Confidence

I need to share a comment I received on my last post.
Ironfist wrote:
Why dont you just admit you havent got a clue what your talking about, It will still take time for the team to get used to Zola'a Tactics, did you really expect it all to change over night.You should really support the Spuds as you seem to think nobody is yup to your standard.Idiot!!

I doubt that everyone dissatisfied with our game last night is a Spurs fan, but that's maybe not the major issue here. I even doubt that Zolas tactics (regular 442) is the problem, especially when it looked pretty decent in the first half.

Last night I think we saw a team that totally lack confidence and revert to panic football when they feel they are losing the game. First half was reassuring in my view, but then the problems set in.

We fall back into old sins, playing chance-ball, giving the ball away with rushed passes to players already covered. Forcing us to immediately deal with the next attack from T-ham, and the next and the next. Building their confidence and deflating ours.

It is important to use the speed of Bellamy, and try to move the ball up swiftly but I think it's equally important to let the team be confident with the ball, getting themselves into positions and not being forced to defend in panic with a lot of players out of position. Choose the times to play on the brake, but don't do it all the time.
I must confess to thinking the midfield is not quite what I was hoping for and that we do lack a "man in charge" and some tecnical quality on the ball as well as in the passes.

However, I feel we don't give the players an opportunity to show what they can do when they are forced to waste so much mental and physical energy on an unstructured game.
It must be better to fix the hole in the boat than to ask the crew to man the bilges.