While our supposed lack of a striker has been the widely quoted scapegoat for our shortcomings this year, I feel this distracts from some of the tactical issues that have restricted goal scoring opportunites for our current strikers - who are not as bad as most would have you believe.
For results-wise a clear and painfully obvious dichotomy has developed throughout the season: we have struggled when dominating the ball with 60/70% possession against so called lesser teams, but excel when we need to dominate space, conceding ball possession if required.
While the pros and cons of different approaches to football can be debated endlessly, there is no doubt that Jose is an all-time genius/master of the defensive/reactive style of football.
With this in mind any attempt to dilute the philosophy should be avoided as we will end up jack of all but master of none, and there have been signs this season he has been trying to incorporate the kind of tippy tappy crap against the Palaces and West Broms of the world, that won our North London neighbours jack 5h1t over the last 8/9 years.
When playing against lesser teams we need to be a bit braver, more direct, and more intuitive in the final third - take more risk rather than aimlessly pass the ball across the opposing defensive wall which achieves nothing but increase the possession stats and long range shots. One of the most frustrating things about the way these matches tend to pan out for us currently, is seeing Wllian bring everything to a complete standstill when he tries to think too much about the next pass - ffs just attack the defender! Or when we pass the ball in tidy little triangles between Brana, Willian and Oscar down the right (for example) to end up creating zero openings, just a rotation of players around the triangle - what's the point?
As the adage goes its not having the ball that counts, but what you do with it, and for that I will be hoping we can forego that tippy tappy nonsense for some more direct and fast-paced football against the lesser teams. We have better players generally (on paper at least), so if each player can go into these games with the simple intention of just beating his opposite number, we should see the 5-10 point improvement in league form that should secure next season's title.
For results-wise a clear and painfully obvious dichotomy has developed throughout the season: we have struggled when dominating the ball with 60/70% possession against so called lesser teams, but excel when we need to dominate space, conceding ball possession if required.
While the pros and cons of different approaches to football can be debated endlessly, there is no doubt that Jose is an all-time genius/master of the defensive/reactive style of football.
With this in mind any attempt to dilute the philosophy should be avoided as we will end up jack of all but master of none, and there have been signs this season he has been trying to incorporate the kind of tippy tappy crap against the Palaces and West Broms of the world, that won our North London neighbours jack 5h1t over the last 8/9 years.
When playing against lesser teams we need to be a bit braver, more direct, and more intuitive in the final third - take more risk rather than aimlessly pass the ball across the opposing defensive wall which achieves nothing but increase the possession stats and long range shots. One of the most frustrating things about the way these matches tend to pan out for us currently, is seeing Wllian bring everything to a complete standstill when he tries to think too much about the next pass - ffs just attack the defender! Or when we pass the ball in tidy little triangles between Brana, Willian and Oscar down the right (for example) to end up creating zero openings, just a rotation of players around the triangle - what's the point?
As the adage goes its not having the ball that counts, but what you do with it, and for that I will be hoping we can forego that tippy tappy nonsense for some more direct and fast-paced football against the lesser teams. We have better players generally (on paper at least), so if each player can go into these games with the simple intention of just beating his opposite number, we should see the 5-10 point improvement in league form that should secure next season's title.
