I understand the principle of setting up teams to be resilient and fortress like in their defending, and to stretch out the opponents to set them up for a fast counter.
This relies on defenders and midfielders retaining the ball and playing passes to our forwards, or into space they can exploit. I have no memory of witnessing any of that control or ability from our midfield on Wednesday. As per The Spur Est's post above, possession doesn't mean everything - but there is one immutable fact - and that is, the opposition can't score if we keep the ball. It becomes much harder for them to score if we actually start passing to people in the same strip as us (that strip on Wednesday is the work of the Devil - it should be burned, buried and never spoken of again) - as opposed to firing the ball straight back at the opposition, maybe everyone in our support section should wave a flag that say's - "Go on, have another go" every time we do it.
Airfix in another post on here (TFC, not necessarily this thread) rebutted Moany Joany I think, by quoting stats about our points against the top 2 last season and decimating 10 man Woolwich at WHL - and whilst I get where he's coming from, that point is broken by the amount of matches we played where we looked like the last game.
I like the (good) results, but hate the method by which we achieve them - we really are starting to look like Stoke, and not even good stoke - I mean relegation Stoke. Yep don't tell me our league position, we are still top 4, but I suspect that it won't be for long. We've been royally found out, and now we are starting to make teams like Manure look like WC70 Brazil, by playing in this hideous "Tortoise mode" and hoping that Lloris got laid before the game.
I love the way people on here are slagging Dier off, as if he is entirely to blame, that guy was being bombarded for 90 minutes by a fast flowing attack that came straight down our throats and he was like a lone sentry for most of the game, is it any real surprise that he didn't deal with every assault with text book precision? He's not prime Bobby Moore or Beckenbauer, but he's not Anthony Gardner or Calum Davenport either, until we stop using him as a flack jacket to protect the goal, and stick a midfield in front of him that can retain and recycle the ball, the poor bastard is going to crack at some point against a constant, unchecked flow of high speed attacks.
We need to change this game plan IMV, we don't have the midfield to make it work, and if we don't supply Kane and Son with good opportunities, then they might as well get a couple of deckchairs and sit and watch the decimation from a point of comfort.