[Albion] The high line is great

Han Solo said:

The "problem with the high line" has been mentioned a lot.

The core of this "problem", bit like the "problem of fannying around at the back" that emerged five years ago, is that Fabian Hurzeler is a brave coach and football fans are anxious cowards. But its time to accept it.

People have been going on and on about "you can't play like that unless you have Van der Ven in defense!!!", as if it exists a central defender who can turn around, accelerate his run and catch up with whatever sprinter that made his run behind the defense line.

Can we put to bed that the magical paranormal solution to the made up problem isn't to sign some sort of Martian cheetah?

The high line and offside trap is here to stay. Just like in most of the previous games, it worked excellent yesterday and the opponents were allowed no more than the "normal" amount of chances that will likely happen regardless of how you play.

There was nothing "naive" about the first half yesterday, that wasn't the cause of the issues; the cause was being as cowardly as us watching it. "Oh no, a Tottenham player is pressuring me, I need to hoof it randomly into the stands or to their defenders". "Oh no, they're doing those runs again, I don't trust our trap gonna run home and cover the goal". Lazy, cowardly, useless.

Second half, at least until 3-2, we pushed our "naive high line" higher, took more risk in "fannying about at the back" and ran past their allegedly invincible super quick back line through sheer determination and willpower.

I hope there won't be TOO much of the "we only concede goals in football matches due to high defense line" over the season. Teams like Wolves that have 48 players inside their own box also concede goals. In fact, everyone does. So at the end of the season, lets just wait and see what the "Conceded goals" column has to say about the success of our "naive high defense line" compared to lets say the "best football I've ever seen", which was the narrative last season.

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highflyer said:

I like a lot of what you say here. Not sure I am a fan of how you have said it.

New manager, new system, many new players. I think saying 'lazy, cowardly, useless' about the players, even in the first half, is unfair.

Fair enough about supporters though. I was sh*tting myself.

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Stumpy Tim said:

A high line only works if the team press and don't give the opposition any time. If the opposition has time and space they'll pick an easy pass over the top with ease.

In the first half we were nowhere near at it, apart from Baleba. Jack was a hologram in midfield, and the wingers didn't press either. In the second half every one of them threw themselves into tackles and Tottenham couldn't respond. It was night and day.

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Han Solo said:

The "problem with the high line" has been mentioned a lot.

The core of this "problem", bit like the "problem of fannying around at the back" that emerged five years ago, is that Fabian Hurzeler is a brave coach and football fans are anxious cowards. But its time to accept it.

People have been going on and on about "you can't play like that unless you have Van der Ven in defense!!!", as if it exists a central defender who can turn around, accelerate his run and catch up with whatever sprinter that made his run behind the defense line.

Can we put to bed that the magical paranormal solution to the made up problem isn't to sign some sort of Martian cheetah?

The high line and offside trap is here to stay. Just like in most of the previous games, it worked excellent yesterday and the opponents were allowed no more than the "normal" amount of chances that will likely happen regardless of how you play.

There was nothing "naive" about the first half yesterday, that wasn't the cause of the issues; the cause was being as cowardly as us watching it. "Oh no, a Tottenham player is pressuring me, I need to hoof it randomly into the stands or to their defenders". "Oh no, they're doing those runs again, I don't trust our trap gonna run home and cover the goal". Lazy, cowardly, useless.

Second half, at least until 3-2, we pushed our "naive high line" higher, took more risk in "fannying about at the back" and ran past their allegedly invincible super quick back line through sheer determination and willpower.

I hope there won't be TOO much of the "we only concede goals in football matches due to high defense line" over the season. Teams like Wolves that have 48 players inside their own box also concede goals. In fact, everyone does. So at the end of the season, lets just wait and see what the "Conceded goals" column has to say about the success of our "naive high defense line" compared to lets say the "best football I've ever seen", which was the narrative last season.

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Hamilton said:

I don't think it is just the high line. It's coaching the players to use the high line. And that doesn't mean using it all the time.

There's no coincidence between the change that Fab made at half time and the change in performance. I like Ferdi, but it felt like he was playing in multiple positions down the flank yesterday. As a result, I felt Hinshelwood's first half was shocking as he had no idea where Ferdi was. It's why they had so much freedom down that side.

With Pervis on, we were still playing a higher line but with a more defensively minded player. I actually thought Pervis had one of his best games for us so far this season.

I wonder what might have happened had Webster not been injured. Igor is - IMHO a tad faster than Adam. Playing a high line with Lewis and Webster is always going to give me heart attacks.

In the second half, we played a higher line because our midfield turned up and we were able to link the front 4 with Baleba and Hinshelwood much more.

The high line, like fannying around at the back, will get criticism if it's not being used correctly. Just MHO.

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London Irish said:

There's going to be a lot of brazen opinionating given how we came back from the dead yesterday, almost as it people believe we are suddenly an invincible team again. We aren't lol

Let's see how it goes on. Yes Fab will stick to his guns but it needs to work better than over the last week or so or we need to bring in better players to suit it in a few months

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London Irish said:

There's going to be a lot of brazen opinionating given how we came back from the dead yesterday, almost as it people believe we are suddenly an invincible team again. We aren't lol

Let's see how it goes on. Yes Fab will stick to his guns but it needs to work better than over the last week or so or we need to bring in better players to suit it in a few months

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Tom Hark Preston Park said:

The players hauled the manager's balls out of the fire yesterday - and don't he know it. The one smart move he did was bring on Estupinan for the second half, fair play for that. But the win was down to the players

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Han Solo said:

So the 0-2 in the first half was the result of the manager and his high line, and the 3-0 in the second half was entirely down to the players.

I'm sure you would have said the same thing if the identical thing happened last season.......

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Tom Hark Preston Park said:

The manager had nothing to do with Georginio Rutter's indomitable desire to scrap and fight and hook that crunching tackle/cross in for Danny Welbeck to head in the winner

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Han Solo said:

But he was at fault for our desire to hoof the ball into the stands or to their defenders for the entirey of first half? Or is that also down to the players?

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Tom Hark Preston Park said:

Yada yada. Pick and choose whichever passage(s) of play you like, but the fact remains that, for us, the high line is not great. As you well know

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Han Solo said:

As you well know I share none of your football views (playing out from the back is bad, short passing is bad, having possession is bad, having a high line is bad etc.).

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dwayne said:

As long as we can mix it up I like the risk/reward. We can't play it the whole game Vs city, arse or pool though.

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