Carel’s just not quite on song!
THIS was meant to be Carel Eiting’s prime time of year.
Unfortunately, despite claiming an assist against Barnsley, the Ajax loanee has not been in great form over the last few weeks.
He’s not been bad, it’s not that we’ve watched him make error after error and thought ‘he’s having a terrible game here’. It’s more that Town need him to be their creative force, especially given those various issues in the front three, and is not quite coming up with the goods.
That could be an over-analysis, of course. No side wins every game, and the simple truth could be that this is a mid-table to bottom-half squad getting about the maximum results you could reasonably expect out of them at this stage of their development, especially having had just one transfer window to rebuild the squad after a huge turnover of players in the summer.
Carlos Corberan has done a good job considering his starting point at Town, and that presumably is the thinking behind putting him and his coaching staff on new longterm contracts just before Christmas.
But there is only so much he can do if he keeps having to remind his players of the basic tenets of defending – don’t switch off, stay tight to your man at set-pieces, don’t let them win the second ball.
Having picked the same first XI that kept clean sheets in the previous two games, the players involved at Barnsley can hardly
Eiting is having a bit of a mini-phase where when he has the right ideas, the execution is slightly off, and when he does pull off what he intends to do, it’s not quite the pass the team needed.
His pass completion rate dipped below its usual standard - down from 80 per cent across the whole season to just 67pc in the last two games. That could be a result of returning to a more advanced role and playing riskier passes, but his chance creation rate has dropped, too.
We know the Dutchman has a claim that unfamiliarity with one another was a factor in their errors.
A coach’s job is already like painting the Forth Bridge without having to go back and touch up little bits that have faded prematurely, so Corberan would much rather not to have to keep returning to basic defensive work every few games, not when there is urgent work required at the other end too.
Since Josh Koroma went down injured against Sheffield Wednesday they have had two goalless games, with their three goals in the other two games coming from a forced goalkeeper error and two set-pieces, one of which was an own goal.
Corberan would, therefore, much prefer his team could maintain their defensive fundamentals to the extent that they create more time for themselves to concentrate on their attacking work as they try and solve the issue of how to create more chances from open play. huge amount of technical and tactical ability you don’t make it through Ajax’s academy and into the first team without learning about the importance of space and how to find it. But he has gone back to looking like the slightly loose and ponderous player he at first appeared after arriving at the club, as though not quite used to the pace of English football.
Having seen him overcome that initial difficult with some aplomb last month, it is strange to
see him regress like that.