I know that we dont score, and that we need promotion, but isnt there another tactic available without reverting to booting up the pitch? I'm torn between the frustration of us having possession and not scoring and the frustration of watching as the ball ping pongs between the two ends. Steve Bruce in the HDM is stating that we need to change, but surely he did not come here with that in mind. It hardley seems the message to give Koren. It would be easy to believe that I am moaning before the season begins, but this isnt a moan, its simply a question of expectation, will I be frustrated because we are winning but the football is not entertaining?
I don't want to see direct football either. It's ugly and would be hypocritical if I accepted that style as I have said West Ham played an awful style of football last year.
Bruce said that we need to be more direct, we won't turn into Stoke overnight. I think most would agree that we do need to be more direct though as last season we were happy to just constantly pass backwards/sidewards.
Start playing direct, score 3 before half time so we are 3 nil up. Then change to tippy-tappy in the second half. Job done. We are reverting to seven subs on the bench, so should be adaptable enough to cover both styles.
You're right. Lets keep tippy-tapping it around the back four all season. Brilliant idea. Give the manager a chance ffs!
In all fairness, we only have Proschwitz to aim for should we play direct. We have a team of smurfs and a long ball would just result in us losing the ball just like if we ever tried to punt it up last Season.
Win the game Footy is what I want to see and will be happy for our goalie to score from a kick out or goal kick the full length of the pitch bouncing once and going over there goalies head. . Ben Amos to be top goalscorer with 30+ coming up.
Did you actually read my post? Have you read the HDM article? My reading of the article is that Steve Bruce would prefer to be playing tippy tapping football, but the team are not scoring and so he has to consider using a more direct approach. HE SEEMS TO BE FRUSTRATED AT HAVING TO PLAY "DIRECT FOOTBALL" and so am I. Where do I complain about Steve Bruce, no where! For ****s Sake!
When we went up we were very direct and we only had Campbell and Windass up front. Being direct doesn't mean that you can't play good football, Southampton played some decent stuff and so did Norwich when they went up.
I couldn't give a toss of our the style of play as long as we won. Since the emergence of Spain and Barca's tippy tappy style everyones become football snobs. I'm sure you wouldn't care if we did something similar to Stoke.
This - there is a difference between being 'more direct' and total route one John Beck style. And Bruce is right - we totally, unquesitonabley need to be more direct. Possession and sideways passes mean nothing if you dont score. Simple as. Luis Enrique was sacked by Roma at the end of last season after fans fury at dominating possession in every game yet having one of their worst seasons in recent memory. Goals win matches, not possession stats.
It's not as though playing direct will magically bring us hat fulls of goals. We'l need to be adaptable to who were up against and how the game is shaping up. I think this is the way SB will see it.
After reading the article it appears obvious that the headline is based around literally a few sentences of quotes Bruce said immediately after the match, rather than a major change of footballing philosophy. Whoever wrote it just picked up on the bits that he could make into a story. There's nothing definitive in it or a sentence saying we're going to play direct all season and nothing else. I'm pleased he's picked up on our major frailty of the last couple of seasons and is trying to think of positive ways of addressing it. We could solely play the tippy tappy style we played last season and ultimately get the same result. At the end of the day I think we'd all like to see more goals and ultimately win more games, no? I'm sure a large percentage of the football we'll play will be pretty decent stuff, playing a bit more direct from time to time just gives you more options.
In this league especially you really do need to mix and match. The teams did well last year all had really good targetmen. Soton-Lambert, Brum-King, Reading-Roberts, West Ham-Cole.
Yes, I read "We might need to be a little bit more direct". Which of-course means we're going to sign a boat load of 6'10'' donkeys and smash it up the field for 90 minutes all season. Doh - My bad! I was obviously hallucinating towards the end of last season when I read numerous posts saying exactly the same thing! We haven't even kicked a competitive ball under Bruce yet and some people are just dying to find something to moan about.
Hoof ball and direct football are often two very different things. Just because Bruce doesn't expect 350 passes before scoring doesn't mean that we're wacking it to Proschwitz all the time.
It has already been said by a few but being more 'direct' does not mean we will be playing long ball! It will probably mean hitting the forwards earlier to hold the ball up and get other players involved quicker instead of just keeping possession. We do need to be more direct. In our promotion season we mixed it up and look what happened!
Hoof ball or tippy tappy, I couldn't give a toss providing we win, some of you need to give your heads a shake
