It’s a trend with possession based sides. Was a good stat about possession teams and how they aren’t performing at a sustainable level to achieve results.Coyle is the closest thing we have to any type of hardman in the squad. We have the lowest tackles attempted and one of the lowest tackle success rates in the Championship. Go figure.
We have a lot of players who are comfortable in possession. No physicality or aggression outside the back line.
And before anyone says 'but but Rosenior doesn't need tacklers in midfield because he's playing with technical players who are good on the ball and we're a possession team anyway'. Well, then Rosenior's wrong I'm afriad. Nearly every successful possession-based team has physicality in the spine. Man City, Arsenal, Spurs under Postecoglou, Ipswich have Morsy and Luongo as their holding mids and they're 2nd in the league. Our midfielders may be better 'technically' as individuals than Ipswich's midfielders but they piss all over ours as a collective.
We struggled scoring goals last season under Rosenior. We still struggle to score but now we also look worse defensively this season.
https://x.com/louorns/status/1721548511005536406?s=46