09-04-2016, 09:38 PM
Yep, these were two hard road games - what's interesting is that Stanford played IU like Notre Dame played Stanford, lots of obstruction, trying to contain the pace of the forwards with a body. And Yeagley's backs didn't have to deal with their coach's approbation - his all-everything center back got sent off for a second yellow by shoulder-blocking a player who was through onto the ball.
That said, Stanford had the same problems at home against both Penn State and St. Mary's - lots of possession without incisive passes. The energy level has improved - against the Nittany Lions and the first 70 minutes of St. Mary's, it really looked like they simply expected the game to fall to them. But the high pressure of last year's Stanford squad hasn't shown up enough.
DC. I think it's a combination of all of them, of course. The effort is there, but right now, it feels like they're disjointed - the backline completely cut off from the attack, and seemingly by design reluctant to go forward. Haven't seen any of the Skundrich/Vincent runs to the opposing team's endline before cutting the ball back maneuvers as in the past.
What that's led to is a real lack of numbers in the attack, at least until there's been a sustained foray forward. Tonight, for example, with all of the long balls served in from the sideline toward one or two players in the box. Sometimes, they would go through, or be loose, but there was never a midfielder there to pounce on the ball.
What it feels like? Baird is playing the "creative" role from too deep in the field - he comes back to collect, turns forward, and tries to make a pass from 40 yards out either in behind the defense or over the top, and it's not working. You end up with Bashti and Langsdorf having little support in the middle of the field. Skundrich is a good holding midfielder, but I wish there was another player who Gunn felt comfortable with in that role - moving Skundrich back to an overlapping outside back. Or maybe dropping Bashti into the attacking midfield role and pulling Baird back to holding, and bring in Alabi or another, bigger forward up top. Bashti is great with the ball at his feet, but he can't win balls against bigger defenders very often, and he's dribbling into too crowded of a penalty area to get through clean.Â
But of course this is just idle speculation, because I haven't seen them in practice, so I don't know if anyone is on better form in those spots.
It builds from the backs forward. With the outside backs not being as aggressive (and they both are after all new starters), the outside mids hang farther back; you haven't seen a lot of multiple player attacks up the sideline this season. Even the homer IU announcers were wondering why Stanford wasn't committing more people forward up a player. We ended up with a whole lot of Baird and two forwards running at 8 defenders, with two outside mids on the touch lines and Skundrich hanging out just past the halfline. I also noticed that even the outside mids from IU were shifting heavily ball-side; they just didn't have a lot of respect for the width of Stanford's attack.
Anyhow, we'll see what happens. But I wouldn't be surprised to see some position or lineup shifts in the next set of games.
VG
That said, Stanford had the same problems at home against both Penn State and St. Mary's - lots of possession without incisive passes. The energy level has improved - against the Nittany Lions and the first 70 minutes of St. Mary's, it really looked like they simply expected the game to fall to them. But the high pressure of last year's Stanford squad hasn't shown up enough.
DC. I think it's a combination of all of them, of course. The effort is there, but right now, it feels like they're disjointed - the backline completely cut off from the attack, and seemingly by design reluctant to go forward. Haven't seen any of the Skundrich/Vincent runs to the opposing team's endline before cutting the ball back maneuvers as in the past.
What that's led to is a real lack of numbers in the attack, at least until there's been a sustained foray forward. Tonight, for example, with all of the long balls served in from the sideline toward one or two players in the box. Sometimes, they would go through, or be loose, but there was never a midfielder there to pounce on the ball.
What it feels like? Baird is playing the "creative" role from too deep in the field - he comes back to collect, turns forward, and tries to make a pass from 40 yards out either in behind the defense or over the top, and it's not working. You end up with Bashti and Langsdorf having little support in the middle of the field. Skundrich is a good holding midfielder, but I wish there was another player who Gunn felt comfortable with in that role - moving Skundrich back to an overlapping outside back. Or maybe dropping Bashti into the attacking midfield role and pulling Baird back to holding, and bring in Alabi or another, bigger forward up top. Bashti is great with the ball at his feet, but he can't win balls against bigger defenders very often, and he's dribbling into too crowded of a penalty area to get through clean.Â
But of course this is just idle speculation, because I haven't seen them in practice, so I don't know if anyone is on better form in those spots.
It builds from the backs forward. With the outside backs not being as aggressive (and they both are after all new starters), the outside mids hang farther back; you haven't seen a lot of multiple player attacks up the sideline this season. Even the homer IU announcers were wondering why Stanford wasn't committing more people forward up a player. We ended up with a whole lot of Baird and two forwards running at 8 defenders, with two outside mids on the touch lines and Skundrich hanging out just past the halfline. I also noticed that even the outside mids from IU were shifting heavily ball-side; they just didn't have a lot of respect for the width of Stanford's attack.
Anyhow, we'll see what happens. But I wouldn't be surprised to see some position or lineup shifts in the next set of games.
VG