Minority Report v Chelsea (FA Cup 5th round)

You are absolutely correct. 3-4-3 did restrict Chelsea. My point is not that 3-4-3 is inefficient at destroying what the opposition is doing. Quite clearly, it is efficient at that part of the game. What it is less good at is creating chances and entertaining the watching public.

I do not want to get into a long argument about this that gets us all nowhere. My objection to 3-4-3 is the lack of any entertaining play. If you are not bothered by that, then you will be a lot happier than me, just so long as the team keeps winning.

 

It was entertaining And if we'd taken our chances we'd have had a few goals. We played a high line, we were in their half what's boring about that?

 

Yet Chelsea excited you ??

 

Do not give up. Explain it to me, just as I take the time to explain my beliefs to you. You seem either unwilling or incapable of explaining what is good about 3-4-3 the long ball and the press. That is all I have asked you to do. Surely, it isn't rocket science.

 

Big Val subs cost us, Dike did not press

 

I can't get my head around people moaning about us giving Chelsea a tough game and being so competitive in the championship.

 

We had 28% of possession, mainly because every time we regained possession, we gave it straight back. Chelsea had 72% possession, but for most of the game, they were totally unable to do anything with that possession. It made for a dull stalemate. If you were entertained, then fair enough, but personally I was not entertained.

 

I'd say we're mid table and giving top teams in the championship and premiership tough games with Big Val's tactics, not rocket science is it.

 

Shitty old Barnsley spoiling the game against premiership multi millionaires?? And being the best team for large chunks of it.
Who'd have thought it

 

No. He does not press well, but he is only 20 years of age, and he has a lot to learn. The problem is that your pressing players are done after an hour, and I am not sure how you bring on better pressers if you do not have them. I think Dike is not fit enough to press, and is too bulky to keep it up for long.

 

agree with most of that. However, I thought Mowatt was by far our most composed player and I'm not a Mowatt fan. It was though a dour game

 

Because I have not once referred to long ball.

You have.

You have this preconceived idea that 343 means long ball.

And by definition you think I'm happy with long ball.

Why discuss further when your already in a position that you wont listen to me or anyone else when you come to conclusions like that

Edit

And btw

Your words

Unwilling (that's you) and incapable... Ballax, you obnoxious ****

 

And if you are happy with that, then fair enough

 

jesus, I'm off to bed, you're on a wind up tonight

 

If you don't restrict teams as good as Chelsea they tear you apart and I find nothing entertaining about getting stuffed. We had a chance of winning tonight against a Premier league team. We didn't take that chance but we played well enough to have won and created the couple of chances good enough to have won. And some of the pressing play that led to us gaining possession in the opponent's half and being instantly on the attack I found to be very exciting football. I wish some of our players were better when in possession, but they're not and no amount of system changing will help with that. What the system does is play to their strengths, which is a high energy press. I don't think we should use it every game, against a team that hits it from back to front it loses all value, but against Chelsea it was our best chance of winning.

As for this: "My objection to 3-4-3 is the lack of any entertaining play. If you are not bothered by that, then you will be a lot happier than me" it's nonsense. We all like entertaining play, that isn't the issue. The issue is when it's there you don't see it as you've already decided the way we play isn't entertaining and won't admit when it is.

 

I continue to reply to you, therefore I am reading what you write.

3-4-3 does not have to involve the long ball. Plenty of Premier League teams play 3-4-3 and do no use the long ball. I believe VI does so mainly in order to keep the defensive shape of the team on the counter attack. Nevertheless, the long ball tosses possession back to the opposition, and I do not particularly want to see the opposition with 78% of possession, even if you argue that more possession does not necessarily mean more goals. That is the way I like to see my football played. I like to see us on the ball.

 

Red rain, you really appear to refuse to accept what happens in front of you at times. We’ve played 3-4-3 tonight and were the taking of a chance or two away from knocking Chelsea out - again. Our shape didn’t beat us tonight, it kept us in the game and gave us a chance.

Until they play 4-3-1-2 (and they never will under Ismael), you won’t be happy. Despite the fact that with a back four we were at times entertaining but invariably beaten - a lot - last season. Struber himself brought in the back three - with which we toughened up and concede much less. Ismael would be a fool to change that to a flat back four. Which is why he hasn’t. We don’t have any bloody full backs for a start, Jordan Williams could play either side maybe but I wouldn’t want either of the Callum’s in a back four, and certainly not Sibbick.

Tonight, against a team that had a goalkeeper who alone cost probably ten times our whole annual budget, and an outfield ten that cost christ knows how much, we restricted them to 4 attempts at goal - and only a single one on target. Four shots and only one on target in the whole game. They weren’t good but we restricted them brilliantly.

Furthermore, at the other end we had 14 attempts, 4 of which on target, including their keeper making a point blank save and their centre forward making a fantastic goal line headed clearance. Our goalkeeper had to pick the ball out of his net yes but hasn’t made a save all night. Chelsea got out of jail and they know it.

It was a good performance against yes a changed eleven for Chelsea, but a very strong team selection of multimillion pound, international footballers.

As for the long ball, I’m not the biggest fan. But I was even less a fan of the fannying about at the back, with defenders ability wise unable to play out trying to do just that, and making inevitable errors leading to goals. We’ve stopped that. So I can’t moan.

It is attritional, conceding possession for territory and not always the prettiest.

But on our pitch, with our squad and with our budget, against the teams we come up against most weekends, who also don’t always want to play pretty and up to this season bullied us to submission, it is probably the most effective way of picking up results. Plus it isn’t that we don’t play any football at all, we do. I thought some of the play by Brittain and Mowatt tonight was very good - and I honestly think had Brittain opened his stance up a little more first half and scored that chance, that we’d have won the tie.

We’ll never know. But I don’t think we’d have had a sniff tonight had we gone 4-3-1-2 and tried to pass it round them. We lost the game but it was still tactically correct from Ismael in my view. He even changed it slightly to a 3-4-1-2 at one point with Woodrow almost as far back as Mowatt and Palmer - the first time I’ve seen any alteration to his shape.

Oh, and you’re sneaking back to your condescending tone a little too (your comment about Sibbick’s selection over Sollbauer being a prime example). You’ve no need to go back to that, it adds nothing to your posts and they had been much less like that in recent months.

You’re never going to be happy, you’ve made that very clear, but if you can’t see the merit of the formation - at both ends of the pitch - after tonight’s showing, then you aren’t being objective and are prejudging every game.

 

I like 3-4-3 as a system - it gives us width not only with our wing backs, but with our wide forwards.

The trouble is, those wide forwards at the minute aren't good enough individually to provide service for Woodrow, or to create something for themselves.

 

That wasn’t due to the long ball though.

We gained possession high up the pitch (due to the press) and then tried to play a quick incisive pass to create a goal scoring opportunity. Far too often this pass fails, and we give the ball straight back to the opponent. It’s a very difficult skill because that area of the pitch is already congested (and the pitch is very poor).