The Style v Substance discussion

[El flaco]

Footballs dull enough at at the moment with zero atmosphere never mind the ugly tactics. The problem with playing the way we do (in most cases - Utd we were so on it) is that if we don’t get the result it’s been an awful watch. We’ve been great getting our noses in front, defending well and getting a killer on the break. If we don’t get in front we’re probably fucked.

 

[halothagod]

Many times this season?

Bullshit

Alright then.

v Soton
v Newcastle
v Maccabi Haifa
v Utd
v W Ham
v Lask
v City
v Ludogrets

Are those many games or are they not?

 

[halothagod]

I preferred the high pressing game we played at Wembley when the young team had the legs.
Give JM a season to see if his tactics win us something. I don’t remember the Chelsea counter attack team with Drogba as the finisher giving away possession so easily like we have done recently, some fine tuning to do no doubt.

Agreed. We are in a rebuild and I think the fact we are up there is a credit to the management team. Wherever we end up, we are better than we were and we will be even better and more experienced next season. Winning a trophy would do wonders to that end.

 

[halothagod]

What are you on about? Your post says we can't have it both ways.

You are saying this: "don't you want points? If so, shut up and stop complaining about the way we play".

I just responded saying "these teams play differently and are doing as well or better than us".

So yes, we can play better ball and still be competitive.

Man U for all of their shithousery and pathetic displays and distinction are sitting ahead of us at the moment. This has nothing to do with their big win at the weekend. This goes by what I have seen all year. They don't sit in a shell all game.

Either way, my point remains. Our squad is more than capable of playing a more entertaining game and a game that gets us results.

But we don’t sit in a shell all game either! I am not saying you should shut up cos frankly you can scream yourself silly, won’t do me no harm whatsoever.

All I am calling for is cool heads and asking people to be a bit objective. When people are saying we never play good footy or we always park the bus I find it embarrassing and quite frankly an insult to the work the lads have put in having us top of the league for weeks.

People can have a moan but don’t rewrite history like the journos and oppo fans do.

 

[BernardMatthews]

No. I mentioned Brighton because they do play fine footy but win fuck all, like Spurs. Sure, we can play expansive footy and win pots - but we don’t have the players. Simple.

Yeah and we don’t have the players to really make the counter work either.

Nullify Kane and son. Job done.

 

[Radical Rei]

If we were bagging a trophy every season we could have the privilege of picking style, we don't have that privilege

 

[Gmspurs]

To be honest, we have done so in the last 3 games because it was what we could do. I fear the players we have in the back are not 100% the quality we need. If you want to play expansive footy then you need defenders who don’t kick it out to row Z and can pick a pass 8 out of 10. Eric Dier loses the ball every single game, literally. Toby is better but he has struggled in the last 3 games. Then you have Aurier - enough said. Our defenders have been making schoolboy mistakes since last season and we seemed to improve for a while, until now.

We have defenders who need to be baby sat to do the basics of defending, never mind spraying passes about and picking out midfielders, attackers. Our midfielders are overwhelmed trying to help out the back four that they don’t do enough attacking. Our attackers are requested to drop to cover the gaps the midfielders have left and that leaves us looking like we have looked the last 3 games.

The issue we have is in our defense. Improve that and our midfield improves as all our midfielders won’t be required to be quasi defenders all game.

But it's the same players?

12 points from Man U, Man City, Woolwich and Chelsea.

1 point from Palace, Liverpool and Leicester.

WTF???

 

[Smogz]

But how do Southhampton make it work? Do they have a better squad than us?

Better Coach

 

[Don Giovanni]

Few months back someone here wrote about Mourinho having a PR team of 10+ people and being very concerned how the public and media always perceive him, it wouldn't surprise me if this halothagod cunt is Jose bot

 

[halothagod]

We should really exclude the EL games as the opposition is sub-par at this stage. Even Rangers qualified!

On the rest....

I agree we were excellent against Utd, Newcastle and City.

We certainly weren’t against West Ham, watch the game again

We’ve also been poor against Everton, Burnley, WBA, Brighton, Palace and Leicester. Our league form has been at best patchy.

What is quite frustrating is that you are illustrating in your post above that it is possible to play well and with a balance between defence and attack. The reason many of us are frustrated is that those occasions have been too infrequent thus far this season.

That’s because we are dealing with fitness issues and players not being as consistent as we’d like. What we are looking for will come. I have seen enough signs to make me believe.

My problem, and I apologize again to anyone that feels hard done by my remarks, is that I feel fans are buying the rhetoric Utd fans and Chelsea fans are putting out there about the manager. Maybe some of the low block stuff isn’t the best and could be better, but we aren’t all the way bad as people are making it seem. You’d think we have been scraping 1-0 all season!

 

[halothagod]

But it's the same players?

12 points from Man U, Man City, Woolwich and Chelsea.

1 point from Palace, Liverpool and Leicester.

WTF???

Yes, the same players. Inconsistent. I’ve said it.

Aurier vs Liverpool compared to Aurier vs Leicester for example.

 

[halothagod]

Few months back someone here wrote about Mourinho having a PR team of 10+ people and being very concerned how the public and media always perceive him, it wouldn't surprise me if this halothagod cunt is Jose bot

Christ on a bike! Calling me a cunt is not on first of all. Second, what have I said to you to warrant your abuse?

 

[Andersen]

Not at all writing Mourinho off, but i sometimes question his thinking. And no doubt his thinking affects the players. And some liverpool fan down the pub on saturday asked me; Do you agree with Mourinho?
What about Mourinho? Well according to him we were the best team at the Liverpool match.
As much i wanted to say yes. My answer was You always agree with the boss. I bet alot of our players feel that same way.

 

[halothagod]

Make

I couldn’t give 2 fucks about what fans of any other club think.

It’s just incredibly frustrating to have seen these results coming during the victories over Burnley and WBA and not address the issues.

Let’s hope Jose can learn from what’s happened this week and come back stronger.

OK. You are exaggerating mate. This is all I have been pointing out and asking people to be calm.

You just said issues at WBA weren’t addressed. We literally went and won our next game against City 2-0. So what are you saying?

 

[halothagod]

Lads, I am getting insulted for preaching calm and pointing out people’s exaggerations. I never said we are Brazil 70. But for some people to dismiss all the games the lads and coaches won with huge score lines, playing some slick stuff, saying we only park the bus is not cool. That’s all.

 

[halothagod]

So you won’t criticise a manager when he gets stuff wrong? Understand.......

I never said that. I have my own vitriol for our last 3 results but it’s nowhere like many on here. Does that mean either of us is wrong? Yes. Ye.

 

[Maureen]

We were top fir a few weeks I think by a point or GD when it was so tight points wise. As seen since we were top going into pool game we are now 5th and could 7/8 after Chelsea and city and villa play their game in hand. Ffs some people think just cause we were too after 10-12 games that we’d win the league and JM I cannot be criticised. Throughout a season you get many teams who can go top. Everton were top for quite a few games as well. It really doesn’t mean anything at this stage it’s not a badge of honour. Add in the fact that when we’re top we didn’t really play with an attitude of being top.

 

[halothagod]

How much did Palace get Eze for? Why aren’t we looking at such players? Ndombadboy is a beast, but we need another player that can support him or play in his absence. Without Tanguy or Gio we are simply shit in possession. Doesn’t matter who the manager is.

 

[spursmalc]

I want to see us win. That requires us scoring goals which generally requires style. I do not like us to be under so much pressure that we look like conceding all the time. I did not like the pass, pass, pass football we saw under Poch sometimes with no end product. I enjoyed the 3 goal lead we had V spammers but I think conceding those 3 goals when we should have won hurt more than losing to Liverpool.
I do not have a problem with less possession as long as we actually look like scoring. I was happy with the recent approach against the top 6 clubs recently which brought results. I will not be happy if we play mostly in our half at Home to say Fulham.
To win matches you need sufficient scoring opportunities every match and if you achieve that with less than 50% possession I am ok with that if like against Woolwich we do not look like conceding.
On Sunday we lost because we did not score rather than conceded 2 bad goals. 0-0 would have been a poor result. 0-0 away to Liverpool would have been a great result.
To sum up different criteria for different fixtures and some style to get goals but 3 points more important that open attacking football.

 

[Coops40]

Does it really have to be either/ or?