Football style

If you want to play with the style of Danny Wilson's team, we would need two ball playing centre halves (one to play sweeper), a defensive midfielder and we'd need to scrap the pressing game.

 

The part where you say the difference with us and wimbledon is that wimbledon looked for a man is absolutely spot on, everyone is thinking that some of us want to see tippy tappy stuff, we don,t, theres nothing wrong with the way we play other than looking to find a team mate rather than blasting it aimlessly into the opposing half often for a goal kick...

 

Good fair points.

In the here and now however we aren't fairing too bad.

 

But it's these moments that make me think that it's perhaps as well that we play the way we do.

We're not blessed with a team full of very good passers of the ball, and those instances where a player gives it away whilst having time and space in the opponents half illustrates that. Yet we have found a way to win a lot if matches.

 

IMO teams don’t play out from the back because it entertains the crowd. They do it because they think it’s the best thing they can do to win.
We simply haven’t got the players to do that and as in all walks of life, you have to do the best you can with what you have.
And results wise, we’ve been very good at it!

 

This tippy tappy football is all hype anyway outside the top six prem teams imo.
The amount of times the ball is passed all the way back to their keepers when level with the oppositions penalty area does my head in and often from their own corners .

 

Don't think you're in a minority about tika taka mate. It seems we en masse think it's crap.

 

Why, why, why do people keep insisting that the only alternative to our current style is to keep passing the ball around the 18 yard box? It isn't!
I'm willing to accept what our style is giving us but don't tell me it's entertaining football or the only alternative on offer.

 

Not the only alternative, but even attempts to control the ball by our centre backs or wing backs has led to either goals or bad misses for our opponents recently. Not sure why we would want to start taking more risks at this stage of the season.

 

I don't disagree. We don't have footballing centre halves. I just object with being given an argument that says our permanent philosphy has to be, in effect lump it or lump it.

 

I suspect, for as long as Ismael is in charge, we'll play a risk averse game, but it will evolve as teams find different ways of attacking against us and, hopefully, our players develop.

But this thread has seen suggestions that they'd have been booed off at half time, and one poster saying he'd want a refund. Sorry, but if any fans were to boo a team, sat in 5th after 40 games, with it 0-0 at half time, then they'd be even worse than the Ipswich fans that hounded McCarthy out. And those Ipswich fans deserved the relegation they ultimately got.

 

I've seen plenty of good Barnsley teams booed off at half time and full time if they were playing badly. Never by me but it happens. I'd not criticise our current squad and haven't on here. They're doing amazingly and giving it their all. I've no complaints whatsoever on their effort or commitment.

 

People keep referring to us getting "old manned". We have been but that's not an excuse for being unable to compete. It doesn't take skill to "old man" other teams, just cynicism and a bit of brute force. Neither of those is beyond any team. Ally the old manning to quality players though and it's a different matter.
The idea that we can't compete playing football at this level is a fallacy. The teams of Norman Hunter, Keith Hill, Heckingbottom, of Currie and Agnew were all able to compete. Many on here were adamant that the Heckingbottom team would have gone up.
That said I accept that teams like that only come along every so often for a club like ours. we can't afford to buy them ready made. Ismael has, no doubt, broken that cycle.

 

I'm scratching my head at some of the criticism directed at the team.

We are 5th in the Championship . 5TH.

71 points

With 5 games still to go.


Yet some folk dont like watching us or want a season ticket refund.

Unbelievable.

 

i also think the economic disparity between bang average teams like Middlesborough with 40 million quids worth of subs and us has changed the dynamic. To out football teams is now even more difficult for clubs like ours with talent being vacuumed up by teams in our division who can’t afford them and above who can.

 

Before we appointed VI, we were told that he would play 3-4-3 and the press. We were told that he always plays that way no matter what the state of the game or the team. They were right. He has no other plan, so in January, in came another 2 forwards capable of playing in a pressing front 3, and a left sided defender to give us cover for every defensive position. He was backed with players who would allow him to play his style no matter what. We have a very young side. It is a side that is still learning. What they learn now will stay with them for their whole career. There is no doubt that they were young enough to adapt to any style. They is also no doubt that we would have had to bring in different players for other systems, but we have made that investment in any case.

3-4-3 is not the only way to go, and neither is 3-5-2 (Danny Wilson's system). When I write the two systems like that, there is very little difference between them, even though one was superb entertainment, and one isn't. As for the press! It is not new. It has been played by our 2 previous coaches with some success. In your attempt to prove my points are wrong, you have been drawn down a dead end. None of the things that you listed have to be there for a system to work well, just as we do not have to play long and aimless balls if we want the football to be a better watch. You refuse to accept that there is any alternative, just because you believe any change will destroy the magic, and by destroying the magic you believe you will destroy the success. It is the hocus pocus that passes for black magic, but for me the game has explanations that do not have to rely upon magic.

 

It is. Football is broken. It was broken back in 2016 though when we were, supposedly, on our way up playing great football until the January sale. If the "plan" had been two years further down the line at that point maybe we could have avoided selling and gone up. Who knows.
We've got some very good footballers in this team too.
Anyway Coventry next and as it's away maybe it will flow a bit better though maybe Coventry will go down the like for like route and the game gets smothered. Hopefully it's a repeat of Bournemouth and Luton though.