I’m no football expert, as you know. But, the pressing game..

?? Not new to football & not new to us. Much like a long ball tactic, which we’ve also deployed to lesser effect. I was always suspicious of it, as a desperate admittance that we couldn’t take a team on at football, which we have also been known to do, more often than not.
press, press, press, stifle the opposition, don’t allow them to play etc. Often leads to boring, stalemate matches.? But recently, against Norwich & Chelsea in the cup & again today, we’ve taken the tactic to another level, almost an art form. Even Man City will close you down, but have never seen a determination to force a game to be played massively so in the opposition’s half. As impressive as the result was today, I think the Norwich match was the better performance. Chelsea & the Bees haven’t been studying us enough or simply couldn’t deal with it.
I think we do have the ability to play through teams. & that might show, if, on the off chance, we have little to play for, come April.
See? Apart from scoring all sorts of spectacular goals, I don’t know much about football..

 

I hugely doubt that the teams we're up against aren't studying the way we play and trying to find ways around it. Maybe in VI's first few games, but not now. We've been too good to ignore.

So we have to conclude we've been too good for our opponents, which as a BFC fan is a hard conclusion to draw! Our press has been hugely successful, and I think we can give credit to the gaffer for that. The players are so well drilled.

I've had the fortune of watching them train a few times recently, only for 10-15 mins at a time, but it's so focused and intense. VI is all over them, all the time, everything comes from him. There are no accidents in the way we're playing, it's completely by design.

When it comes together like today, it's a joy to watch. In other games it's been less so, but hugely effective.

This season is going so much better than any of could have hoped. I don't think we'll trouble the top 6, but stranger things have happened. Such a shame we can't be there to shout them on.

 

Unfortunately missed watching today's away win at Brentford due to travelling back to the Isle of Man from Barnsley. I am not sure as to how the magnificent Barnsley team would counter any team stopping our pressing style. If the opposition play the long ball out from their goalkeeper, they will be almost in our penalty area by the time the ball has landed or been headed onwards. towards our goal.
Not sure how we prevent this apart from having man to man marking. We could always then have numerous lightening counter attacks and be 3 nil up before the opposition go to their plan B.

Your thoughts most welcome.