Analysis Our Midfield

[Elite Crow]

Is crap basically.

One dimensional, no speed, no spread, no composure and average skills.

Sloane can’t break a tag and that’s pretty pathetic. Even more so calls to make a guy who can’t break a tag sole captain.

Problem is our midfield is committed to Sloane and both Crouches. That can’t continue.

We don’t play a tagger even when getting carved up and other clubs have shown us the way. Our coaches are stubborn fools.

We’ve had Smith, Milera and Atkins rotate but Atkins ain’t a centre mid, too soft.

Our midfield needs to get Jones in there and I’d start him as a tagger. McHenry to also be developed in this role.

Rotations:

Smith, Matt and Jones
Milera, Brad and McHenry

Sloane is a liability in there, put him to half back.

I’d trade Matt if we could because he can’t play anywhere else if he’s not on ball. I’d prefer CEY who would be a cheaper option.

But ideally we get Anderson, problem is we won’t play him until 2022.

 

[marty36]

Is crap basically.

One dimensional, no speed, no spread, no composure and average skills.

Sloane can’t break a tag and that’s pretty pathetic. Even more so calls to make a guy who can’t break a tag sole captain.

Problem is our midfield is committed to Sloane and both Crouches. That can’t continue.

We don’t play a tagger even when getting carved up and other clubs have shown us the way. Our coaches are stubborn fools.

We’ve had Smith, Milera and Atkins rotate but Atkins ain’t a centre mid, too soft.

Our midfield needs to get Jones in there and I’d start him as a tagger. McHenry to also be developed in this role.

Rotations:

Smith, Matt and Jones
Milera, Brad and McHenry

Sloane is a liability in there, put him to half back.

I’d trade Matt if we could because he can’t play anywhere else if he’s not on ball. I’d prefer CEY who would be a cheaper option.

But ideally we get Anderson, problem is we won’t play him until 2022.

Big call naming two guys that we don't know if they have it or not

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[Cap]

Big call naming two guys that we don't know if they have it or not

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What have you got!

 

[Tex200]

Key issue for them is their lack of defensive running and not being accountable.

Coaches votes since the bye
Kelly 9
Gray 10
Merrett 10

It’s partially coaching for not assigning a tag. But it’s also very much player responsibility or lack thereof.

We actually need to accept that a midfield anchored by Sloane and the Crouch brothers is not an A grade midfield and never will be.

Needs to be rebuilt with Milera the anchor and with some defensive heart. Jones and McHenry will provide that.

Gallucci hasn’t been given adequate midfield time to develop. Smith has been a good addition and must never return to half back.

My midfield going forward
Milera
Smith
Gallucci
Jones
McHenry
CEY.

Trade one of the Crouch’s, Matt is most easily covered but Brad would extract the better deal. I guess Matt on balance.

Trade Greenwood.

Then maybe reboot Brad into a different role. I’d like to see him as a medium sized pressure forward.

 

[Thetrader15]

Key issue for them is their lack of defensive running and not being accountable.

Coaches votes since the bye
Kelly 9
Gray 10
Merrett 10

It’s partially coaching for not assigning a tag. But it’s also very much player responsibility or lack thereof.

We actually need to accept that a midfield anchored by Sloane and the Crouch brothers is not an A grade midfield and never will be.

Needs to be rebuilt with Milera the anchor and with some defensive heart. Jones and McHenry will provide that.

Gallucci hasn’t been given adequate midfield time to develop. Smith has been a good addition and must never return to half back.

My midfield going forward
Milera
Smith
Gallucci
Jones
McHenry
CEY.

Trade one of the Crouch’s, Matt is most easily covered but Brad would extract the better deal. I guess Matt on balance.

Trade Greenwood.

Then maybe reboot Brad into a different role. I’d like to see him as a medium sized pressure forward.

You were going so well until you said to put Brad who both our best defensive and offensive mid into the forward line.

I'd have Atkins and Smith on wings, Brad, Matt, Sloane, Jones, Milera and Gaucc switching in the mids, with Knight a designated tagger EVERY week (could be mids, could be a defensive fwd). There's always someone to tag and it forces us to come up with a zone that only has 17 players in it, just like other teams do.

Then there needs to be some KPIs around hard defensive running from all of those mids.

CEY, Greenwood, Douglas, McKay - out

 

[Tex200]

You were going so well until you said to put Brad who both our best defensive and offensive mid into the forward line.

I'd have Atkins and Smith on wings, Brad, Matt, Sloane, Jones, Milera and Gaucc switching in the mids, with Knight a designated tagger EVERY week (could be mids, could be a defensive fwd). There's always someone to tag and it forces us to come up with a zone that only has 17 players in it, just like other teams do.

Then there needs to be some KPIs around hard defensive running from all of those mids.

CEY, Greenwood, Douglas, McKay - out

If he’s such a great defensive mid, why do opposing mids run riot when they play us.

If he’s our primary mid, why is his direct opposite creaming us?

He’s not actually very defensive at all. Got 16 tackles last week because he was running around in defence.

Give him a smaller space to guard and let’s have those 16 tackles in our front half. He’s actually looked very good when he’s drifted forward this year and has excellent goal sense

 

[Cap]

Could the issue be the new players we are trying, just aren't up to it fully executing the game plan?

Short term pain?

 

[jackster83]

Could the issue be the new players we are trying, just aren't up to it fully executing the game plan?

Short term pain?

What new players?

 

[Cap]

What new players?

Sorry I meant new in the midfield Smith, Milera etc

I'm clutching at straws here.

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

Seems to be a bit of a battle going on as far as who runs through the midfield

Not sure the coaching group are clear on what they want to do.

 

[Simmo28]

Big call naming two guys that we don't know if they have it or not

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Well until the coaches give em a chance how on earth will we ever know???


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[Simmo28]

Could the issue be the new players we are trying, just aren't up to it fully executing the game plan?

Short term pain?

Maybe the game plan sucks and not the players.


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[Thetrader15]

If he’s such a great defensive mid, why do opposing mids run riot when they play us.

If he’s our primary mid, why is his direct opposite creaming us?

He’s not actually very defensive at all. Got 16 tackles last week because he was running around in defence.

Give him a smaller space to guard and let’s have those 16 tackles in our front half. He’s actually looked very good when he’s drifted forward this year and has excellent goal sense

Exactly, he got 16 tackles because he WAS going back into defence. BTW, 16 v GC shows he tries defensively, not

Tackle stats over the last 4 weeks:
Brad Crouch: 33
Greenwood: 22
ROB: 21
Sloane: 20
Matt Crouch: 14
Murphy: 13
Smith: 10

Against Port and Essendon, he was the leading tackler with 5 and 7 respectively, 5 against Geelong (top 3) and 16 v GC (leading)

There's one mid each week that kills us (Merrett, Kelly, Cunnington, Gray), but who is the player he is on? 66% chance it's not him. I'd rather a mid who does tackle and does get the ball. His kicking is not elite, but it's not turnover central.

He's got good goal sense, but he's not strong overhead like Sloane is. I think Sloane is a better forward than Brad, adn ATM, Brad is a better mid...until he gets a tag and let's see what happens then.

 

[Thetrader15]

Maybe the game plan sucks and not the players.


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The game plan's fine...if it's 2017

 

[Cap]

Maybe the game plan sucks and not the players.


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That's always the excuse though isn't it.

 

[StonesThrow]

Game plan and positioning is the biggest problem. How many times do you see crows players get sucked into a contest? Either in the air or on the ground. The way we move the ball is also fundamentally flawed.

Most people would have been pretty happy at the start of the year with a starting midfield of Sloane, M Crouch and B Crouch.

 

[StonesThrow]

That's always the excuse though isn't it.

It's not an excuse, it's a huge problem. It's been a problem for two years now.

 

[feenix67]

Exactly, he got 16 tackles because he WAS going back into defence. BTW, 16 v GC shows he tries defensively, not

Tackle stats over the last 4 weeks:
Brad Crouch: 33
Greenwood: 22
ROB: 21
Sloane: 20
Matt Crouch: 14
Murphy: 13
Smith: 10

Against Port and Essendon, he was the leading tackler with 5 and 7 respectively, 5 against Geelong (top 3) and 16 v GC (leading)

There's one mid each week that kills us (Merrett, Kelly, Cunnington, Gray), but who is the player he is on? 66% chance it's not him. I'd rather a mid who does tackle and does get the ball. His kicking is not elite, but it's not turnover central.

He's got good goal sense, but he's not strong overhead like Sloane is. I think Sloane is a better forward than Brad, adn ATM, Brad is a better mid...until he gets a tag and let's see what happens then.

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You need to go back and have a closer look. Tackle numbers do not define defensive workrate. He's part of a midfield who has the least ground covered collectively in the comp, and that's with Atkins running meaningless marathons every week.

Tell me how many clearances and contested possessions Brad had while Essendon were storming back into the game in the third quarter.

Personally I'd keep Matt and play him as a pure inside mid, rotating with CEY who has been our most influential mid this season. I don't see a spot for Brad in our team, and I'd play Sloane on the wing and let him gut run, in place of Atkins. Inject Gooch and Jones. Trade Atkins, Brad and Huey. Draft quick mids and play them.

 

[Thetrader15]

You need to go back and have a closer look. Tackle numbers do not define defensive workrate. He's part of a midfield who has the least ground covered collectively in the comp, and that's with Atkins running meaningless marathons every week.

Tell me how many clearances and contested possessions Brad had while Essendon were storming back into the game in the third quarter.

Personally I'd keep Matt and play him as a pure inside mid, rotating with CEY who has been our most influential mid this season. I don't see a spot for Brad in our team, and I'd play Sloane on the wing and let him gut run, in place of Atkins. Inject Gooch and Jones. Trade Atkins, Brad and Huey. Draft quick mids and play them.

I think we look at the game very differently if you say CEY has "been our most influential mid this season". I see him get a bit of the ball in close, but not really do much with it or apply any defensive pressure once the ball is more than 2m away from him.

Agree we need more speed in there, and like Gooch and Jones. I'd also be open to trading Rat depending on what we would get for him. His disposal into the F50 is generally poor.

I can't find the Q3 breakdown, but can tell you in Q3:
Brad - 4k, 4h
Matt - 1k, 8h
Sloane - 1k, 2h

 

[feenix67]

I think we look at the game very differently if you say CEY has "been our most influential mid this season". I see him get a bit of the ball in close, but not really do much with it or apply any defensive pressure once the ball is more than 2m away from him.

Agree we need more speed in there, and like Gooch and Jones. I'd also be open to trading Rat depending on what we would get for him. His disposal into the F50 is generally poor.

I can't find the Q3 breakdown, but can tell you in Q3:
Brad - 4k, 4h
Matt - 1k, 8h
Sloane - 1k, 2h

1 clearance and 2 contested possessions between Brad and Sloane in the third.

 

[Tex200]

1 clearance and 2 contested possessions between Brad and Sloane in the third.

And 5 I50’s as a team.

Just an abomination.

But but....Tex

 

[Thetrader15]

1 clearance and 2 contested possessions between Brad and Sloane in the third.

Where do you get these stats from?

 

[Thetrader15]

And 5 I50’s as a team.

Just an abomination.

But but....Tex

I find it really interesting how Sloane is like Teflon...doesn't cop any criticism even though he holds the same position as Tex and his performances are not dissimilar over the last 4 weeks.

 

[Scorpus]

I'd like to see what our midfield mix looks like with us more heavily rotating through Sloane, Crouches, CEY, Jones, Milera and Gallucci before we go turfing Brad or Matt.

Only in the past couple of weeks have we been "experimenting" with Smith and Milera in the middle. I want to know what that looks like with Jones and Gallucci in there as well.

Even with our Smith/Milera experiment we still have Sloane and the Crouches in there for almost the entire match. Needs to change.

Matt → permanent inside ball winning, clearance winning midfielder
Sloane → less inside, more wing, resting forward
Brad → should be rotating everywhere between the arcs. Should switch roles with Matt and become a handball receive player
CEY → second to Matt as our inside guy, stints forward. Will be interesting to see how long he lasts given his lack of versatility
Jones → second to Brad, should be rotating everywhere between the arcs
Gallucci → our primary outside midfielder with a rotation on the ball, with a tendency for playing forward half. Replaces Atkins permanently.
Milera → same role as Gallucci, but with slightly more on ball time, and a half back rotation
Smith → keep him at half back
McHenry → small forward with a midfield rotation
Gibbs → midfield depth rotating everywhere between the arcs too

I'd eliminate the graveyard role and the defensive small forward role too. Shouldn't exist in modern football. These players should either be genuine midfielders that rotate through, or genuine small forwards that hit the scoreboard while pressuring

HB Smith
C Milera - B. Crouch - Sloane
R O'Brien - M. Crouch - Jones
HF Gallucci

I Ellis-Yolmen - Gibbs

 

[Cap]

It's not an excuse, it's a huge problem. It's been a problem for two years now.

Yeah but is it the game plan or is it just our players?