Yahoo News Stoke City players looked lost vs West Brom and I'm not surprised
Well, where do we start looking back at Stoke’s defeat to West Brom? The system Steven Schumacher chose, going from his normal 4-3-3 to what we could say was a 3-5-2, meant for a lack of balance against a side actually playing 4-3-3. We ended up with three centre-backs marking one front player, the two wing-backs were pushed back by their two wide players and we had a back five marking three players. We matched in midfield three on three but what made it odds on for them favourites was that their two full-backs were free. We were exposed in wide areas, where we had no one to deal with the exploits of their full-backs.
Bae Junho was more or less man-marked. Josh Laurent and Jordan Thompson had two attacking players against them so they were pushed back. I didn’t know where Million Manhoef was playing and neither, by the looks of it, did he. He looked lost.
Go back to last season and we ended up with good results so what do you do? Maintain it. Keep the same system, keep the same players as much as you can or want and then build by buying or loaning better than you’ve lost or let go. We had no reason to change anything except to bring in better so it functioned the same but with better players where possible. Slot new players into the same approach.
REACTION: Recap and reaction from Stoke vs West Brom
RATINGS: Marks on the board for Stoke players vs West Brom
But against West Brom I was completely confused. With each attack they had we were stretched and pushed back and at times we had six players in a line across our area. We found it very hard to put pressure on the ball because they always had an outlet.
If you withdraw to the penalty area where you can hold our line and get compact while the nearest player to the ball can set the trigger – but because everyone was sitting off and no one was prepared to press the man on the ball we ended up with everyone too deep, stuck in our own box. It should never happen continuously like that. We were sitting off, giving them too much time on the ball when a big part of the game is how you regain it.
When we did have the ball, because they were pushing us in there was space to attack – and we had Lewis Koumas continually making runs either side of their centre-backs yet we kept passing the ball sideways and backwards. No one was prepared to play the forward pass. Credit to the lad, he kept making the runs throughout the game. A lot would have got so frustrated and annoyed that they would stop but the odd occasion we did play it through he was successful, scoring once and hitting the post twice. He kept us in the game, the one shining light.
We even had a free-kick in the final third when he turned and played the ball back to the goalkeeper. For goodness sake, make your attackers work even if they’re marked. If teammates aren’t working, play the pass to make them work. You can play soft balls into them, angled balls, all kinds of passes, but we were just watching the man on the ball and seeing what they were going to do with it. You have to have support and movement, give each player two or three options. It just wasn’t happening.
In the second half, Schumacher started to make changes and went to a 4-3-3 for 10 minutes, shifting Junho to wide left. But then the substitutions kept coming and we ended up with 4-2-4. We moved that shining light Koumas to wide left with Ryan Mmaee and Niall Ennis in the middle, Lewis Baker was sitting in with Wouter Burger, Andrew Moran, an attacking midfielder, was on the wide right. Laurent was moved to centre-back, the right-centre-back Ben Wilmot ended up at right-back, Eric Bocat went from left centre-back to left-back. The only outfield player who ended in the position he’d started was Ben Gibson. How can players deal with that, let alone function as a team? I ask the question, why? I didn’t expect any other result by the end, absolutely.
All you’ve got to do is stick to your favourite system, your favourite formation and add to it.
Schumacher talked about tight games and small margins at full-time and that West Brom had pretty much the same team as last season. But we have made our own obstacles. If you make changes like this, players get confused and I don’t know what he expects – other than to hammer it home that he wanted more or better or different players in the last few days of the window.
It was a solid performance against Coventry but the last two league games have left me with a big question mark. On to Plymouth and a hope that we can find some solutions.
