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Are we a team of contradictions?

RuskyM

Well-Known Member
Jul 9, 2011
6,921
22,732
We're all arguing about what our best team is and patting our squad depth on the back, but I'm wondering. What exactly...is this team?

I mean, we seem to want to go to play tika-taka possession football...but we're encouraging our wingers to cut inside and completely congest the pitch, completely missing the point of tika-taka. So then maybe we want to play with inverted wingers...but that means a) our full backs have to keep building our momentum as well as defending, leaving possibly the most difficult task to two early 20y/o's & b) our £26m striker is feeding on scraps, due to not being agile enough. This also means we can't use Eriksen to his best capacity.

The problems don't stop just at attacking. Do we want to play a two man midfield or three? Two? Well are we dropping a defensive midfielder? If so, we get easily exposed. So a box-to-box player, the likes of Paulinho & Dembele? Well they've had great seasons so far, plus they're capable of helping in both boxes. Alright, so we're not playing a creative midfielder in Holtby or Sigurdsson here. But then we lack all imagination and that killer ball.

So you play them all and go 4-3-3. Well that means you're either restricting or completely dropping Eriksen & Sigurdsson. Or you could play both of those, except, again, no width, plus signing Lamela'd be a waste & we'd drop our best winger so far. We could rely on a fast counter-attacking side, but Soldado isn't a fast attacking player, he's a patient player. But he's having to be very bloody patient because he's not getting any service, you'd think the passing from the CAM would set him up but no, our wingers keep getting the ball, cutting inside and taking potshots, or choreographing the most obvious cutting insides that could only be more easy to defend if they shouted "I AM CUTTING INSIDE NOW DO YOU SEE WATCH ME AS I MOVE IN".

Don't get me wrong, it's better that we have these players than don't, but it currently seems like we're trying to build a side out of sticklebrix. We can't figure out one philosophy and formation, so we're going for the best of all of them, but that means our side resembles something Frankenstein-esque. I don't want to make quick judgements on these players or our scouts, but it seems we used the money to buy the best player we could in their position rather than actually thinking it through.

What's important is that Sunday exposed these problems. It's brought it clearly to light. Either we have to have a system and pick the best players for it, possibly dropping a few, or we try and jigger it around to create the best team. Either way, we're going to have to change something, this side has no coherency at all.
 

TheChosenOne

A dislike or neg rep = fat fingers
Dec 13, 2005
47,874
49,706
Let our defenders do what all the good teams defenders do ...

Chop them down before they get into danger areas. 2nd and 3rd goals would have been prevented.
 

Flashspur

Well-Known Member
Jul 28, 2012
6,882
9,068
are we a team of contradictions........?

JC-RhetoricalQ.jpg
 

E17yid

Well-Known Member
Jan 21, 2013
16,985
30,495
I don't think, in principle, that 4-3-3 and 4-2-3-1 are that different.

1 box to box - Pauline, Mousa
1 Beast - Sandra, Kapow
1 Creative - Eriksen, Ze German

I'd like to compramise and have 1 traditional winger and 1 inverted.

LWF/LMF - Townsend, Gyfi
RWF?LMF - Lamela, Azza,

Chadli can operate as a traditional right winger or as a inverted left winger. At the moment I'd like to see Andros on the left and Lamela on the right. This can all change because most of our MF are very versatile and interchangable

The beauty about our squad is that if everyone is fit and fighting for their place then we shouldn't have a "best" starting 11, players should be picked on form and how well they are training
 

RuskyM

Well-Known Member
Jul 9, 2011
6,921
22,732
maybe we can be what ever we want to be. Its called versatility.


You need a structure to build versatility on first though. You don't start decorating a house as soon as you've laid the floorboards. I know we've got this lovely idea of free-flowing expressive football but you need to building from and towards something.
 

balalasaurus

big black member
Dec 29, 2012
2,065
3,101
Who said we needed to be a team with a specific set of play? In this modern game where each opposing team offers a different challenge adaptability and versatility are key to our success. In the game vs. the spammers our players just didn't turn up but there's no doubt in my mind that had they done so the scoreline would have been reversed and then some. Just look at the game against the scum for example. Where they usually play possession based football, our attempts to stifle that play forced them into playing on the counter. That change in playing style worked for them and the end result reflected that even though we dominated them in nearly every aspect of the game. Sticking to your style makes you predictable which is why Andre brought in the players he did. In the event that we need to change our style our players should be more than capable of doing so.


That is if they decide to turn up :cautious:
 

DiscoD1882

SC Supporter
Mar 27, 2006
6,934
14,669
You need a structure to build versatility on first though. You don't start decorating a house as soon as you've laid the floorboards. I know we've got this lovely idea of free-flowing expressive football but you need to building from and towards something.
surely we have been playing one formation? And we have the ability "in future" to move t other formations to suit our needs? Am I missing something?
 
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