’t think Eze was poor. The issue was we had no central midfielders to pass the ball to him on the deck. All our forward balls came Toni and Lynch. When that happens, your no. 10 is going to struggle.

Central midfield on 18:49 - Jan 19 with 3705 views

DejR_vu

Central midfield on 18:43 - Jan 19 by Hunterhoop
But I really don’t think Eze was poor. The issue was we had no central midfielders to pass the ball to him on the deck. All our forward balls came Toni and Lynch. When that happens, your no. 10 is going to struggle.

We ended up going long in the second half when Smith came on as we always do.

In the first half he should gave been imposing himself on the game. Preston were clearly concentrating on Freeman. Eze should have been going looking for the ball, demanding it and running the midfield, not just waiting for it to find him.

He’s looking like someone in his first season at the moment. He looks like he needs a break to me.

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Central midfield on 18:58 - Jan 19 with 3649 views

LeedsR

I also think that against the “better” teams this season, we’ve been good at soaking up the pressure and going for them on the counter attack. But when it has come to the teams where we were expected to do well against, and thereby have to take the initiative and dictate play, we’ve come up short.

That said, we didn’t half miss Mass and Cameron and I agree that consequently Eze had very little to work with again.

Central midfield on 19:06 - Jan 19 with 3585 views

oldmisery

Yes, Eze was very poor today but who wasn't? Most supporters agree that we miss Luongo and Cameron in midpark and that Scowen and Cousins are poor replacements. MacClaren must see the problem so why not try Manning and Hall in centre mid?
If Hall can play 90 minutes against Leeds and be on the bench for the two subsequent games, he must be fit enough to play a holding midfield role surely.

The other thing that confused me was, given our relative success in playing in a certain way over the last 3-4 months, why he reverted to a sort of big man, little man up front at the start of the second half. OK, Cousins was rank in the first 45 but why not just replace him with one of Manning or Hall? The move seemed to confuse PNE for about 10 minutes, then they realised we were unlikely to score and regained control of the game.

Central midfield on 19:30 - Jan 19 with 3462 views

Watford_Ranger

Cousins didn’t play well?

Well that has really taken me aback.

Central midfield on 19:42 - Jan 19 with 3405 views

Keith56

Central midfield on 17:12 - Jan 19 by BklynRanger
Yeah. Cousins managed one toe poke tackle. That was the only thing I saw him do that actually worked. Scowen seems a shadow of himself at the minute. Should have put Hall on for Cousins and let Scowen try to be a bit more Luongoey.

I kept a note of the performance for Jordon Cousins today. A terrible match to watch in hind sight.
No one has come out of it with high marks - in my opinion

Passes
One channel ball that Wells didn't reach. Not really a pass
5 successful passes including 4 forward.
One astray

Tackles

6 tackles - Won 5 - one lost

Headers
Won 4 Lost 1

First touch
4 good
2 lost the ball

By coincidence, I listened to an FA coaching webinar for Level 3 and 4 licence coaches on Monday
It covered the analysis of team and individual performance and touched on being careful of having pre conceived views of players
Unfortunately I have seen this all too often over the past 50+ years of following Rangers

Our results improved with 4 new players coming in - 3 are now out plus Luongo

Central midfield on 19:44 - Jan 19 with 3391 views

BlackCrowe

I reckon Cousins has lost the dressing room too. Players in possession today from early on looked for any possible option other than pass to Cousins.

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Central midfield on 20:00 - Jan 19 with 3319 views

ParkRoyalR

Central midfield on 19:42 - Jan 19 by Keith56

I think those stats are a lot better than some of our players today. He didn't hide and at least for the 45 minutes he was on the pitch he was involved in the game. Loungo travelling forward with the ball, linking defence and midfield, is a massive miss, as Scowen tends to play left and right and not travel with the ball. Taking off a midfielder for Smith is no Plan B.

Central midfield on 20:00 - Jan 19 with 3312 views

Hunterhoop

Central midfield on 19:42 - Jan 19 by Keith56

And stats are only as relevant as their validity and context. Did they teach that?

I’d be very confident on a full re-watch those stats are wrong. Not least because I’m not blind and was there and saw more unsuccessful passes and a damn sight lord unsuccessful tackles, unless you’re not counting them as tackles because he was so late arriving there was no point in putting a challenge in.

Can’t make a tackle (or foul) if you’re 2 yards behind play all the time.

Central midfield on 20:04 - Jan 19 with 3294 views

Rangersw12

I see Eze is getting grief on Twitter why some have decided to make a 19 year old kid a scapegoat I will never know

Central midfield on 20:07 - Jan 19 with 3285 views

BlackCrowe

Central midfield on 20:04 - Jan 19 by Rangersw12
I see Eze is getting grief on Twitter why some have decided to make a 19 year old kid a scapegoat I will never know

Completely insane. He was so quiet today and probably should've been hooked earlier but you could say that for most of the team. One sure way to get him looking elsewhere. Tw@ts.

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Central midfield on 20:14 - Jan 19 with 3252 views

Hunterhoop

Exactly. Wells struggled just as much as Eze. In fact, they struggled like any two forward players would playing in front of two central midfielders who can’t get tight enough to the oppo to make a tackle or complete a forward pass. Toni and Joel were our ball players FFS. Manning needs to start Pompey just to make it clear to the other two their performances were unacceptable.

Central midfield on 20:44 - Jan 19 with 3170 views

Watford_Ranger

Central midfield on 20:14 - Jan 19 by Hunterhoop
Exactly. Wells struggled just as much as Eze. In fact, they struggled like any two forward players would playing in front of two central midfielders who can’t get tight enough to the oppo to make a tackle or complete a forward pass. Toni and Joel were our ball players FFS. Manning needs to start Pompey just to make it clear to the other two their performances were unacceptable.

Yep Manning certainly deserves a chance.

Bit of a long shot but if Oz lose to Uzbekistan, could Luongo feature? Maybe not a good idea anyway but you’d be tempted to throw them both in.

Central midfield on 20:53 - Jan 19 with 3121 views

ozranger

Eze struggled, that is true. However, as already pointed out, we were playing longball but for most of the game and not just the second half. There were many occasions that Eze was free with not a player within ten yds of him and yet he did not receive the ball. That can say many things, including that he did not plead for the ball. Trouble also was that he does lack some confidence which was evident in that only on a few occasions did he try to take on the opposition. He's no AT, yet.

What I found interesting was that Eze drifted back well into the midfield and closer to Scowen and Cousins than anywhere near Wells. I am unsure if that was a planned move by SM but it meant that Wells, at least for the first half, was very isolated. That said, passing the ball was primarily the problem for everyone. How many of our passes went to one of them, whether a hoof from the back two or a simple pass as compared to a short pass. The percentage accuracy is a figure that I am sure SM was not happy about.

When Cousins came off and Smith entered, the whole midfield disappeared. There were occasions when players like Furlong had the ball and, owing to a minority in midfield, had to pass back to Lumley. What Smith did when he came on was to tear apart any midfield we had through subtraction. Trouble was that the addition of Smith was very much a subtraction, as well, today. One wonders, taking away his goal, whether he was being given one more chance and bottled it.

Central midfield on 21:14 - Jan 19 with 3059 views

ParkRoyalR

Central midfield on 20:04 - Jan 19 by Rangersw12
I see Eze is getting grief on Twitter why some have decided to make a 19 year old kid a scapegoat I will never know

There is far too much reliance and hence expectation on Eze and Freeman to create and I think other teams have worked out if you crowd them two out you nullify our attack. Be interested to see Leeds dossier on how to play against us.

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