What is it? It's something that we are incapable of doing. The idea that we play vertical football is laughable. Vertical football results in the creation of goal scoring opportunities and hence, goals. It's actually the opposite of how we play.
vertical football is meant to be transitioning up the field fast with lots of direct forward passes exploiting spaces quickly etc ours is more like all our attackers doing this
Selles just means getting it forward quickly without going backwards or sideways too much. Reality of course is that you have to go backwards and sideways at times no matter the system. Selles has talked about being vertical a lot less recently, which may be a form of acknowledgement that we aren't really capable of it right now.
We play far too casually. We attempt to be vertical in moments but for us that most often consists of a largely aimless long ball somewhat towards an isolated dwarf - usually after a couple of minutes of making sure our defenders all get a few touches each.
The dwarf starts his run after the second of the four touches at the back and then can not understand why he is offside…..again
I wouldn't mind Ormondroyd's City stats for us this season, ten appearances with six goals. The views expressed in my posts are not necessarily mine.
this is why im holding some copium that against portsmouth, they wont sit back at all so there will be more space for us we dont have the pace or directness to stretch the play against teams with a rigid defensive shape like derby for example at home so we will have more chances at goal against portsmouth then against derby
There have been a few moments, basically a handful since Selles came in, when the wingers/inside forwards switch it to the other side diagonally and its looked really dangerous. I don’t know why we don’t do it more often.
It's a great question. I wish you'd asked it earlier as I believe this unintentionally gets to the crux of our recent problems. Meaning, it links directly to this ongoing question of "what changed after the international break". In earlier months under Selles, he first got us organised, back to playing 'normal' football (after the Walter debacle). We then started to see signs of what Selles meant with his so called 'vertical football'. In a post match interview he even pinpointed a great pass by Burstow (yep, him again) as an example, where he was just in our half near the touch line, spotted a forward making the run from the other wing into the centre of the pitch near the oppostion D, from which we scored. Since the break, as PLT comments, we've heard and seen less of this 'vertical football'. Imo, that is exactly what has changed. Nothing to do with fall outs, downing tools, contracts, or whatever nonsense. The game plan changed to being more cautious, more about don't concede, rather than a more adventurous 'vertical football' focus. Not saying we became ultra defensive, just that the balance changed, and I believe this is because Selles thought we'd pick up enough draws and nick the odd goal for wins to keep us up. He was wrong, and it may cost us our place in the Championship (the fat lady hasn't sung just yet though). As Tigerscave said, "it's about finding a way, and he's lost his way", which is a pity because before then we were progressing pretty well.
