The Davies Delusion

Kevin Davies scored two goals tonight - unfortunately. I say unfortunately but I use the word in a loose sense. Some would argue, in favour of Davies, what more could you want from a striker than 2 goals in a game. And on the surface it would seem a rational and inarguable point view. However, I believe there is a more complex side to the arguament than what appears, at first glance, to be a no brainer.

I am going to argue that, in spite of the two goals scored by Kevin Davies to give us a point against Leeds, there is a strong case for Davies to spend more minutes on the bench and less time on the pitch.

It is difficult for some people to set two goals aside but that is what I will ask of you now for a moment. Without the goals Kevin Davies' performance against Leeds was pretty sub what you would probably expect of a decent Championship striker. He continually takes an age to control the ball. He makes unbelievably poor choices when deciding where or how to pass. He repeatedly attempts "flick ons" which are aimless and come to nothing - even when the option is there to bring the ball under control. He slows us down in attacking positions. He takes an agonising amount of time (as demonstrated tonight) to bring the ball under control, turn and set off in a useful direction. These are all individual reasons why Kevin Davies is not as useful as I would like him to be.

But for me the knock on effect is what is worse. Our attacking momentum breaks down so often due to a poor run, a poor pass, poor control and, to a higher degree, momentum is lost through more subtle and less conspicuous errors.

Tonight so many fans were screaming for Davies to go off because we looked so badly ineffective up front and we needed an equaliser fast. In actual fact when Coyle had readied Sordell on the bench the fans were clapping - but when Afobe's number went up almost everyone in the stadium booed. If you had asked anybody at that point if KD should have stayed on you would have had a resounding and possibly unanimous "no"!

You can call it a master stroke if you like (from Coyle) because he made the decision to leave Davies on the pitch and it was ultimately he who pulled the goal back. But I would strongly argue that it was more through luck than good judgement on Coyle's part. My point is that with 20 mins or so to go (or even for the entire game) we should have been pulling Leeds all over the park at home (especially as we pushed for an equiliser) but the fact is we just were not looking good enough.

I am not blaming Davies at all but as the Sordell substitution loomed everybody was holding their breath for the same thing. Davies to go off. Not so much because they don't like Davies but because the same old system was still not working and changing Afobe for Sordell meant we were intending to play out the rest of the game in exactly the same way as we had played the preceding minutes - and it was not likely to be good enough.

As it turned out we scrambled a point and it happened to be another Davies header. But if I am alone in thinking that it would be a shame for us to continue in the same vein and presume that the same setup is going to work for the foreseeable future based on tonight's Davies brace then please just have me put down. I don't want to be in for a season of that.

There is a case for Davies hampering our style of play, if we play it on the deck. We don't play it on the deck, even when Davies is out for some reason (or haven't in the past).

I actually agree in theory that Kev will need to be used more and more sparingly.

I too thought Davies should have come off (for a different reason) but the simple answer there is I was wrong. He scored.

If Kev wants to evolve into a goal-scoring striker who doesn't do a huge amount else but has work rate, awesome. So long as he harasses defenders and scores goals, I'm happy.

Coyle position is that Kev has a unique training regime, aside from the other players, to keep him fresh. Worked for yesterday.

Every game kd is being sandwiched between 2 players. Sometimes more. Teams are aware of him now and i know this is not bis fault. This is another reason to drop him and try something different.

I believe without KD in the 1st half we could have put Leeds to the sword. Eagles was great down the left beating his man numerous time and getting in good positions. Imagine if we had a forward with pace and a decent touch to support him and capitalize on his runs.

Mavies isn't a winger that is evident to most.

Bringing on a lazy winger (who didn't do much apart from his corner) for our best player was a bizarre move.

I am glad I haven't made plans for a trip to Millwall it is just getting a little tiresome now. There is no sign that we are going to get a decent run together and there is no sign of a clean sheet anytime soon. It appears to me that there is very little leadership and the consistent strange tactics has got me so fed up. Anyway off to do a 11hr shift...

jayjay23 wrote:

I am going to argue that, in spite of the two goals scored by Kevin Davies to give us a point against Leeds, there is a strong case for Davies to spend more minutes on the bench and less time on the pitch.

Stupid post by a stupid person.

You'd drop our leading scorer? You idiot. We aren't near the bottom because we can't score, we're near the bottom because we can't defend. Two goals at home in the Championship should be enough to win any game there this season. But it never is.

The same happened last season though. Everyone wanted our leading scorer (Klasnic) dropped, and when Coyle did just that our strikers mustered about two goals between them.

Football is about scoring goals. I'd rather have Davies do bugger all for 89 minutes but score twice, than Ngog/Afobe/Sordell hold the ball up a bit and never score.

This is true. The other players should feel ashamed of themselves that it's left to 35-year old Super Kev to keep on doing the business of putting the ball in the net.

The jayjay delusion.

Davies worked his socks off last night. He put in one of his ubiquitous sliding tackles early on which got him a yellow even though he played the ball first.

His two goals were typical trademark Davies goals. Getting his head in where it hurts, between two defenders. It's hardly Davies fault he is being picked every game. He scores two good goals and he still gets stick!

The first 30 minutes last night we played some high tempo stuff. Eagles hit the post and Afobe just missed with a decent chance. We should have been 3-2 up at half time.

It was odd for Spearing to be brought off for Petrov because Spearing did some tidy stuff in front of the back four in a similar role to NRC and Muamba.

Looking at the team as a whole only Andrews and Mears have disappointed me. I would rather have Ricketts back in his rightful right back slot. Christ, we sold Steinnson for a pittance yet he always gave it his all and chipped in with the odd goal.

I'd rather have Tamir Cohen and Steinnson than Andrews and Mears.

We just need to sort out our defence. Giving away 4 penalties in the last 4 games is unacceptable. We should have had the game won by half time. The Leeds free kick for their opener was another bloody daisy cutter that should have been cleared.

Although disappointed with the draw I still enjoyed the game. A proper Lancashire Yorkshire derby. A good turn out by the Leeds faithful with both the upper and lower tier of the south stand made for a great atmosphere.

Roll on Millwall and Come On You Whites!

Reebok Trotter wrote:Looking at the team as a whole only Andrews and Mears have disappointed me. I would rather have Ricketts back in his rightful right back slot. Christ, we sold Steinnson for a pittance yet he always gave it his all and chipped in with the odd goal.

I'd rather have Tamir Cohen and Steinnson than Andrews and Mears.

Agree with this - you wonder sometimes why sign players who are no improvement on the ones already there. Andrews has been a big let-down, he was supposed to have scored quite few goals when he was at Ipswich, I think.

But at least it was definitely better to watch than the scrappy Palace affair.

The problem as I see it is that we only have three out and out midfielders in Mark Davies, Keith Andrews and Jay Spearing. Eagles has been played on the wing so I don't include him.

Spearing sits just in front of the back four, tidying things up and making telling passes to the forward line. Mark Davies is our most creative midfielder but he misses someone like Holden who could hold the ball up before laying off a decent pass.

Andrews does a lot of running but so far there is no end product. As for the R/B position, what has Joe Riley done wrong ?

Fuck me, he could score a triple hat-trick and you lot would still whinge about him.

Hes a player that looks like he actually gives a fuck about us.

Hes also terribly useful at corners and set pieces, somthing we seem to be relying very much on at the min...

The Hipster Delusion. So there. Want to fight about it?

Ah another Davies thread, like he is our main weakness I bloody love it. If SKD was the only thing we had to complain about then we would be sitting at the top of the league at the moment.

Davies has worked his socks off in every game I have seen this season and doesn't deserve half the critisism some fans are giving him, give the guy a break he's scoring goals, setting them up and is a hell of a threat from set pieces.

JayJay23 ...... 100% correct.

Your concepts are well over the heads of the SKD fans. Most can't realize that it's nothing against the lad himself but the whole way we approach a game that ultimately costs us in the long run.

Watching the Benfica/Barca game last night and seeing professionals passing in little triangles ...... basic pratice field stuff ......not a hoof to be seen anywhere. And here we are talking about 60 yard hoofs and a nod on straight out of play.....

As others have said... in theory would it have better for our club to lose that one last night and see the back of OC and SKD and Zat ? or plod on for the rest of the season.

Nobody can say for sure.

Did you go to the game Jayjay?

It's ok saying he should have taken davies off and IMO I can see why you would but the other strikers, sordell in particualr are doing nothing to force coyle to re think about dropping davies. Eagles bollocked Sordell twice in the 2nd half last night for not making a run to close down the ball.

terenceanne wrote:

Your concepts are well over the heads of the SKD fans. Most can't realize that it's nothing against the lad himself but the whole way we approach a game that ultimately costs us in the long run.

Our style of play DOESN'T change when Davies isn't on the pitch.. perhaps that concept is over your head.

I agree he should be rested more because you can't ask a 35 year old to run around for 90 mins twice a week and expect the same results but hes provided so far, just don't see what there is to complain about.

The best way to determine who is underperforming in the team is to count all the players who have performed well, or at least haven't disappointed :

Bogdan
Mills
Knight (never though id say that)
Eagles
Spearing
SKD
Chungy (At the start of the season he played well I thought, one of the few with vision and trickery, then he said to the BEN we needed to play more passing football, now hes been dropped...)


So the way I see it is our worst areas are our two full back slots, attacking midfield, and a second striker.

I was at the game. I was sat behind Pratley and Chungy as they warmed up. I cannot be certain but I am pretty sure Chungy said (when all the fans were getting on the teams back) something along the lines of "I'm going if this carries on". Pratley, with a beaming but shocked smile, said, "Did you just say you're going"? Lee kind of just grinned back. Then Pratley shook his head and said something else that I couldn't make out.

jayjay23 wrote:I cannot be certain but I am pretty sure Chungy said (when all the fans were getting on the teams back) something along the lines of "I'm going if this carries on".

Did he say it in a Korean accent or are you just good at lip reading ?

Lofty_Love wrote:

Our style of play DOESN'T change when Davies isn't on the pitch..

I agree he should be rested more because you can't ask a 35 year old to run around for 90 mins twice a week and expect the same results but hes provided so far, just don't see what there is to complain about.

This.