Quote Originally Posted by fatletiss View Post
Rabbit, I'm honestly not being rude, but this last post of yours is just the sort if thing I was talking about earlier. Davis/JWP/Nobby Stiles/whoever .... You seem to view things through a negative lense. Of course these type of players are not as fast flowing in attack as someone like NayRod or Gaston bursting through the middle at pace, but they are so important to the overall combination of a team. Football is not about 90 minutes of perfection, if it was I could counter your argument by sayi g that anyone who passes to JWP or David while we are on a counter attack is at fault as they should only pass to someone they know is fast and direct.... But that's stupid so I wouldn't say it!
You really must start to look at overall play and contribution. Sometimes that little hold up of the ball and five yard pass is key. It keeps the opposition working. It keeps us in possession. We can't expect 100 mile an hour direct football ... Unless you live near Upton park or the Britannia Stadium.
Believe me, I get frustrated when we don't go passed a full back and I think we should do it more often, but there is still a value in what they are doing. If the always keep trying to beat the opposition or get a ball in the box quickly, we'd give the ball away on a higher number of occasions, our game plan would go to lot and we'd be under a lot more pressure.
Of course mate you can't play high tempo for 90 minutes but jwp and davis don't seem to be able to play high tempo as well as the other lads. You need to vary the attacking approach but so far this season we have been so mechanical and poor creatively playing at a low tempo for virtually the entire game.
Ramirez would be able to keep possession better than anyone in the team but he likes to attack teams and loses the ball a lot, too much really, which isn't purely his fault as so often he doesn't have options. Our whole team keeps possession well and it isn't really a problem it's what we do in the final 3rd that is imo.
And we are the most direct team in the comp so far, "no other team in these first two weeks of the Premier League has played more long balls than Southampton against Sunderland, apart from, Southampton themselves, against West Brom in their opening fixture; in that game, they attempted 83 long passes"
http://www.eplindex.com/37849/marcel...o-tactics.html