Playing 4-4-2 has made a marked change in our playing style. Whilst not quite hoofball, we certainly played much more direct yesterday with long balls over the top. I suppose we can expect more to take advantage of Jelavic flick-ons and Long's pace.
Horses for courses.....against Spurs who press high up the pitch and work very hard, it was tough to pass through them and keep possession, hence the need to play a more direct style, whereas against a team like Palace who stick all 11 players in their box we tried to pass through them as long ball is not the better option
I disagree, I just think it adds to our weaponry and means we can break quickly as we've got quick players up front. Our attacking intent with the pace Graham offered was at best pedestrian. If defenders don't like anything,, it's a foot race with a quick forward running at them. I thought yesterday was a perfect blend of mixing it up, no bias, but I genuinely felt we carried more attacking threat.
It's not like we're lumping big balls up the middle to a target man. We just pass down the channels for Long. It's good football.
We're still mainly a passing team I would think. A number of times under pressure yesterday we passed it out of trouble.
Yesterday was very route one. It paid off once though and nearly a couple other times. Don't mind mixing it up now and then but I'd hate playing that way every game.
I think you will find we will vary it more, with the 2 strikers now, we can go long and short through the midfield, it just gives us another option.
Long's pace caused them massive problems yesterday so it made sense to try and exploit that once we found a weakness. Hudd really wasn't on top of his game yesterday and without him being so it made the midfield battle heavily weighted to Spurs so another reason to not play through the middle too much. It wasn't just lump it forward because we had no other idea, it was a good tactic we used very well.
The goal came from a goal kick. Like most teams, we always hit goal kicks up the pitch. It wasn't a tactical choice to do anything different to what we've done previously. We played a few balls in behind for Long to chase, which worked well apart from the fact that the lino in the second half just kept giving free kicks against Long every time he got on the end of one of them. We didn't hoof it up the middle. It wasn't route one at all.
Spot on. When teams like spurs and Southampton press high up the pitch the best way of putting them under pressure is to put it over the top and get them facing their own goal
I thought we played a varied game, in the last twenty minutes, who knows what formation we had. We have a very adaptable squad now. Lets hope Aluko is ready. Steve Bruce will have a headache trying it figure out who he should start with.
The whole tag of **** football does my head in. I guarantee you'd rather win 1-0 playing direct football than losing 1-0 after passing it about all game. As far as i'm concerned, winning football is entertaining football. That doesn't mean to say if I had the choice to watch Palace vs West Ham or Swansea vs Arsenal i'd chose the former. I still want to be entertained with free flowing football as a neutral. As long as my team win, I don't care how we play.
I think that's how the Stoke fans felt but then after years of Pulis's style of play they couldn't stand it anymore.
I don't agree. If we played like West Ham I'd hate it. I don't mind a long ball but the way they play is ridiculous. It's all free kicks hammered into the area from inside their own half. Balls smashed up the middle of the pitch and Nolan just claiming all the 2nd balls.
Would you rather lose games though? I know you can obviously do both, but If someone said, play like West Ham and win or play like Swansea and lose i'd choose the former. I bet the Hammers are happier than the Swans today.
