- Feb 21, 2006
- 4,833
- 4,259
Firstly this is no knee jerk after the result today but the performance and result has prompted me to start this thread as it's a topic people have been speaking about for a good while since Potch has been in charge.
That subject is our style of play. The positives since Potch has taken over are that our defence has clearly improved and very very rarely do teams hammer us or even beat us by 2 goals, that platform is good because it means we're usually in with a chance of at least a draw in most matches. This style and defence is for two reasons, firstly we have some quality defenders in the Belgian duo, 2 quality fb'S and lloris + wanyama in front shielding. The 2nd reason is because we tend to not let the opponents have much of the ball and a lot of our possession is with our back 4 and GK and in our own half.
Negatives of this system are that we rely very heavily on the full backs for width and we are often very ponderous in attack.
Ok we thrashed Swansea 5-0 and when we get our high press going like in the first half away to Chelsea or away to stoke this year we play some very nice football, but if we don't get this going we are slow, ponderous, negative and predictable and dare is say too risky and overplaying at the back, teams press us high like
Man.utd did today at the right times and cut us apart.
The thing is the way we play is probably a good way to play given than we don't have a ton of quality attacking options and also we really lack paddy quality attacking players. Over the history of the PL weve been more a gung ho team with little steel or defensive structure. We won games often due to some individual moments of skill say from a ginola or berbatov but the team as a whole were not good enough. Also away to the 'big' teams traditionally we don't just lose we have often been hammered, sometimes by Arsenal and regularly by man.u and Chelsea. Occasionally we score early and start well but often we end up losing 3/4-1 as the oppositions quality shines through.
Then there were the AVB days where we just got absolutely shat on by man.city and Liverpool for example 4/5-0 which was really embarrassing.
So while we now have the so called 'best defence' I also don't feel we offer too much of a threat going forwards and need to be very clinical otherwise we don't get a result.
Is this due to our style of play being a little negative? Is it because we lack pace? Are our attacking players just not good enough?
I often now crave for 2 up front or 3 or just a more exciting spurs like team but then we'd probably not have as good a defence.
Phil Neville mabye summed it up that we lack that game changing player who can win a game or take a player on the likes of: Hazard,Pedro,Mikatayren,Pogba,Sanchez,Walcott,Coutiniho,Mane,De Bruyne,Sterling,Toure,Silva,Payet etc!!! Basically a Bale!
So does Potch need to change our style slightly for us to be a bit more positive or do we just need to sign some better attacking players like we tried to do in the summer but failed hugely.
Still positive about where we are going as a club but right now I see us finishing 6th and after our dizzy heights of last season and seeing Chelsea and Arsenal doing so well it's a little depressing.
Let's hope we get a good couple of wins over Xmas now as we really have to in order to stay in touch and hopefully the top6 will drop a few more points.
I feel like we don't do enough daring or doing in our play but perhaps it's not potchs fault but we just need to recruit better. Heck even Zaha would've improved us going forward.
COYS.
That subject is our style of play. The positives since Potch has taken over are that our defence has clearly improved and very very rarely do teams hammer us or even beat us by 2 goals, that platform is good because it means we're usually in with a chance of at least a draw in most matches. This style and defence is for two reasons, firstly we have some quality defenders in the Belgian duo, 2 quality fb'S and lloris + wanyama in front shielding. The 2nd reason is because we tend to not let the opponents have much of the ball and a lot of our possession is with our back 4 and GK and in our own half.
Negatives of this system are that we rely very heavily on the full backs for width and we are often very ponderous in attack.
Ok we thrashed Swansea 5-0 and when we get our high press going like in the first half away to Chelsea or away to stoke this year we play some very nice football, but if we don't get this going we are slow, ponderous, negative and predictable and dare is say too risky and overplaying at the back, teams press us high like
Man.utd did today at the right times and cut us apart.
The thing is the way we play is probably a good way to play given than we don't have a ton of quality attacking options and also we really lack paddy quality attacking players. Over the history of the PL weve been more a gung ho team with little steel or defensive structure. We won games often due to some individual moments of skill say from a ginola or berbatov but the team as a whole were not good enough. Also away to the 'big' teams traditionally we don't just lose we have often been hammered, sometimes by Arsenal and regularly by man.u and Chelsea. Occasionally we score early and start well but often we end up losing 3/4-1 as the oppositions quality shines through.
Then there were the AVB days where we just got absolutely shat on by man.city and Liverpool for example 4/5-0 which was really embarrassing.
So while we now have the so called 'best defence' I also don't feel we offer too much of a threat going forwards and need to be very clinical otherwise we don't get a result.
Is this due to our style of play being a little negative? Is it because we lack pace? Are our attacking players just not good enough?
I often now crave for 2 up front or 3 or just a more exciting spurs like team but then we'd probably not have as good a defence.
Phil Neville mabye summed it up that we lack that game changing player who can win a game or take a player on the likes of: Hazard,Pedro,Mikatayren,Pogba,Sanchez,Walcott,Coutiniho,Mane,De Bruyne,Sterling,Toure,Silva,Payet etc!!! Basically a Bale!
So does Potch need to change our style slightly for us to be a bit more positive or do we just need to sign some better attacking players like we tried to do in the summer but failed hugely.
Still positive about where we are going as a club but right now I see us finishing 6th and after our dizzy heights of last season and seeing Chelsea and Arsenal doing so well it's a little depressing.
Let's hope we get a good couple of wins over Xmas now as we really have to in order to stay in touch and hopefully the top6 will drop a few more points.
I feel like we don't do enough daring or doing in our play but perhaps it's not potchs fault but we just need to recruit better. Heck even Zaha would've improved us going forward.
COYS.