I think one of the most disappointing aspects of our first two games has been the inability of very well-paid players to string three or more passes together without losing the ball or just hoofing it hopefully forward. I'm not advocating playing the 'Swansealona' style of sideways-backwards-triangles but a passing and movement style that actually is productive. Nothing raises my blood pressure more than seeing promising positions ruined by playing passes either directly to or behind an advancing player, totally losing momentum. Equally, Adel often takes the pace out of an attack by repeatedly stepping over the ball with similar results. In the early 60's Bill Nicholson introduced the 'push and run' style that brought Spurs greatest team massive success, 50 years later that embryonic version of the game appears beyond players paid beyond the wildest dreams of Blanchflower & Co. We really need to work on the most basic aspects of our game to make the progress we crave...
Good post, i know what you are saying about Adel but he is the one of only a few who can pick that pass out! the game has been made over complicated by years of inadequate coaching. Movement seems to be an after thought instead of natural. Technical ability replaced by pace or power! Its a typical English mentality which we are only just beginning to address with 5 v 5 in kids junior football. An example of this came yesterday when onohua had acres of space and time but decided to pass it back to green to hoof! Why the hell can't he pass it to feet or even hoof it himself!!
Go back four years to the best of Jim Magilton's time here and that was the style of play I'd love to see us producing. That was a team that was playing with a freedom of expression that was some of the best football I'd seen from a Rangers side for many years, yet we now have supposedly better players playing like carthorses...
All true and we certainly have players that are sufficiently gifted with technique to play a possession game. Yesterday most of the time we say a defence struggling under pressure and Cisse being continually caught offside, what was going on elsewhere was far from clear. The players aren't to blame for there being no system and no shape, most of the time when they receive the ball there's no one moving off the ball which is why they end up either booting it up front or passing it back to Green. The buck stops at Hughes' door.
