Ormeau wrote:
CleanDon wrote:
Filth wrote:
Surely the club's analysts and the coaching staff are going to look back at these first three league games under Alexander and realise either a) this isn't working as it should and/or b) we don't have the right players to play this way.
It's like we've been relegated and everybody from top to bottom just thinks "well this is how League Two football is" and have tried to adapt to that. But when you see Crawley playing much tidier than us, it's proof we can still play a heavy possession style. And the best thing is, much of our squad know how to play that way.
Either the club needs to go all in with backing Alexander and bringing in several more recruits who can play this way before the end of the window, or Alexander needs to relax his style and adopt a way a playing that accommodates our player's strengths.
You’d like to think the question around style of play would be in his interview. But do you trust Winky, Crampton, Sweeting, Gibb, Cove and whoever else is on an interview to actually ask that?
GA keeps talking about being willing to mix things up to get wins. Hasn't shown any evidence of this but I'm sure he say in an interview and said "my teams score loads of goals and that means winning football".
Also he comes out with some utter bollocks. His claim about city going direct to Haaland 3o+ times in their match vrs Burnley was strange. Must have watched a very different game to me.
Manchester City played 64 long balls in the game with Burnley (the 4th highest of any PL club that weekend!), so I don't think he is talking bollocks. The ball is in play for an average of 55 minutes, and City had 65% of the possession, meaning they had possession for 36 minutes and still played 64 long balls.
City do sometimes play in a direct manner to Haaland, just not all the time. They also play a lot of shorter passes, and the variety is key. As Paisley would say, "it's not about the long ball or the short ball; it's about the right ball". The difference is Pep has the most talented squad in England and we don't; we don't even have any depth for L2, and we don't have the personnel to play longer passes as we don't have a link up man like Haaland. What makes Haaland so special is he not only comes deeper to receive, hold up, or flick on the ball, he is also able to make up the ground to then get into goalscoring positions inside the box.
All we need is someone like Aaron Wilbraham who did a brilliant job of holding play up and bringing others into play. Of course, when he was here, in L2, people in the Cowshed thought he was "shite", but he was a key part of that team and Ince used him to good effect.