Are we now a boring team?

If you see my last post - we don't have to be boring in order to defend well. The defence and attack needs to be as one unit. It's best not to look at these two areas as two seperate entities.

As I said previously, most people would assume that bringing on a DM in place of an attacker is a boring and defensive move. Wrong - what we saw was that the DM allowed our CM's to support the attack with more freedom.

It's all about balance.

 

Totally agree with that which is why you usually get a defensive or offensive minded setup, its quite rare you get a perfect balance, of course a perfect balance is a matter of opinion too so nor are we looking at the same outcome.

Scoring lots of goals doesn't always mean exciting football either (Mourinho has the record goals scored in Spain with his real Madrid team but was allowed to leave because the football wasn't exciting enough). If every goal is scored in the same way it's tedious and eventually boring. Exciting football to me is something that gets you on the edge of your seat because you don't know whats coming next but whatever it is, its likely to be good. To be a good attacking team you have to be unpredictable too.

 

Sooooo, stats are good when they support your argument, but bad when they don't.
Right.
Stats are **** and can be made to show whatever you want depending on how selective you are with them.
The only stat that interests me in this argument is the one that shows we almost won the title with the high-scoring, high-conceding, exciting team. If we do the same with a tight boring one then I'll reconsider.
It is no more risky to rely on a naturally free scoring team to out-gun its opponents than to expect a tight defence not to slip up and let one in when you don't have enough up front to get it back.
They're simply different approaches, adopted according to your personnel, neither is intrinsically more effective than the other

 

****ing defender.

 

That's fair enough - but I'm looking at the stats of teams that win leagues throughout history. These are facts and real events over a large period

With regards to my point on Henderson and Iniesta is that those stats don't take the non-measurable things into consideration - the in game flow, the off the ball contribution etc etc.

But I see where you're coming from - why try and follow an approach which is proven to be successful by 90% of the team who have won titles.

 

The stats are there - majority of league winners across many countries have had at least the 4th best defence in their respective league.

Fabio Capello won the league with Milan once and only scored around 50 goals in the process.

 

Sound riveting

 

I think that even that would do my head in!

But as we said earlier, we need to be one cohesive unit - defence and attack. Hopefully Rodgers finds the balance but going by the last 3 years, it's hard to see it happening.

 

We'd all love to have a free-flowing attack coupled with a solid defence and win 4-0 every week, but realistically it's not happening, as you say. Generally I think you only see that in leagues where most of the teams are cannon-fodder for the elite- and that's not true of ours.

We tend to be split on here as to where we'd prefer the strengths to be. My own view is that I want to be entertained. Obviously I want us to win, but it's more important for me to enjoy the game for 90 minutes than sit staring at the points column the rest of the week.
Maybe it's my age, but I'm resigned to the fact that I have no input into the way our club is run and I can pontificate as much as I want and it'll make no difference.
I'm just along for the ride- and I want it to be a good one.
We all like a good ride.

 

I went through a season on FIFA conceding 10 goals and scoring over 100. Make me manager and I'll show you how it's done

 

Exactly this

 

How are you going to make all the other teams represent amateur level though?

 

mourinho is doing a good job of it this year

 

Swap mourinho with any other manager (bat tinker man and pellegrini) and also works

 

Yep, completely understand your viewpoint.

I suppose that's where I'm different - I just want to win badly. And for me, the best method of winning is to be tactically and defensively sound first and foremost, and build your attack on it.

But that's not to say I don't enjoy fast attacking football - I am human, 13/14 was brilliant and I would love for us to do that. but it's not a sustainable style nor was it successful in the end.

If you look at teams like Bayern, Barca, Dortumund, Ajax, At Madrid - they are incredibly solid at the back but you wouldn't call them boring IMO.

 

Athletico madrid are very boring, when ever I see them they are just the Chelsea of La liga.

 

Dortmund were pants like year and the rest are the best/richest teams in their league with weak opposition

 

Despite the media-driven "robbed" storyline (which a lot of people on here seem willing to go along with) we could have best Bournemouth 4-0 and probably would have if the game came later in the season with a bit more sharpness

 

For me, the most enjoyable season since I can't remember when. I loved Suarez - bitey, diving, arm-waving, annoying bastard that he was-he was hugely entertaining for all the right, and several of the wrong, reasons.
I didn't even notice we were meant to have a defence.