by bigmick » Sat Feb 11, 2006 7:55 pm
Fowler did well I thought, and though he's as slow as a carthorse it was lovely to see one of our forwards actually show for the ball and run into the areas that forwards are supposed to. By virtue of that fact, Id play him again against Arsenal.
Morientes was absolutely desperate. He wouldn't get a game with any other team in the top 2/3 of the Premiership and with him, it really is time to bite the bullet. Cisse has so little appreciation of how the game is played it's astonishing for a bloke who gets coached five days a week. I can only assume that he is lacking in any intelligence at all because the concepts which he would need to grasp to improve 200% are actually remarkably simple. There was one incident in the second half where Hamman was approaching him with the ball and Cisse came towards him, stopped, went on the half turn and actually caused Didi to change direction in case he ran into him. Absolutely incredible.
The 200% concept is quite simple. About 100 years ago when I was a centre-half, you could always tell a bloke who had a clue, had been taught a bit within the first two minutes of the game. He didn't need to touch the ball even, you could tell by the way he moved. It is forever thus. If you have a son or a nephew who is a striker tell him the 200% concept. NEVER WHEN AT THE POINT OF ATTACK, STAND IN THE LINE OF SIGHT OF THE BLOKE THAT IS MARKING YOU. There, simple. Don't allow the centre-half to look over your shoulder at the ball, because that's when he's most comfortable. If Cisse could learn that when a teammate approaches him with the ball he needs to trot backwards by five yards, out of the line of sight with the centre half, to "open the door for the pass" as I call it then he'd be a different player. Pongolle did it against Luton in the cup. When Riise has it at left-full back Cisse shows, but when it gets fed down the line to Kewell he needs to track back into the centre away from the ball. As Kewll squares it to Alonso Cisse needs to be on his very fast bike back towards the left-wing waiting to be fed in. Jesus with Cisse's pace he should be nigh on impossible to defend against when you have a team like ours who have so much posession and then you have midfielders with the viision ours have. He needs to realise that his pace can be utilized in many different ways and the ball straight through and over the top is not always on.
Think about it. You're playing centre half and marking player X. What do you want him to do? Stand and watch the ball so you can stand nehind him and watch him and the ball at the same time. At the professional level they would also know that Cisse is all right foot so would stand behind him and slightly to the left soas to negate the chance of him taking it on the turn. Put a screener infront of the back four (Makeleli for instance) and bingo, if Cisse doesn't learn when to move you'll never ever feed him in. Jeez I reckon give me half an hour and unless the blokes a retard I could teach him myself.
"se e in una bottigla ed e bianco, e latte".