[Albion] Talking Tactics -Interesting PL article

[super-seagulls]

Possibly it’s safer in the very short term. But the result of whacking it up the field means that unless you have strikers with exceptional hold up play (we don’t), you’re going to spend most of the match defending. Exhibit 1 = last season

I agree with this completely, as our players get better and grow in confidence, I expect our results to improve too. As many have said, PaLLLace lost the first 7 of the season and still finished 11th.

Now is not the time to panic. We also seem to have our own ‘Zaha style penalty maker’ in Alzate, not that I condone that kind of behaviour and with VAR it’s probably too late for those shenanigans anyway.

Back to your point, what a difference this season will be.

 

[GT49er]

Oh dear, I’ve done it again. I really should stop trying to talk about football, and shall henceforth cease using the word “hoof” as when even said in jest it does seem to cause offence. What I was trying to say was that while I concur entirely that Dunky’s long passes are a great skill and a thing of beauty to behold, they did have the effect of cutting out the middle men. Perhaps now this skill is not as required as it once was due to better team coherency and understanding, resulting in better short ball passing and a greater confidence and ability in building up affective attacks from the back.

Yes. it did cut out the middle men last season - the trouble was, once the inch perfect pass had been delivered to the winger, when he looked up he would find that the CMs, Propper and Stephens, were anchored in their own half, and Murray had been back helping out the defence. Once in a while (maybe once a season) Izquierdo or Knockaert would just go rushing forward and score a solo goal, but usually they stopped, turned round and passed it back (or lost it).
Now we've got the likes of Maupay, Connolly, Trossard and Alzate buzzing around, plus CMs allowed to approach the opposition penalty area, that 50 yard pass can deliver the play into the danger area at a frightening speed for the opposition, especially as we will have players galloping forward at speed to join in the attack.
Yes, playing out from the back is great - but not if that means fannying around at the back for so long that eventually we lose the ball in our own penalty area and they score!

 

[blue-shifted]

Yes. it did cut out the middle men last season - the trouble was, once the inch perfect pass had been delivered to the winger, when he looked up he would find that the CMs, Propper and Stephens, were anchored in their own half, and Murray had been back helping out the defence. Once in a while (maybe once a season) Izquierdo or Knockaert would just go rushing forward and score a solo goal, but usually they stopped, turned round and passed it back (or lost it).
Now we've got the likes of Maupay, Connolly, Trossard and Alzate buzzing around, plus CMs allowed to approach the opposition penalty area, that 50 yard pass can deliver the play into the danger area at a frightening speed for the opposition, especially as we will have players galloping forward at speed to join in the attack.
Yes, playing out from the back is great - but not if that means fannying around at the back for so long that eventually we lose the ball in our own penalty area and they score!

The passes have a purpose this year. We're not just knocking it about across the defence to give the rest of the team a breather