The first time I thought I ever heard the phrase 'Parking the Bus' was when a Santini led Spurs side went to Chelsea in 2004. Mourinho used the phrase to describe what we thought was, at the time, an excellent defensive performance. It's taken some time for us to get to the point when we can bemoan the fact other teams are doing it to us. In fact, this is probably a good time to remind ourselves of the exact words from the moaning one...
He said: "As we say in Portugal, they brought the bus and they left the bus in front of the goal.
"I would have been frustrated if I had been a supporter who paid £50 to watch this game because Spurs came to defend.
"I'm really frustrated because there was only one team looking to win, they only came not to concede - it's not fair for the football we played."
Burnley have made an art of low possession football, absorbing wave after wave of attack and getting maybe 1 or 2 goals in a game and this tactic has got them up to 6th in the league. Other teams have taken heart and inspiration from it, from our experience Swansea, West Brom & Brighton in the last few weeks have played with the aim of 'not losing' with varying degrees of success. Let's be fair, Stoke came to ours to play reasonably openly, so did Liverpool. Swansea, West Brom & Brighton got better results.
The problem is if you play a team where they defend with disciplined shape, playing from deep, they limit their chances in the game significantly and they make it really hard to pass around, so that you play this frustrating game where you're trying to weave a pattern around the other team to make space and opportunities with limited space, with all runners and movement covered, with crosses being delayed so that centre backs can position themselves to defend to their optimum, meaning the amount of viable chances you're going to get is going to be low and as a home set of supporters you're going to get really frustrated watching your side constantly trying to pass their way through a wall.
In the case of the West Brom game, we made the fatal error of conceding an odd goal early, in the case of the Brighton game, we scored a lucky but deserved goal, but even that didn't open the game out. The bizzarre thing about the Brighton game was there was no great change in their ethos, they continued to play very deep in the hope that they would get a very rare counter and equalise that way, the lack of ambition from that side contributed to a not particularly entertaining game.
But it brings me back to the same thing, if you look at the game as a results business, this defensive game is something that teams aiming to survive thrive on. Brighton was probably the most unambitious team I've seen us play, but West Brom, West Ham under Moyes and Burnley have made a habit of strong defending, low possession and getting the odd goal. Is this a case that we don't have the guile to breakdown tough defences or that teams are just defending better and this new tactic is proving fruitful so more sides are doing it?
He said: "As we say in Portugal, they brought the bus and they left the bus in front of the goal.
"I would have been frustrated if I had been a supporter who paid £50 to watch this game because Spurs came to defend.
"I'm really frustrated because there was only one team looking to win, they only came not to concede - it's not fair for the football we played."
Burnley have made an art of low possession football, absorbing wave after wave of attack and getting maybe 1 or 2 goals in a game and this tactic has got them up to 6th in the league. Other teams have taken heart and inspiration from it, from our experience Swansea, West Brom & Brighton in the last few weeks have played with the aim of 'not losing' with varying degrees of success. Let's be fair, Stoke came to ours to play reasonably openly, so did Liverpool. Swansea, West Brom & Brighton got better results.
The problem is if you play a team where they defend with disciplined shape, playing from deep, they limit their chances in the game significantly and they make it really hard to pass around, so that you play this frustrating game where you're trying to weave a pattern around the other team to make space and opportunities with limited space, with all runners and movement covered, with crosses being delayed so that centre backs can position themselves to defend to their optimum, meaning the amount of viable chances you're going to get is going to be low and as a home set of supporters you're going to get really frustrated watching your side constantly trying to pass their way through a wall.
In the case of the West Brom game, we made the fatal error of conceding an odd goal early, in the case of the Brighton game, we scored a lucky but deserved goal, but even that didn't open the game out. The bizzarre thing about the Brighton game was there was no great change in their ethos, they continued to play very deep in the hope that they would get a very rare counter and equalise that way, the lack of ambition from that side contributed to a not particularly entertaining game.
But it brings me back to the same thing, if you look at the game as a results business, this defensive game is something that teams aiming to survive thrive on. Brighton was probably the most unambitious team I've seen us play, but West Brom, West Ham under Moyes and Burnley have made a habit of strong defending, low possession and getting the odd goal. Is this a case that we don't have the guile to breakdown tough defences or that teams are just defending better and this new tactic is proving fruitful so more sides are doing it?
ochlol:
