Why Jack and Kamara works for us

They were a problem again today. They’ve been a problem all season.

In Europe or tactical games, it may work, but we can’t afford to have 2 midfielders sitting not contributing to our attacking play when the other team play 11 men behind the ball.
 
Morelos20 said:
Let's blame the defensive midfielders for the attacking players not creating feck all until the last minute.
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Well its upto them to get the ball forward quickly.

They slow ot down too much, they play the ball behind the full backs causing them to check runs and break stride.

Our lack of urgency today can be summed up in their play.
 
prenzlauerbear said:
Jack needs a boot up the arse.

His constant slowing of the play down today was inexplicable.
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Takes 3 touches when he could be playing a first time pass. Completely killing our momentum and letting livi get their 10 men back behind the ball. Kamara was even worse for it in the 90th minute, swanning about like we were 5-0 up. No urgency whatsoever.
 
Need an upgrade on Jack - we aren’t winning the league with him being the first choice in midfield
 
They don't, today being another example in a long list of them.

Fucking slow, pedestrian, ponderous, tip tap, square passes, sold short, inability to find that forward pass, inability to create, inability to raise the tempo.

Murder.
 
Morelos20 said:
Let's blame the defensive midfielders for the attacking players not creating feck all until the last minute.
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The point is there isn’t much need for two defensive midfielders other than the half a dozen or so games a season where teams have a go at us and it proves a bit more effective.

Yet again today we had two CBs and two DMs marking one lump of wood up front.

It’s pointless and persisting with it will continue to be detrimental to us.
 
Kamara has absolutely no idea what to do with the ball in the final third, gets rid of it like a hot potato. Come to think of it I can't remember him ever taking a shot.
 
WeAr3Th3Pe0ple said:
If neither Jack or Kamara can dribble with the ball and play a forward pass against 10 men behind the ball then why do we consistently play them both?
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Simply because the manager is set in his ways. A game like today screams out for more creative players and different tactics. I am not in any way against SG but at times he has to be more pragmatic.
 
Didn't work today! In fact I cant think of when it last did! Kamara needs dropped. I cant see how he gets in the team. Overrated..
 
One as the sitter not both unless we are playing a decent side.

They were actually getting in each other’s way and Kamara offered very little in the attacking sense he was like a fish out of water.

We need a more cultured midfielder to play next to one of them.
 
TommyV said:
Well its upto them to get the ball forward quickly.

They slow ot down too much, they play the ball behind the full backs causing them to check runs and break stride.

Our lack of urgency today can be summed up in their play.
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I don’t necessarily disagree with that, but they both (although playing different roles today, Kamara was further forward) started the game moving the ball quickly. But as the options ahead of them got fewer and fewer, they slowed the ball down too much and played too many sideways, slow passes.

Yes, they need to maintain the tempo, but others need to take responsibility and make themselves available for the quick, incisive passes we want to see.
 
Jack to Kamara to Jack to Kamara..blah de blah...all sideways passes going nowhere. The one time either of them took on a man we win a free kick and hit the bar
 
Brick_Top said:
The point is there isn’t much need for two defensive midfielders other than the half a dozen or so games a season where teams have a go at us and it proves a bit more effective.

Yet again today we had two CBs and two DMs marking one lump of wood up front.

It’s pointless and persisting with it will continue to be detrimental to us.
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Pretty sure Jack and Kamara stopped us from being caught out on a number of occasions.

Will we go pep style and play 2 at the back ffs.
 
Northampton_Loyalist said:
Make no mistake, it does.

If you watch both for any length of time during a game it actually becomes quite clear what their exact roles are, and more importantly, what those roles allow the rest of the side to do.

When we have the ball, one will sit on the halfway line at one of the fullback positions and the other will split our centre halves. This forces their striker and a midfielder to the side where our man is and pretty much every time, we end up with a free walk into their half, with both of our fullbacks already in very advanced positions (it works very well in a diagonal, meaning if jack is at LB, Tav will be the out-ball after 2-3 passes normally because their midfield will shuffle over to counter our man advantage on the left).

Having both midfielders playing from our own back line, with one advancing and one sitting in as cover for the defence allows both of our fullbacks to push on at will, as well as giving us a midfielder sat halfway in their half. If we lose the ball, we have cover, if Balogun wants a wander, we have cover and it gives absolutely every player in front of them far more scope and freedom that they would normally have. We do, at all times, only need to bring one of Tav and Barisic back to defend to have a full backline in place and that gives us a huge advantage when we move forwards. It is more apparent with Borna just now, but he plays 70 odd minutes of the game in their half and absolutely every single time the ball is on our left flank, he is in position to make a run past the last man. That only happens because of the positions that Jack and Kamara take up.

I get that it is easy to just call for more attack minded players and think that it equals a more attack minded team, but those 2 in our midfield, and more specifically, the roles they play, free up so much space for other players that we would lose FAR more than we would gain simply by playing one of them in a more traditional role with a more attacking partner.
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Sure didn’t today bud.
 
Jack and kamara are far to slow at playing the ball forward and I don’t know why they are needed to cover for Borna when the other teams don’t play with forwards
 
Individually they are good enough players for us.

Together, they create a pairing that slows everything down.

We could see several occasions today when a quick ball forwards, or a run forward (one of them goes, one of them stays) could have brought dividends.
Instead we play across and back for SO long that we give defensively-well-drilled teams like Livi the opportunity to reorganise and pick up our players.

tbh, teams like Livi that know how this goes must actually like playing against us -- we are the epitome of predictability.
 
TommyV said:
Well its upto them to get the ball forward quickly.

They slow ot down too much, they play the ball behind the full backs causing them to check runs and break stride.

Our lack of urgency today can be summed up in their play.
Click to expand...

Who do you pass to if you've no options is the problem.

Arfield and Hagi probably never completed a pass today, all the forward players shat it in possession and played the easy lay off.
 
Jack gave the ball away far more than is acceptable, but anyone watching that today and blaming the defensive players is not really thinking things through. Alfie was awful, Kent was awful, Hagi was awful, only Barisic really took any responsibility in their half.

You cannot blame Kamara and Jack for people wanting 2-3-4 touches on their 18 yard line.
 
Jack and Kamara together generally don't work for us. Didn't last season and won't this season. Slow the game down too much and we end up going backwards. Another truly awful decision to play the two of them together again.

Failing to learn or see the obvious seems to be what Rangers are best at just now.
 
Northampton_Loyalist said:
Jack gave the ball away far more than is acceptable, but anyone watching that today and blaming the defensive players is not really thinking things through. Alfie was awful, Kent was awful, Hagi was awful, only Barisic really took any responsibility in their half.

You cannot blame Kamara and Jack for people wanting 2-3-4 touches on their 18 yard line.
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You can blame them for not getting the ball to our forward players quick enough.

Yes the forward players need to take stick - Hagi was particularly poor but Kamara & Jack's lack of urgency & limited passing range is the genesis of all our problems vs the low block.

It is blindingly obvious
 
skorn said:
Individually they are good enough players for us.

Together, they create a pairing that slows everything down.

We could see several occasions today when a quick ball forwards, or a run forward (one of them goes, one of them stays) could have brought dividends.
Instead we play across and back for SO long that we give defensively-well-drilled teams like Livi the opportunity to reorganise and pick up our players.

tbh, teams like Livi that know how this goes must actually like playing against us -- we are the epitome of predictability.
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The one time one of them ran forward we won a free kick and hit the bar
 
Detective Vic Mackey said:
Ryan Jack must be one of the most over rated players to ever play for us.

He’s bang ordinary on the ball, offers nothing going forward. Good players aren’t as inconsistent as him.
He’s been here 4 years and won nothing and contributed to that.

I’m sick of it.
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Nonsence. He plays HIS role very well. He was not the problem today.
 
Detective Vic Mackey said:
Ryan Jack must be one of the most over rated players to ever play for us.

He’s bang ordinary on the ball, offers nothing going forward. Good players aren’t as inconsistent as him.
He’s been here 4 years and won nothing and contributed to that.

I’m sick of it.
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He's capable of scoring from outside box but always chickens out. Wouldn't mind if he didn't play for us again
 
Agree both are vital to the way the gaffer likes to push with the full backs ,but at times they have space to drive into and carry the ball forward but more often than not there first instinct is to go backwards or sideways ,kamara was a bit more positive today especially in the second half he has that turn of foot to do it
 
Centre midfield is where our issue lies.

Jack, Kamara, Davis are all too similar, in that when a team sits in they are utterly useless. How many times are we going to have to sit through some no mark manager/player of a no mark side explain how to stifle us before something’s done about it? How is it that we still, after 4/5 years now, don’t know how and struggle to break down a side that sits in.

Aribo, and to an extent Arfield, are our only forward thinking players in that area. You could also make the argument that they don’t even make up that three in midfield. It needs sorting asap.
 
Morelos20 said:
Who do you pass to if you've no options is the problem.

Arfield and Hagi probably never completed a pass today, all the forward players shat it in possession and played the easy lay off.
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Drive forward and create space

Its why we need a ball carrying midfielder

We cant play triangles around low blocks, we have tried and failed at that for 2 and a bit seasons
 
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Dont disagree with the OP original analysis at all.

Trouble for me is the system is set up to allow Tav and Barisic to be main players in the attacking sense.

Quite frankly Tav just doesnt look capable of taking that responsibility on, and hasn't done for some considerable time.

Barisic is stepping up and making things happen. Tav is nowhere.

Moving on to Jack. Dont disagree at all with the system OP mentions and its benefits. But if one person in the system is considerably slowing the flow of the game and moving through the blocks the system is flawed.

This is our problem.

Tav and Jack.

Cant question their effort or commitment. But they are incredibly limited.

Blaming the forward players for taking extra touches or not having space all comes down to them not getting the ball quick enough or in the right areas. This comes from plodding slow build up.

Coupled with Morelos real lack of desire to make himself available, and with our new guys not quite on the same wave length as teammates yet, altogether it's a recipe for poor performance.
 
The ball broke out of the box on numerous occasions and either jack or kamara were too afraid to shoot or even play it forward it ended up back at our centre backs.
 
I’ve no problem playing two deep lying midfielders- just not Jack and Kamara both together when we’re playing against teams putting ten men behind the ball.
It’s glaringly obvious we need better quality in there to offer more than those two decent players are capable of.
 
tbf to Jack and especially Kamara, we've seen passes from them straight to a more forward player, who then immediately passes it back to them.

I understand the concept of the more forward player doing that (to draw an opposition player in) but with well-drilled teams like Livi it doesn't work.
Unless you have a player that receives it and then tries to do something with it then it's just passing back and forth.
With Borna (and Hagi & Tav) in the team, we need braver players up front who will try to draw fouls near their area.
Or even turn and run with it, or (my oh my) shoot.
 
We don't actually play with any central midfielders.

Our system doesn't allow for it.

We have two holding and three attacking.

No proper box to box leaders who can tackle, pass, shoot and go box to box.

Souness, Gerrard and Barry Ferguson would all be wasted in our system.
 
Grigo Yossarian said:
Great post.

I thought both were excellent tonight.
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Excellent at us getting a clean sheet,
but two players with no contribution to forward play.
first half livi only played one man over the halfway line, we have two center halves and two defensive midfielders to look after him.
 
skorn said:
tbf to Jack and especially Kamara, we've seen passes from them straight to a more forward player, who then immediately passes it back to them.

I understand the concept of the more forward player doing that (to draw an opposition player in) but with well-drilled teams like Livi it doesn't work.
Unless you have a player that receives it and then tries to do something with it then it's just passing back and forth.
With Borna (and Hagi & Tav) in the team, we need braver players up front who will try to draw fouls near their area.
Or even turn and run with it, or (my oh my) shoot.
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” or even turn and run with it “.
that rangers player is extinct.
 
Just seen Neil McCann's analysis with Wattie etc about the Livi game and he literally says exactly what I said in the OP, pretty much word for word in places and even talking about the diagonal to the opposite fullback being the out ball. He read this thread! Or it was right, one of the 2! :D
 
Mak
Northampton_Loyalist said:
Make no mistake, it does.

If you watch both for any length of time during a game it actually becomes quite clear what their exact roles are, and more importantly, what those roles allow the rest of the side to do.

When we have the ball, one will sit on the halfway line at one of the fullback positions and the other will split our centre halves. This forces their striker and a midfielder to the side where our man is and pretty much every time, we end up with a free walk into their half, with both of our fullbacks already in very advanced positions (it works very well in a diagonal, meaning if jack is at LB, Tav will be the out-ball after 2-3 passes normally because their midfield will shuffle over to counter our man advantage on the left).

Having both midfielders playing from our own back line, with one advancing and one sitting in as cover for the defence allows both of our fullbacks to push on at will, as well as giving us a midfielder sat halfway in their half. If we lose the ball, we have cover, if Balogun wants a wander, we have cover and it gives absolutely every player in front of them far more scope and freedom that they would normally have. We do, at all times, only need to bring one of Tav and Barisic back to defend to have a full backline in place and that gives us a huge advantage when we move forwards. It is more apparent with Borna just now, but he plays 70 odd minutes of the game in their half and absolutely every single time the ball is on our left flank, he is in position to make a run past the last man. That only happens because of the positions that Jack and Kamara take up.

I get that it is easy to just call for more attack minded players and think that it equals a more attack minded team, but those 2 in our midfield, and more specifically, the roles they play, free up so much space for other players that we would lose FAR more than we would gain simply by playing one of them in a more traditional role with a more attacking partner.
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make no mistake......it doesn‘t!
 
Detective Vic Mackey said:
Ryan Jack must be one of the most over rated players to ever play for us.

He’s bang ordinary on the ball, offers nothing going forward. Good players aren’t as inconsistent as him.
He’s been here 4 years and won nothing and contributed to that.

I’m sick of it.
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He does the simple, unsung stuff and let's others perform, when things break down it is Jack quietly and effectively winning the ball back or at least breaking down the counter.

Very effective player that runs the show back to middle, he isn't in the team for his attacking prowess.
 
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