Autopsy Midfield woes

[dockshark]

What about the elephant in the room - the lack of Barlow.

He was usually the one to find the ball first and use his lightning hands to palm it to Fyfe, something he does for Ablett now. De Boer wasn't dreadful at doing that sometimes either. Hell - even Suban provided some grunt that we no longer have.

The thing is, all our midfielders are sensational if they've been gifted the ball via handball or punched by Sandi into space. None of them can actually muscle their way to it from the tap and to another free player.

There's no doubt at times we lack mongrel in the midfield. More concerning than that though is work rate and two weeks in a row our midfield has been out worked with defensive running.

I'm not sure what's going on but something needs to change after the bye.

 

[Cobbler]

Probably our best mid set up looks shot.

Fyfe - Either not fit or just not right
Hill - As above
Mundy - As above
Neale - Solid, but limited pre-season

Throw in Walters, Blakely, Hill, Weller and we're star studded and match anyone on paper, but if you have one with a niggle it hurts the group and we're either carrying a couple or they are simply down on form.

Lastly, no Sandi, so teams are essentially walking it out of the middle with ease.

 

[Proud SJW]

Should also probably take into account that it can't be easy to simply "adjust" to no Sandilands overnight.
I doubt there are too many teams who practise several game plans based on ifs, buts and maybes.

Yes, we lost him last year too... and the year before that... but then we also lost a couple of the midfielders who would have been the ones gaining experience in how to play without him as well. Stability is important.

I think they're still gelling. Tinkering, figuring out what works and what doesn't. Add to that mid-season tiredness, being expected to carry a bigger load than some midfields, one or two of them (Hill, Fyfe) being not quite right physically, and we get the occasional mess.

It'll pass.

 

[blue shark]

There's nothing doubt at times we lack mongrel in the midfield. More concerning than that though is work rate and two weeks in a row our midfield has been out worked with defensive running.

I'm not sure what's going on but something needs to change after the bye.

Fyfe, Neale, Mundy can play dual roles even Blakey has played forward, so we need more rotations midfield rather than
the predictable setup.
We need to free up Weller as one option, Walters could rotate with Neale, Deluca.
Logue, Hughes, may have the size, strength to play a Barlow, Crowley style, and someone has to do the team thing, 1%
that protect, create space for our A graders.
An agressive ruck is also part of the solution, all reports suggest Darcy uses his bulk, may be just the spark to lift the
team, fix our slow starts.