Old fart ? You are still a young whippersnapper. MO seems oblivious to the fact that in the future he will be the one others are calling an old fart.
It isn't though. They might support the possession style but they want exciting football with plenty of goals. It's all about how much patience they have and whether Rosenior can deliver in reasonable time. At this moment in time, they rightly or wrongly have faith in him delivering. TWT. Boxing Day was pretty much the opposite of what they've said they want to see.
He didn't do anything different. He's been playing with inverted full backs regularly. Just that this time it was Slater. What was more noticeable as a change on BD was the way he played Ingram (v's Allsop or v's the 'previous Ingram'). We effectively lost the 'keeper sweeper' extra man. Ingram was clearly under instructions to simply pass the ball out to Greaves or Jones and have them do what Allsop would otherwise be doing. So we were trying to play the same game but without the benefit of a goalie capable of doing it, with a CM as LB, a no 10 on one wing, a CF on the other wing. Maybe instead try something that gets the best out of what we do have until we have what we need for his system? That would be clever management. I agree he makes changes during the game. Often times because his starting set up isn't working and he has to do something to get back into the game, and often because the oppo manager knows how he's going to set us up from the start so sets his team up to negate it.
Greaves, Coyle or Vinagre do not form a central 2 with seri in the way Slater did on boxing day. Nor do Coyle or Christie when played inverted on the right. Like I say, watch the replay.
The thing is you’ll never see a manager who plays this way adapting their system. Looks at Spurs for example new manager but he quite simply will not budge from his style. It’s about creating long term sustainability for the players, even though realistically most of our current crop don’t really have a long term future here.
Surely the sustainability aspect is to ease integration of new players also? The style is consistent, yes. There are variations within that overall blueprint that allows them to change it, quite simply because it's a necessity for any manager to stay competitive.
