This was being discussed on the Fulham match thread, but I thought it was interesting enough to deserve a thread of its own. The question is when should a manager play defensive or attacking tactics? The conventional answer is to play attack at home and defence away, but sometimes by playing defensively away a team invites the home opposition to put them under more pressure than they can handle. Sometimes a poor home team low in confidence at the start of a game visibly grows in confidence due to the high level of respect their superior opponents show them. The opposite is also true when a struggling team travels to a successful team and surprises them by going on the attack. This was a tactic Phil Brown used very well in our first Premier League season (until he lost his nerve). The conventional method adopted by most managers is probably the safest way overall to get results, but I think a manager also needs to know when to gamble on attack especially when defence is expected.
I think most managers come out with the words "keep it tight the first 20 mins" when playing away! Then they change their approach as the game unfolds.
It's a tough one. Go too attacking and you leave yourself exposed. I think that's why the 352 worked so well, because we could pull the wing backs back to defend or push them on to attack. What I don't like is the hauling off of strikers with 20 minutes to go. If we are 2-0 up and dominating, then why change the mentality? The players that got us to that point would be doing fine, unless they're tired or injured. You still need a focal point up top otherwise you just end up clearing your lines to nobody and inviting wave after wave of pressure. If you want to close a game out, tell the lads to keep the ball in the midfield, don't press too hard to get forward and just knock it around to wind the clock down.
Fans always want to constantly attack home and away, there were complaints about our Fulham performance in here. The simple fact is that it is not possible or even sensible to do that. Look at Fulham in our league or Everton in the Premier League for example. With Everton's squad they should be close to the top 4 but they have a manager who is so stubbornly set in his "I don't care what the other team does we're gonna attack" mentality that they are languishing in the bottom half. A refusal to shut up shop and defend a lead had cost them a number of stoppage time points.
Martinez is failing them with his approach, Stones seems to think he can do whatever he feels like instead of what is right defensively and it cost them today.
I really hate saying this, but, Stones needs to be away from Everton and Martinez ..... any manager who continues to let a centre-back do Cruyff turns and other such bollocks in his own six yard box isn't worthy of the name, as good as young Stones is, his first job is to defend.
I agree and I think that is what SB says to his team. But that is why we have played poorly away against Leeds & Rotherham Et al in the first half, we go out with a defensive mine set, which invites teams on to us.
