High press

We won buddy. 2-0 against a side littered with multi-million pound players, whose manager is one of the most successful at this level, ever. They brought Assombalonga (£15,000,000) and Fletcher (£6,500,000) off the bench. Watford only drew with them on Monday, playing this idealogical, perfect passing football that folk keep referring to.

If you don't like the brand of football we play, that's fair enough. That's a personal choice.

But your comment suggests we played terrible football that invited pressure, yet we won 2-0, it should have been more and I don't recall the opponent having a chance.

We've won 21 games in the Championship this season. And we still have folk suggesting we're set up wrong.

Like I say - can't knock anyone who says they don't like the style of football on show. But folk are suggesting the style and the tactics don't work, when we're literally having one of our top three seasons at the level, ever.

 

When our hoofball works then it's fine. We have willing runners who will work so hard to get to the ball and build on it.
What frustrates me to the point of screaming is when we simply swing a leg at the ball and it goes straight to their keeper, goes into touch for a throw or goal kick or just goes straight to one of their players. We seem to have lost the ability to control the ball and pass it intelligently, especially from midfield.
I dont know if they have been told to do this or if it is sheer panic.
I say what i have said before, we are not good to watch but so long as the result is right then I will put up with it.
I just wonder what the reaction would be from a 10,000 crowd if this style of football was on show every time. On tv/phone/pc we watch and move on. Turning up on a freezing Saturday we might not be so forgiving.

 

I'm sure we'd all be singing when we're winning!

 

The thing about hoof ball/vertical football is:

• It keeps the ball away from our goal.
• It keeps the ball closer to the opposition goal.
• We are tending to score more goals than we're conceding
• That gives us 3 points most matches.
• We're f%$*ing 5th.

I don't worry about this "ugly football" we're allegedly playing. History is written by the winners and if we go up, we'll be remembering the immense goals by Styles, Mowatt and Dike. The clean sheets we've achieved. Some of the individual player performances and Val's interviews.
No one will be talking about how we did it. Just that we did it.

 

Just a quick reminder...... We're 5th and 5 points clear..... A positive to trump all negatives.

 

I think we are just set up better without the ball. I don’t know the stats overall but at half time today I think we’d had most of the possession but that would mean that Boro were organised defensively to cope with our attacks.

the strength of our style is to press and force errors, win the ball high and catch the defence before they are set. It’s much harder to do that when you have the ball more.

Most noticeable thing today was the slow pace at which Boro played right up to going behind. After the first 6 minutes of the game I’d counted that their keeper had the ball, peeing around at goal kicks, for 2 mins 30 seconds. This continued unchallenged by the ref until we scored. After that IMO we battered em and they never had a shot on goal.

Apart from a handful of teams the division is s**t scared or us and set up to kick it long then blame it on our style.

Didn’t see any hoof ball for our second goal!!

 

Top and bottom of it is ...
........is that no other team (unfortunately apart from Wednesday) knows how to cope with us...not even Chelski.

 

That's exactly why we are doing so well. No whining, hard to please folks to put the team off.

 

I think the rest of the league got wise to our high press watching the Chelsea match where we pressed brilliantly. Full marks to Val an the lads for adapting to the way teams have played against us since then and continued to win games. Not always pretty but effective against everything we've been up against bar the Massives.

 

I honestly think the complainers about the style are looking for something that is impossible to deliver at this level and with our budget. The fact we are where we are with our budget is incredible.

I would (genuinely) love us to be playing Keith Hill style football but I would take this and winning all day over that.

 

It's a tricky one for me. Let's be honest the last 6 or so home games have been a tough watch. Last 6 or so away much better due in part to the pitches and I guess psychology of teams not wanting to change style to adapt to our form of play on their own turf.

Every week I look at oppositions benches and wince about the quality. And then we win and deservedly so in most cases. It's a crazy league this season. Norwich and Watford class apart rest bang average, inconsistent. And then there is us - hard to categorise harder to beat. Is it pretty? No. Effective? Hell yes. Amazing how far good structure, great work ethic and fantastic man management can take you. Part of me is filled with dread about going up and how the hell we would cope without massive investment which I fear wouldn't happen. But for now I am mainly enjoying the ride, accepting the painful home games and loving the flapping from oppo coaches and players. Let's see where it takes us. For me it's into the play offs, probable semi final defeat and one hell of a summer planning the way forwards.

 

We win games.

 

people keep saying we dont play pretty football does it really matter as long as we get three points i am happy with the way things are going wether its pretty or not

 

i dont know how to use a comma but i a agree with everything you said in your in your first two lines

 

Teams that play frm back and keep ball know they'll struggle against us na so weve found other ways to win lets get promoted while weve chance.

 

i am a newby when i put my reply on when i said i agree with your first two lines i was replying to emi i must have pressed something wrong

 

The last 6 or 7 home games especially, the away manager before the game has said before the game that we're not a pretty team to play against as we play too many long balls (Warnock excluded - he was quite glowing before the match). All of them bar none have played more long balls than us to counteract this. All of them bar one (SW) haven't managed to beat us. Post game it's all bleating that they haven't managed to beat us, sour grapes I'm afraid. They don't like it - they don't like the fact that they now can't beat little ol' Barnsley, with their mega talented, highly paid multi-millionaires.

Look at what you coulda won guys.... you don't have to pay mega bucks to get a team gelling together like we have this season, and the guys who've spend millions, literally hundreds of millions don't like it....

 

It's SOOO unfair isn't it?