The players were bad - but Parker messed this one up tactically

[abfg]

Firstly, notable exception to Harrison Reed, who I thought once again was very good (at least for an hour). And surprisingly too AK looked good when he came on. Other than that my only guilty pleasure in the game was StefJo's booking - right in front of me I could see him eyeing up the challenge, my suspense was red or yellow waiting for him to launch!

Mawson I can't understand. He made mistakes for the first two goals, mistakes he went on to repeat in the game and get away with, which is unforgivable. £15Mil I think it was, £15k would have been generous based on that. The others all just looked very off their game.

The loss of Joe Bryan was important, but notwithstanding that the issue was one of tactics, especially in the midfield. If there's anything that should have been learnt over the last couple of seasons, it's that we play best when TC is deeper, pulling the strings from deep midfield (the Putney Pirlo?) starting attacks and arriving in the 'second wave' when we advance. We need him alongside a holding midfielder (Arter or Reed) with one more advanced midfielder (Reid or StefJo). We've done this several times this season with good success. The way we played had TC and StefJo pulling wide, and vacating the centre of the pitch, which left Mitro isolated and huge gaps in the middle of the middle of the pitch, which Hull drove through when they had the ball. Knockaert improved this to an extent when he came on, as he comes infield very readily, but the centre of the pitch remained unsolved really for the whole game.

Coupled to that, Bobby Reid has been very good through the middle, as the top point of the midfield three, linking well and getting close to Mitro, providing a bit more mobility through the centre advanced positions, pulling defenders out of position. Clearly, he is wasted out wide as it doesn't suit his abilities.

Possibly Cav and Bobby had expected to be more central, but the Joe Bryan injury forced the tactical change as MLM has no attacking instinct, so we lost full back width. But then I would have thought Sess would have been a better like for like replacement, possibly with Odoi moving to the left. That's the other option that would have given more through the middle, by allowing Cav and Bobby to come off the wings more while attacking.

Unlike many, I don't feel too badly about the possession football - we had plenty of ball in dangerous areas, but we had a distinct lack of the right player in the right place to deliver the killer pass, or be on the end of a cross, after the possession stuff had done its job. I don't think it's a complete overhaul needed, but the detail of the tactics need looking at, as I've said here, as I think we could be doing something remarkable this year with this squad.

[ALG01]

Agree mainly. MLM was a bad error I too think sess was a way better option keeping the full backs more attacking.
At half time steff jo just had to be the one to be replaced, we neded Knock on and Reid was doing reasonably well but in the wrong position.

Our corners and free kliks are shambolic, and are not getting better. they ae way to complicated and generally see the ball end up with or near our keeper. Cav's foul throw was a disgrace.

I like possession football but under slav it had purpose in slowly pressing and always stretching the opposition, the problem slav had was the quality of the squad was less than this. What we have now is better players but possession for its own sake, and rather too slow.

I totally reject the idea that three at the back is a good idea because the personnel for that is wrong.

Mawson was astonishingly poor but to be fair I thought had been playing rather better in recent games. TC was massively out of position and it reminded me of ranieri's failed ideas playing him so advanced and wide, on top of that he had a stinker.

I am starting to doubt the manager knows what he is doing. I suspect if we are to be promoted he will not be the one to  do it, his inexperience and perhaps vision is apparent for all to see, that was just to easy for Hull, it was not, as parker seemed to suggest, a bad day at the office.

[HV71]

I quite like possession football / though I agree we need to build quicker. The stat that really worries me though is that Hull had 5 shots on target and scored with  3 of them ! ( no that isn't a swipe at  Betts ) just demonstrates how fragile we can be

[Twig]

I like these posts, they are far more thoughtful and balanced than those in many other threads. Nobody shouting abuse at other posters either.

[abfg]

Agree mainly. MLM was a bad error I too think sess was a way better option keeping the full backs more attacking.
At half time steff jo just had to be the one to be replaced, we neded Knock on and Reid was doing reasonably well but in the wrong position.

Our corners and free kliks are shambolic, and are not getting better. they ae way to complicated and generally see the ball end up with or near our keeper. Cav's foul throw was a disgrace.

I like possession football but under slav it had purpose in slowly pressing and always stretching the opposition, the problem slav had was the quality of the squad was less than this. What we have now is better players but possession for its own sake, and rather too slow.

I totally reject the idea that three at the back is a good idea because the personnel for that is wrong.

Mawson was astonishingly poor but to be fair I thought had been playing rather better in recent games. TC was massively out of position and it reminded me of ranieri's failed ideas playing him so advanced and wide, on top of that he had a stinker.

I am starting to doubt the manager knows what he is doing. I suspect if we are to be promoted he will not be the one to  do it, his inexperience and perhaps vision is apparent for all to see, that was just to easy for Hull, it was not, as parker seemed to suggest, a bad day at the office.

Hard to disagree!!