Where is the style we're building towards?

JJpool

JJpool

Well-known member
Look at Peterborough, how they can play.

NC has struggled to build a side capable of effective passing, when he first came here and also this season too.

We could do it in a way and dominate, but with very little cutting edge, then after a number of games doing that and failing, we largely abandon it to go long more often.

For me sticking with that sort of style, when done right, you get better at it and then with better players like Dembele, Joseph etc, you get more of that cutting edge.

Look at 2 teams that went up and are doing well, Plymouth and Ipswich, but play a good passing style, good on the ball, effective passing.

We need to be building that sort of football style. Even if we did manage to go up somehow, I can't see us staying there with the brand of non football that comes out a lot of the time.

We've had plenty of time now and even if not quite happening, if we had the philosophy that we can see coming together, I think people would feel a lot better. You could then say we're generally playing good football, you can see what we're trying to do, but we've got a few weak links. Another window and we'll likely have solved that and improved again after playing that way for a while now.

I'm not feeling that at all. Is anyone feeling that?
 
JJpool said:
Look at Peterborough, how they can play.

NC has struggled to build a side capable of effective passing, when he first came here and also this season too.

We could do it in a way and dominate, but with very little cutting edge, then after a number of games doing that and failing, we largely abandon it to go long more often.

For me sticking with that sort of style, when done right, you get better at it and then with better players like Dembele, Joseph etc, you get more of that cutting edge.

Look at 2 teams that went up and are doing well, Plymouth and Ipswich, but play a good passing style, good on the ball, effective passing.

We need to be building that sort of football style. Even if we did manage to go up somehow, I can't see us staying there with the brand of non football that comes out a lot of the time.

We've had plenty of time now and even if not quite happening, if we had the philosophy that we can see coming together, I think people would feel a lot better. You could then say we're generally playing good football, you can see what we're trying to do, but we've got a few weak links. Another window and we'll likely have solved that and improved again after playing that way for a while now.

I'm not feeling that at all. Is anyone feeling that?
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Agreed as we have given up playing football. This is as far removed from Liverpool as is feasible. Try to build a style and fail until it clicks. Mick McCarthy would have got pelters for last nights showing. Quite rightly as well.
 
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Im a big believer that plan b should be getting better at plan a. Like you though I'm just not seeing what plan a actually is. It seems to be a mish mash of all the bad bits of other styles to me. We pass it round but our tempo is far far too slow, we then lump it to our most technical players head who at 5foot 4 isn't winning any headers. We have a winger whose only footballing ability is pace but we don't play it in front of him instead to his feet which is his weakest attribute. We have a good old fashion defender who is poor on the ball so we put him in the middle of a 3 and ask him to play on the ball. We have a footballing CB meanwhile who doesn't even make the squad. We play a formation that none of the fanbase want or like and isn't even suited to our players.
It's really quite ridiculous.
 
Critchknows said:
Im a big believer that plan b should be getting better at plan a. Like you though I'm just not seeing what plan a actually is. It seems to be a mish mash of all the bad bits of other styles to me. We pass it round but our tempo is far far too slow, we then lump it to our most technical players head who at 5foot 4 isn't winning any headers. We have a winger whose only footballing ability is pace but we don't play it in front of him instead to his feet which is his weakest attribute. We have a good old fashion defender who is poor on the ball so we put him in the middle of a 3 and ask him to play on the ball. We have a footballing CB meanwhile who doesn't even make the squad. We play a formation that none of the fanbase want or like and isn't even suited to our players.
It's really quite ridiculous.
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I think this sums things up nicely and none of the things you've said is an unfair comment save for the that I'm sure the game plan is never to deliberately play it high towards Dembele, although this is often a consequence of the other elements forcing us to do it.

I'd add that we have a collection of central midfielders who in this system are neither one thing or another and often go missing once the opposition have understood how to force us to play long. Last night was another example of massive gaps in the middle and us consistently losing second balls or 50:50's. Same happened at Stevenage and by all accounts at lots of other away games. There's players who show flashes of quality in certain situations and then they're regularly out of those situations for long periods.

A lot of this comes down to recruiting and/or coaching. The 2 things have to be joined up and cohesive. You have to try to sign players that suit what you want to do, but by the same token, if you don't have the right players it's not clever to keep trying to make it work with square pegs in round holes.
 
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Critchknows said:
Im a big believer that plan b should be getting better at plan a. Like you though I'm just not seeing what plan a actually is. It seems to be a mish mash of all the bad bits of other styles to me. We pass it round but our tempo is far far too slow, we then lump it to our most technical players head who at 5foot 4 isn't winning any headers. We have a winger whose only footballing ability is pace but we don't play it in front of him instead to his feet which is his weakest attribute. We have a good old fashion defender who is poor on the ball so we put him in the middle of a 3 and ask him to play on the ball. We have a footballing CB meanwhile who doesn't even make the squad. We play a formation that none of the fanbase want or like and isn't even suited to our players.
It's really quite ridiculous.
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Want a job, pretty well describes out set up
 
Couldn’t agree more, I’d be more willing to cut Critch some slack if we had made strides toward a refined style of play.

But we’re clearly not, we’re about as good as we started the season.

He’s good at coaching pressing and individual player development, but everything else he is totally clueless.

We have no idea what to do when we have the ball and it shows. Players too scared to make a pass forward, no courage, too pragmatic.
 
Plymouth have been doing well for a while, under three different coaches, two got poached. It's likely the club is in a more stable condition generally than we are. Andy Bayes pointed out to SS last night that w've had 5 chanmges of head coach since he took over, 3 directors of football and two ceo's. in 4.5 years. Success isn't all down to the head coach. Peterborough have been doing what they are doing for a good while too, in a pretty settled way. Ipswich now have a lot more money behind them - but do seem to have found a very gifted head coach who is competing with Leeds and Southampton with a squad he took up from L1 and a few additions that weren't crazy expensive. They get 29k home crowds though, too.
 
AmericanTangerine said:
Couldn’t agree more, I’d be more willing to cut Critch some slack if we had made strides toward a refined style of play.

But we’re clearly not, we’re about as good as we started the season.

He’s good at coaching pressing and individual player development, but everything else he is totally clueless.

We have no idea what to do when we have the ball and it shows. Players too scared to make a pass forward, no courage, too pragmatic.
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There's no real evidence in any of his spells anywhere that he can setup a modern effective passing style. Passing at the back then launching isnt it that We can do bits and bobs of passing at times, certainly pressing, but so can any side, it's about a philosophy you can see.

It's disappointing that we aren't really yet seeing something come together. He's signed the vast majority of the players at the club.
 
If we want to play like Peterborough we need 10 new first team players.
He must know we can’t play like Peterborough, nowhere near good enough individually.
If his philosophy is the possession game and he’s here for the next 5 years then let the academy teams play that way and develop them in to first team players.
For now though, first team, please just play 4 at the back🙏
 
AmericanTangerine said:
Couldn’t agree more, I’d be more willing to cut Critch some slack if we had made strides toward a refined style of play.

But we’re clearly not, we’re about as good as we started the season.

He’s good at coaching pressing and individual player development, but everything else he is totally clueless.

We have no idea what to do when we have the ball and it shows. Players too scared to make a pass forward, no courage, too pragmatic.
Click to expand...
I don’t think we’re about as good as we were when the season started, I’d say we’ve actually gone backwards despite our league position! It’s as if everyone’s on the beach already😳
 
Where is the style we're building towards....

It's in the fence at Squires Gate, to enable the coaching team to retrieve all the wayward shots from the airport land.
 
We used to moan and ridicule them for passing it about at the back for 5 minutes at a time but now we are not capable of doing this! Oh how I wish we could go back to those glory days.
 
Blimey ! a measured, informative discussion challenging our approach in a reasoned way without the hysterics we see all too often. My faith is restored
 
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