Yep, he coached all the creativity and freedom out of them. And the ones he couldn’t do that to got moved on. What a huge loss in Alcaraz!
Yet despite that, we will do amazingly well to beat the 100+ goals we scored two seasons ago. People are forgetting how dominant we were at SMS then and battering teams constantly. I'm not defending him for our shambles of performances in the PL though but we were a lot better than people remember last time in the Championship. I do think that we won't concede as many silly self inflicted goals this season but we have a way to go on the attacking front I feel.
I'd be interested to see data on how our creativity, stats and style of play changed as the promotion season went on. Did we get more entrenched into holding possession at all costs as the players learned his ways? I feel that the unbeaten run and the play off run covered up the fact we seemed to be tailing off as the season went on.
I guess the only stats that matter are goals, wins, points and promotion, we achieved the season's objective.
If you look at how the teams that went up the following season are doing, maybe even that was a mistake!
Just imagine if we’d have had Charles, Fernandes, Alcaraz as our midfield 3 with Delap as no.9.. Still probably would’ve gone down with Russ as manager though
Plus Blackburn, Walsall, Sheff Weds, Huddersfield, Watford, Sunderland, Preston. Anyway the point is we scored a lot of goals for a team that supposedly never created much.
Well, my point was we always trashed Swansea. These other teams were not anywhere near as consistent.
My point is we scored an average of 2.44 goals per game at SMS that season, I think we would all accept that kind of entertainment right now.
Agree we scored a lot of goals but that's not the same as battering teams which is what I was disagreeing with. Huddersfield we only took the lead late on, Watford we won by the odd goal I think? My main memories of battering teams at home from that season were Swansea, Blackburn and Wednesday. Excellent against Cardiff and Brum too without as big a win. All those came in a period of about 2-3 months.
Yeah, my main point is about scoring goals at SMS especially, we were creating lots back then in open play. Watford was 3-0 in the cup. Excellent against Leeds too which kick-started the unbeaten run
