The 2019-2020 season.

But that's not playing to our strengths and that's certainly not the style of football that we've played over the last 18 months and got us to our current position. Playing the ball through the Man City press is what got us a win. I can see an argument for getting the ball forward quicker, but there's very little chance of this happening with Tettey in the team. What your advocating is more than just a tweeking of our playing philosophy, but a massive change. This may have been a suitable style of play in the PL 20 years ago, but things have moved on. Sheffield Utd are doing very well currently playing with over lapping CB's and in the modern game all players should be able to interchange positions and attack / defend.

 

Just where have our 'strengths' been over the last 7 matches? These have produced one point against Bournemouth. Against ManCity we did tweak our tactics, sacrificing possession for a balanced defence and attack. We defended well and moved the ball forward quickly with one-touch passing. Buendia's through ball to Pukki, who then passed it to Cantwell for the second goal is exactly what I mean and that quick movement was characteristic of our play last season. Lately though, we clog the middle of the pitch and play it back and forth in front of a settled defence. That has resulted in 2 goals for and 14 against. It isn't about parking the bus, it's about playing a high line with the defenders providing support to the attack and getting back quickly when we lose the ball. It's what our opponents have been doing to us to score 14 goals to our 2.

 

That's 20th out of 20.

We all want to see stylish attacking football and the swashbuckling style that won us the Championship but, here's the smoker, we are no longer in the Championship, we are in the league above where Burnley, Palace and Watford are much less forgiving than Wigan, Reading and QPR. We don't want to go back to the grim days of Hootun and the drear-dross that was produced then but we have to tweak the system here and there to ensure the balance between defence and attack is better than what we have seen recently where we cannot either defend or score goals.

I'm with Rick on this.

 

I was going to respond but concluded on reflection it's just CC taking the mickey!

 

IMO, if we don't start picking up a few points before Xmas, I don't see us avoiding going down.
My only hope is that we don't sack SW/DF!!

 

This is turning out to be a season of "we're going to play our way even if it means relegation." What bothers me is our strategy vs ManC. Giving up 2/3 possession, it was still a very exciting game and we scored 3 goals. After that game I thought we would continue playing same way until we got some CB's back.

 

I personally think the Man City game set us up for the fall. All the teams would have sat up and rake notice after we beat them and therefore have changed their way of playing against us. Man City came out to attack us, pushing both full backs forward and leaving themselves exposed at the back, we exploited that. No other team, with the exception of Liverpool and maybe Leicester are going to do that.

 

I’d just like to say how nice it was to read through a weeks worth of posts without any bickering or arguing and some good informed and structured debate about our way of playing

 

This forum is a perpetual bed of , don't you know.

 

Interesting take, SC. I don't have the memory of the games to debate this with you. I looked at individual heat maps for some games and ManU and Brighton had their FB's forward much of the time. Though maybe not at the same time. I still think it's a useful way for us to play sometimes. Thanks for the insight. I'll watch for this in future games.

 

If nothing else, the Man City game, and the Bournemouth game, showed that we are perfectly capable of quite radically adapting our approach and coming away with points. Which makes it all the harder to understand why DF persists with an approach which has seen us pointless six games in the last seven. And neither against Man City nor Bournemouth could we be said to have played dour, boring, so-called Hughton-esque, football.

 

When we only play one way it's not difficult for other teams to work out how to negate that. The injuries have made that even easier. We scored three very different goals against ManCity, but that variety has all but disappeared. We have ideal players for counterattacking with pace, but instead we work the ball slowly up the pitch to confront a settled PL defence which limits us to long shots and half chances. The return of Hernandez has brought a spark to recent games, but if we played to his and Pukki's strengths, with Buendia providing the through balls that allow them to get behind the defence we could score more goals. That doesn't replace possession football, but is in addition to it, making it more difficult to defend against us. It also allows us to be more effective defensively without reducing our attacking capabilities.

 

Great post Rick and IMO, 2 things need to happen -
1. We need to get the ball forward with real pace before the opposition's defence gets back in numbers.
2. Get Hernandez to whip a cross in sooner.

 

IMO a lot of our problems are actually due to trying to get the ball forward TOO quickly. If one could find stats for length of pass out of defence to e.g. Stiepermann, Buendia, Cantwell, Hernandez or Pukki, I think they would show that we are trying to reach them with much longer, and therefore much riskier, passes compared with last season or the early games of this season. Passing accuracy is a function of distance more than anythng, and in trying to move the ball swiftly forward, we are in fact gifting possession back to the opposition. Our best movement of the ball forward is by quick, close, triangular passing, with the whole side moving upfield togther, the effect of which is to keep distances between the defensive line, midfield, and forward players relative short and vastly increasing the likelihood of retaining possession and working a good opening. There is some sense to the idea that our current problems stem largely from having to field a makeshift CB pairing, engendering a lack of confidence at the back and in defensive midfield about moving forward quickly enough to keep the passing distances short to facilitate our quick passing game.

 

Like last season, he's taking a long time to make his move with the ball. By then the defense is set and his crosses aren't effective. I expected the team to work on that for this season.

 

https://www.90min.com/posts/6498964...d-to-get-relegated-this-season?utm_source=RSS

 

We don't need 90min.com to tell us what some of us were predicting amidst the euphoria of last seasons promotion campaign. Or actually, maybe we DO need them and others to keep shouting it out because there still seem to be remarkable numbers of people who either refuse to see the writing on the wall or think that the choice is only between gung-ho entertainment on the yellow brick road back to the Championship or dour, so-called Hughton-esque, boredom.

 

I still hope that with returning players we can adapt and make a fight of staying up. 2 or 3 centre backs and at least 1 DM might just make us tougher to beat and if we're not built on sand then maybe the attacks/possession can start to build again.
That sort of article is inevitable given recent form and the thought of the Brady's of this world getting to smuggly tell the world I told you so, makes me desperately hope we upset the odds and stay up.
As to what i believe? Unfortunately I believe they could well be right.

Bah!

 

I too hope we prove them wrong GM. What I would hate most of all is our suffering the fate they so confidently predict, not through failure to buy "better"' players as they advise, but through our own failure to make the tactical tweaks and adjustments in approach that are clearly necessary and might just make the necessary difference.

 

What I was suggesting was a variation on our normal possession style which moves the ball forward through short passing like we did so effectively against ManCity. The second goal in that game came from Buendia winning the ball around midfield then lobbing it over the defence for Pukki to run on to then lay it off to Cantwell for the goal. Against Liverpool, Buendia did the same for Pukki to score. This seems to be something we've lost as confidence drops. It isn't about long balls forward, but intelligent medium length passing to get attacking players in behind the defence and keeping them in two minds as we move forward with the ball. We have the players to do this, so why aren't we doing so?