Personally think they’ll go down. Some of the playing out from the back they tried was suicidal stuff. It may be admirable to try & play the right way but they didn’t look good enough to do it. If we were more clinical in the final third then they’re probably 5 down before we took Pines & Earl off & they got a bit of a foothold in the game.
Speaks very well. Good luck to him. Unfortunately they haven’t got an earthly of staying up on that showing. They looked great from 3-0 onwards but fair to say we took our foot off the pedal and made some very disruptive substitutions (correctly so btw, managing the minutes of players coming back from injury). If we have kept our foot on their throat I honestly think it would have finished 5 or 6 nowt.
That's a very good question, and its like when we were winning games under Neil Collins for example. But apparently it was awful, and maybe it was the wrong way to play!!.
Essentially it means trying to play out from the back. Kompany did it all season as Burnley went down from the prem & it somehow landed him the Bayern job.
What is this mythical ‘right’ way? The right way to play a game is the way you are most likely to get a positive result. With their squad of players, their way is not the right way - much like Southampton in the premier league. We won a few days ago against Wrexham by rolling our sleeves up and grafting in the second half. That was right on the day. Fannying about passing square from goal kicks is ok if your keeper is Ederson and your centre backs can pass the ball like John Stones or William Saliba. When you have Crawley’s squad and their attempts to play the ‘right’ way lead to losing the ball in their own half quite a lot and conceding goals from it, then I’m not sure I’d concur they are playing the right way. Them playing the right way today could have led to them losing eight nil quite easily had we been less profligate.
To be fair, they could have had about 4 themselves! But I do agree. You see clubs in league 2 and even below doing it - it's mental. I get what the OP means, trying to play 'pretty' football, but sometimes you just can't. As you say, Southampton & Burnley prime examples of it. Kompany is the definition of failing upwards as it stands! Although Russell Martin is a ***** manager too, he's also failed upwards, miraculously.
I saw a bizarre quote from him in the Sussex World online. He said 'some of these players played for Barnsley in the Premier League'! Ha! That was 26 years ago,most of 'em weren't even born.
