Back from the Watford game...

[Woodcote Royal]

At the time I was actually very surprised at how adventerous Watford were. Their 4-5-1 was actually a lot more like 4-3-3 in that first half hour or so and both Smith and McAnuff spent a lot more time attacking us than they did trying to stifle our wide men and midfield.

Fair play to them for coming and having a go.

When I say better side, I meant they played better football and looked like the side more likely to produce a scoring chance through their own endevour whereas we looked like a side who would work hard and try and force a mistake out of the opposition. I know it worked and we created the clearer early chances but I still think Watford had the more pressure and played the better football (by better football I don't just mean keeping possession and passing infront of our back four as I don't think that's what they did for the first half hour and more).

This is so typical of the short sited observations from some of our fans.

If Watford were still our there now we would still have a clean sheet. If they looked more likely to create a scoring chance how come Federci hardly had a save to make while we scored four times

Can't you tell the difference between ineffectual passing that creates very little over 90 minutes and the type of play that produces four goals, a blatent penalty that wasn't given plus numerous other chances?

What exactly is wrong with "waiting for the opposition to make a mistake"

Perhaps Steve Coppell should get on the phone to Brendan Rodgers and ask him were he feels we went wrong on Friday night and send Mick McCarthy his congratulations for Wolves still being in the FA Cup.

[Hoop Blah]

I don't think there is anything wrong with waiting for the opposition to make a mistake, and I'm pretty sure I didn't say there was. What makes a team, or a passage of play better, is the ability to create a chance as opposed to just take it when it's presented to us on a plate.

The better the opposition the less likely they are to make a mistake. We're in a very fortunate position that we seem to be taking a very high percentage of our chances and to me thats papering over the cracks that are in our general play.

Watford were showing more intent to be creative and work out a way of creating a chance, whilst we just worked the channels. It's great that it's worked so effectively, but taking the longer term view, you need to be able to do more than that to win games consistently against better sides. Personally I thought it was our inability to create chances that saw us relegated in the first place, as we relied a lot of just getting the ball forward to ineffective forwards who were well marshalled by better defenders than we face in this league.

You can always do better and always improve. I'm glad our manager feels this way unlike some of our shorter sighted fans on here who seem to think that it doesn't matter how you play as long as you win.

[Sun Tzu]

I understand your point Hoops but don;t think Friday's game could have led you to reach it ! Watford's style didn't lead to them creating a single real chance, it was all sideways passing, headless chicken stuff and they really didn't have a clue as to how they might score. Our goals didn't really come from them making mistakes (any more than in almost any goal you can point to things the defence could or should have done to stop the goal).

If the view is that Watford played 'better' football than us then there has to be something wrong with the league table - how on earth have we got so many points and scored more than any other team in the country with such a poor approach.

I do think you are absolutely correct to say that a similar approach be a lot less productive in the Premiership though ! Luckily we've played all the best teams in the division and seem to be winning and scoring against almost all of them.....

[Hoop Blah]

The more useful stat would be possession in the final third of the pitch. The way we play means that a high proportion of our possession is in the opposition final third. The way many visitors (including Watford) play means that they have very little.
4-5-1 will win the possession stats but it won't win many football matches.

Pardew managed to win lots of games with 4-5-1 in 2003 so it can be done. I have rarely seen a front player influence the strategy of the entire team in the way Forster did that season. The injury at Molineux in the play offs killed us.

Which says everything about what makes Coppell a far better manager than Pardew and why he still has a job and his friend does not.

I'm hoping that Doyle doesn't get injured and that point gets tested.

[Negative_Jeff]

The more useful stat would be possession in the final third of the pitch. The way we play means that a high proportion of our possession is in the opposition final third. The way many visitors (including Watford) play means that they have very little.
4-5-1 will win the possession stats but it won't win many football matches.

Pardew managed to win lots of games with 4-5-1 in 2003 so it can be done. I have rarely seen a front player influence the strategy of the entire team in the way Forster did that season. The injury at Molineux in the play offs killed us.

Which says everything about what makes Coppell a far better manager than Pardew and why he still has a job and his friend does not.

If by that you mean Coppell would have changed to 4-4-2 for the return leg and started with Cureton and Henderson up front I would agree. I still cannot fathom Pardew`s thinking that night.

As for O Kearns point regarding our next opponents I too thought Swansea one of the better teams at the Mad Stad this season, but the pass and move stuff didn`t quite come off. If it does on Saturday we might be in for a bit of a chasing.

[Hoop Blah]

I understand your point Hoops but don;t think Friday's game could have led you to reach it ! Watford's style didn't lead to them creating a single real chance, it was all sideways passing, headless chicken stuff and they really didn't have a clue as to how they might score. Our goals didn't really come from them making mistakes (any more than in almost any goal you can point to things the defence could or should have done to stop the goal).

If the view is that Watford played 'better' football than us then there has to be something wrong with the league table - how on earth have we got so many points and scored more than any other team in the country with such a poor approach.

I do think you are absolutely correct to say that a similar approach be a lot less productive in the Premiership though ! Luckily we've played all the best teams in the division and seem to be winning and scoring against almost all of them.....

I did say I thought they played the best football in the first half hour or so. They are obviously lacking something but they are just about the leagues top scorers (behind a certain team of course) so they must be able to do something right....and it's not defending!

A lot of credit must go to our defence for snuffing their threat out in that first half, but I don't think you could say they were clueless or just passing it around infront of our back 4 (or 8 ) ala Doncaster or Swansea who both played pretty but ineffective football.

The 4-0 was because they completely fell apart in the second half and they look like a side with no confidence in being able to get back into a game, let alone one against a side as good as ours.

[OLLIE KEARNS]

Not sure we're giving our boys enough credit here. Our mentality is to get the ball into the final third as quickly as possible. That can be a ball from front to back for the forwards to compete for but it is also the mentality of the wide players when ever they get the ball in the middle third of the pitch i.e we often enter the final third quickly but with controlled possession.
Kebe and Hunt will nearly always take the option of going forward and trying to create something. On the one hand that induces comment on this board that they are at times useless, on the other hand it is what creates the vast amount of the goals that we score. Opposition sides will get the ball wide and then pass it backwards or square 9 times out of 10. Good possession stats but little creativity.
So, it's not so much about inducing opposition mistakes as having the mentality to play in certain areas of the pitch. If you think about it all of our goals came this way on Friday
Goal 1 - Kebe carried the ball into the final third from which point we commited players forward at speed.
Goal 2 - Armstrong and Hunt go forward early and cross.
Goal 3 - Kebe and Rosey go forward early and cross.
Goal 4 - Early forward pass from Harper.

Pretty much all of our chances came this way also. It's very rare that we create anything on the back of a slow build up. And neither do the opposition

[Hoop Blah]

You're right, but it's basically just a percentage style of football of getting the ball forward and into the danger areas almost as quickly as we can, be that by working the channels through Doyle and Hunt or by the wide players being direct and looking to get the ball into the box.

We don't show a lot of guile about it most of the time, although that doesn't stop us producing some great passages of play at times.

It's necessarily a criticism, more a comment on the way we play an effective if not expansive and cultured style.

[papereyes]

I actually thought the main reason why we were so succesful in our first season was that we 'broke' the possession rule, imo. We didn't need as much possession to create chances whereas a large number of Premiership teams play a 4-5-1 or 4-4-1-1 and rely on attacking through building up chances or playing off a battering ram of a centre forward. Our 'quality' can be found in our wide players and in Doyle, so we use that. Our midfield exists to break up attacks and give the ball to the wide players before joining the attack with a late run.

Where it went wrong in the second season, imo, was losing both wide play (11 right wingers used, none really helped) and losing the box to box midfielder. We tried to play a more central game and didn't have the players to do it - even the transfers such as Fae and Marek suggested that was to be our game plan.

As a comparison, United have always used wingers/width (Sharpe, Giggs, Kanchelskis etc - even their right mid who was not a winger tended to hug the touchline or link well with his overlapping rightback) while their central midfield has been based on players like Keane and, now, Hargreaves and Carrick and, this season, Villa are punching above their weight (well, I don't think they have a Top 4 side/squad but they're getting some fantastic runs of results together) through use of pacey wingers (Young, Milner, Agbonlahor to some extent) to get crosses in to Agbonlahor/Carew and very good set piece play. Their midfield? Players such as Reo-Coker, Sidwell, Petrov and Barry - all are solid and tend to be defensively minded or box to box players.

[Woodcote Royal]

I don't think there is anything wrong with waiting for the opposition to make a mistake, and I'm pretty sure I didn't say there was. What makes a team, or a passage of play better, is the ability to create a chance as opposed to just take it when it's presented to us on a plate.

The better the opposition the less likely they are to make a mistake. We're in a very fortunate position that we seem to be taking a very high percentage of our chances and to me thats papering over the cracks that are in our general play.

Watford were showing more intent to be creative and work out a way of creating a chance, whilst we just worked the channels. It's great that it's worked so effectively, but taking the longer term view, you need to be able to do more than that to win games consistently against better sides. Personally I thought it was our inability to create chances that saw us relegated in the first place, as we relied a lot of just getting the ball forward to ineffective forwards who were well marshalled by better defenders than we face in this league.

You can always do better and always improve. I'm glad our manager feels this way unlike some of our shorter sighted fans on here who seem to think that it doesn't matter how you play as long as you win.

And I didn't say it was wrong to try to improve wherever impossible but it's still laughable to suggest that Watford played the better football having created so little in the game that Federici had next to nothing to do whilst they conceded 4 goals.

It's also laughable to suggest that we, as the top goalscorers throughout England and Scotland, are some how fortunate to be taking so many of our chances......................do you really think this happens by accident?

Whilst Watford created very little, surely goals like Lita's were created by a defence splitting pass from Harper.

Watford, like so many other teams we've played this season, fell apart in the 2nd half for all the reasons Ollie Kearns illustrated perfectly.

They start with a 4-5-1 (giving them an extra man in the centre, making it easier to find a spare player to pass to) and get over run when forced to revert to 4-4-2 in the 2nd half having gone at least a goal behind.

Even Wolves and Brum couldn't live with us playing 4-4-2

I don't think we disagree a great deal on the mistakes that led to our needless relegation but Steve Coppell has clearly learned from those errors.

This was exactly the kind of performance that would give us a real chance in the top flight.

Let the opposition huff and puff (passing harmlessly amongst themselves, if they wish) in areas that don't hurt us and convert your own chances with ruthless efficiency when they present themselves..................... many games in the top flight take this course with one or two examples of sheer class winning the day.

[OLLIE KEARNS]

You're right, but it's basically just a percentage style of football of getting the ball forward and into the danger areas almost as quickly as we can, be that by working the channels through Doyle and Hunt or by the wide players being direct and looking to get the ball into the box.

We don't show a lot of guile about it most of the time, although that doesn't stop us producing some great passages of play at times.

It's necessarily a criticism, more a comment on the way we play an effective if not expansive and cultured style.

Not sure I can agree with you there H.B. Kebe and Hunt are good players and allow us to play this way as are Doyle and Hunt. The only opposition player I've seen so far this year capable of playing the Kebe / Hunt way was Croft from Norwich who was excellent, especially in the first half.
However, I do agree that the Prem is a different kettle of fish and we have to be able to mix things up a bit. One of my concerns is that SC has only really ever played one system and struggles with the Plan B bit although he cleary tweaked things a bit last year with the Matejovsky purchase. Albeit too late to make the difference. Next year will be very interesting in that respect should we go up.

[Hoop Blah]

I don't think there is anything wrong with waiting for the opposition to make a mistake, and I'm pretty sure I didn't say there was. What makes a team, or a passage of play better, is the ability to create a chance as opposed to just take it when it's presented to us on a plate.

The better the opposition the less likely they are to make a mistake. We're in a very fortunate position that we seem to be taking a very high percentage of our chances and to me thats papering over the cracks that are in our general play.

Watford were showing more intent to be creative and work out a way of creating a chance, whilst we just worked the channels. It's great that it's worked so effectively, but taking the longer term view, you need to be able to do more than that to win games consistently against better sides. Personally I thought it was our inability to create chances that saw us relegated in the first place, as we relied a lot of just getting the ball forward to ineffective forwards who were well marshalled by better defenders than we face in this league.

You can always do better and always improve. I'm glad our manager feels this way unlike some of our shorter sighted fans on here who seem to think that it doesn't matter how you play as long as you win.

And I didn't say it was wrong to try to improve wherever impossible but it's still laughable to suggest that Watford played the better football having created so little in the game that Federici had next to nothing to do whilst they conceded 4 goals.

It's also laughable to suggest that we, as the top goalscorers throughout England and Scotland, are some how fortunate to be taking so many of our chances......................do you really think this happens by accident?

Whilst Watford created very little, surely goals like Lita's were created by a defence splitting pass from Harper.

Watford, like so many other teams we've played this season, fell apart in the 2nd half for all the reasons Ollie Kearns illustrated perfectly.

They start with a 4-5-1 (giving them an extra man in the centre, making it easier to find a spare player to pass to) and get over run when forced to revert to 4-4-2 in the 2nd half having gone at least a goal behind.

Even Wolves and Brum couldn't live with us playing 4-4-2

I don't think we disagree a great deal on the mistakes that led to our needless relegation but Steve Coppell has clearly learned from those errors.

This was exactly the kind of performance that would give us a real chance in the top flight.

Let the opposition huff and puff (passing harmlessly amongst themselves, if they wish) in areas that don't hurt us and convert your own chances with ruthless efficiency when they present themselves..................... many games in the top flight take this course with one or two examples of sheer class winning the day.

Fortunate yes, because we have good quality in the team and the likes of Doyle and Hunt have been very good in front of goal. That's not the same as it being accidental or just a fluke, it's just that our clinical finishing is possibly carrying the team a little.

As for Harpers defence splitting pass, as a big fan of Harper and one who's defended him on here recently, I think it was a very good ball helped out by a nice (minor) deflection on it's way through. However, as I've said, we do have some very good passages of play and for me Harper is one of the players in the side capable of that kind of thing, but it's a bit of a rarity from our normal style of attack, hence some of the criticism that comes Harpers way.

[papereyes]

However, I do agree that the Prem is a different kettle of fish and we have to be able to mix things up a bit. One of my concerns is that SC has only really ever played one system and struggles with the Plan B bit although he cleary tweaked things a bit last year with the Matejovsky purchase. Albeit too late to make the difference.

Didn't we, you know, get worse?

[CMRoyal]

As a comparison, United have always used wingers/width (Sharpe, Giggs, Kanchelskis

...Coppell.

That's where SC gets his ethos from - he's said on a number of occasions that Tommy Doc encouraged precisely the approach described so well above by Ollie Kearns (and others). I think as last season progressed he realised that this is now not enough for the Premier League, so I do wonder whether he'll have the heart to carry on if we get promoted, because he knows that wholesale changes might be required, to personnel and playing style.

[Hoop Blah]

Not sure I can agree with you there H.B. Kebe and Hunt are good players and allow us to play this way as are Doyle and Hunt. The only opposition player I've seen so far this year capable of playing the Kebe / Hunt way was Croft from Norwich who was excellent, especially in the first half.

I'm not a massive fan of either, but both have been very effective this season and I think they do their job pretty well. I just think their job is to be direct and get the ball in the danger area pretty quickly and see what happens.

[papereyes]

As a comparison, United have always used wingers/width (Sharpe, Giggs, Kanchelskis

...Coppell.

That's where SC gets his ethos from - he's said on a number of occasions that Tommy Doc encouraged precisely the approach described so well above by Ollie Kearns (and others). I think as last season progressed he realised that this is now not enough for the Premier League, so I do wonder whether he'll have the heart to carry on if we get promoted, because he knows that wholesale changes might be required, to personnel and playing style.

In our second season, we didn't play remotely like we did in our first. We were a lot more central and a lot more direct.

We were also pretty bad at it.

[OLLIE KEARNS]

The Harper pass is a useful example of why sides don't play 4-4-2 against us. Their centre back got sucked into midfield (wouldn't have happened when they had 5) and we had two players good enough to exploit that via a quality run into space plus a quality pass to find him. How long before a visiting side tries 5-5-0

[CMRoyal]

As a comparison, United have always used wingers/width (Sharpe, Giggs, Kanchelskis

...Coppell.

That's where SC gets his ethos from - he's said on a number of occasions that Tommy Doc encouraged precisely the approach described so well above by Ollie Kearns (and others). I think as last season progressed he realised that this is now not enough for the Premier League, so I do wonder whether he'll have the heart to carry on if we get promoted, because he knows that wholesale changes might be required, to personnel and playing style.

In our second season, we didn't play remotely like we did in our first. We were a lot more central and a lot more direct.

We were also pretty bad at it.

Agreed - we were forced to improvise a "Plan B" for various reasons already cited on this forum ad nauseum.

[OLLIE KEARNS]

However, I do agree that the Prem is a different kettle of fish and we have to be able to mix things up a bit. One of my concerns is that SC has only really ever played one system and struggles with the Plan B bit although he cleary tweaked things a bit last year with the Matejovsky purchase. Albeit too late to make the difference.

Didn't we, you know, get worse?

No. We got 13 pts from the 10 games (1.3 per game) that he started and 24 (0.85 per game) from the 28 that he didin't start. We also lost the first three that he started which you could argue was a settling in period.
I think he'll not play much of a part this year but may be a crucial player next season, especially if SC makes more use of a 4-5-1 cum 4-3-3 formation away from home. He would truely shine in that formation I reckon.

[Woodcote Royal]

Fortunate yes, because we have good quality in the team and the likes of Doyle and Hunt have been very good in front of goal. That's not the same as it being accidental or just a fluke, it's just that our clinical finishing is possibly carrying the team a little.

As for Harpers defence splitting pass, as a big fan of Harper and one who's defended him on here recently, I think it was a very good ball helped out by a nice (minor) deflection on it's way through. However, as I've said, we do have some very good passages of play and for me Harper is one of the players in the side capable of that kind of thing, but it's a bit of a rarity from our normal style of attack, hence some of the criticism that comes Harpers way.

This team has yet to reach the ruthless efficiency of 2005-6 but it's being built on exactly the same principles and is now starting to produce similar results.

We amassed 106 pts largely by blowing away teams with 2 or 3 goals in short periods of absolute dominance, having sat back and absorbed all the opposition could throw at us for large parts of the game.

We've been here before, long may it continue.