Like Boscombe Bee, I've lost the will to troll (sic) through 14 pages of posts. So, also, apologies for any repetition. But skim reading reveals the usual cocktail: three parts twaddle, three parts knee-jerk reaction (compare to reactions when we win), one part measured opinion. In fact, just what you'd expect from a fan-site.
We're Bees in exile 3,500 miles away, reliant on audio, highlights and the odd streamed game. With that limited access it seems to me that the approach play is inventive, the service is quite good and the strikers are getting plenty of chances on goal, a small proportion of which are being converted. The downside is that we seem over-reliant on defensive errors in getting goals. Looking back at the Crewe game, we scored good goals, but there was some woeful defending to help us on our way. Ditto Walsall. But Orient were mostly solid when they needed to be. So not that many gilt-edged chances.
Anyway, to the point: I feel that the strikers need to be less reliant on defensive screw-ups and more reliant on our attacking midfielders creating decoy runs, pulling defenders out of position to create more space in the box. This is what prolific sides do – either the defender goes with the decoy runner leaving the strikers in more space, or stays with the striker, leaving the runner in space as another receiving option. Goals are scored when strikers hit space at the right time, but someone needs to make that space. The more this happens, the more subsequent goals come from errors as defences lose their shape and their bottle. Again, happened against Crewe. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks that and I'm sure the coaching team knows it.
The question is, how quickly can we make it happen so that we convert more chances and our own defensive lapses are less critical? Haven't got a clue. Neither, probably, has anyone else on this thread.
