[Albion] Can you have your own style of play with bottom 6 players?

[Guinness Boy]

A bit of a touchy one this as it might be seen as criticising TB's master plan when it's his money. But it is just a question I've posed to a couple of other people today and wondered what NSC thought.

Can you have a top to bottom club "good" style when your player budget is at the low end of the scale or do you need "top top players" in your first team?

To consider:
Are styles of play for your actual Liverpool and Man Citys?
Should good coaching always outweigh predictability?
Can Spurs say they have benefitted from Mourinho's toughening up? Or are the likes of Sheffield Utd, Burnley and, dare I say, Palace just as predictable?

 

[Stat Brother]

The answer to all questions is:-


Money.

 

[TottonSeagull]

Surely a coach/manager has to work with the squad he has. It may not be the exact way he wants to play but he has to play to the strengths of the squad he has. If you are constantly not winning football matches and you don’t have the luxury of bringing in new players than you have to adapt and find a way to win with what you have. Once you have built a team that can play the way you want your style will change to reflect this.
That is the issue at the moment, Potter can’t find a way to win with the players he has. He turns out the same style every week and we get a draw at best! This squad can win a lot more games than they have done!

 

[Springal]

Bit of both - I don’t think there is anything to suggest that Potter is a football genius or some kind of revelation. And I do think at the moment it airs more on the side of players not doing their jobs over anything else.

I e I don’t think the Maupay that scored 20+ goals in the Championship or 10+ goals in his first PL season is suddenly not good enough, or that Dunk is suddenly a bad defender.

If TB had invested more where we would have spent it on, position wise.

However the constant tinkering can’t help, nor can the amount of injury prone players (Lamptey, Lallana, Welbeck(?) be helping.

Presumably it was Potter that decided to overhaul a number of the existing senior squad in favour of younger, less experienced players and has unbalanced the squad.

 

[Nobby]

No.

 

[timbha]

It’s a good question and we will struggle to survive at this level for a few more years if we continually try to out play the middle and top clubs. The more we survive the better chance we have of achieving our goal, and then resetting our targets.

The alternative is just to survive, moving from Allerdyce to Bruce to Hughton to Pulis, etc type tactics, with no greater likelihood that we will stay in the PL.

 

[Swansman]

Yes why not. Swansea did it. Bournemouth did it. Leeds are doing it. Brighton are doing it. A bunch of teams that went down pretty immediatly also did it.

Its possible. If its possible to do it and to stay in the PL? There is no relation. The only way to stay in PL "permanently" is to invest tons and tons of money into every single part of the club decade in decade out.

Also, its fun with people using Mourinho/Spurs as some great example of a team reaching the stars when playing cynical when they came top 4 four years in a row with Pochettino and played a CL final about six months before The Great Cynical Mastermind came. When Mourinho achieve anything near that with Spurs, I will think about the fantastic advantages of cynicism.

 

[Nobby]

No.

See Hyppia

 

[Pavilionaire]

Liverpool have just drawn against a team in the bottom three, 800-odd passes, 79% possession but just 2 shots on target to West Brom's 3. Even the best sides have off days. The difference is their strikers will score in the next match and they will be fine.

Potter's style is fine, but the strikers aren't good enough. I feel the defenders will sort themselves out eventually.

Remember, Leicester had bottom 6 players, but they added one or two and the rest is history.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Yes why not. Swansea did it. Bournemouth did it. Leeds are doing it. Brighton are doing it. A bunch of teams that went down pretty immediatly also did it.

Its possible. If its possible to do it and to stay in the PL? There is no relation. The only way to stay in PL "permanently" is to invest tons and tons of money into every single part of the club decade in decade out.

Also, its fun with people using Mourinho/Spurs as some great example of a team reaching the stars when playing cynical when they came top 4 four years in a row with Pochettino and played a CL final about six months before The Great Cynical Mastermind came. When Mourinho achieve anything near that with Spurs, I will think about the fantastic advantages of cynicism.

I enjoyed the game today. We had most of the game against a top 10 side and came away with an away draw.

Today Liverpool were shut out by a team below us who approached the game much as Sheffield United approached their game againts us. Klopp out?

I didn't really understand the OP's question on first read, and I'm none the wiser after reading the replies. Was it something like 'would we have more points if we played more cynically?' or was it more nuanced? I don't know. I'm not sure if I really even want to know.

Anyway, when folk on another thread think we were shitehouse today and we should 'get rid' (of what? Hope? Reason?) I can't help feeling that some are getting all a bit unneccessary. If they think Potter should be replaced, now, why not just say so? Mount a campaign

I hope the pizza delivery converor belt hasn't frozen for Christmas, Swanny

 

[Swansman]

I enjoyed the game today. We had most of the game against a top 10 side and came away with an away draw.

Today Liverpool were shut out by a team below us who approached the game much as Sheffield United approached their game againts us. Klopp out?

I didn't really understand the OP's question on first read, and I'm none the wiser after reading the replies. Was it something like 'would we have more points if we played more cynically?' or was it more nuanced? I don't know. I'm not sure if I really even want to know.

Anyway, when folk on another thread think we were shitehouse today and we should 'get rid' (of what? Hope? Reason?) I can't help feeling that some are getting all a bit unneccessary. If they think Potter should be replaced, now, why not just say so? Mount a campaign

I hope the pizza delivery converor belt hasn't frozen for Christmas, Swanny

Yup. Was a good game, obviously would have felt better with three points but it was pretty much proof that the team isnt garbage etc.

As for what OP is asking Im not sure either. If a club is able to have its own style of play with bottom 6 players... its pretty much a question that means nothing. Wimbledon had their style with bottom 6 players. Norwich last year had another style. Pretty much every team have their own style... whether they like it or not. Very few play "schoolbook English football", actually so few that they too have their own style at this point.

Perhaps the better question would be: is it possible to play someone elses football?

Sure, some teams are more similar to eachother than others, but in the end they are all different. People often mention Pulis & Allardyce as having the same style when i.e. their Stoke / Bolton sides played very different types of football.

 

[Guinness Boy]

I didn't really understand the OP's question on first read, and I'm none the wiser after reading the replies. Was it something like 'would we have more points if we played more cynically?' or was it more nuanced? I don't know. I'm not sure if I really even want to know.

Not difficult. Can you play an unwavering style of football in a top division when your player budget should put you in the bottom 'x' number of teams?

Essentially I see this as what Bloom, Potter and Ashworth are trying to do. Should we have a plan A, B, C and, indeed, X? Or stick to our guns? Or buy Messi?

If I'm an opposition coach opening a file called "playing Brighton" my notes would contain the following:

"lots of possession"
"only real pace is Lamptey"
"terrible on zone defence at set pieces"

Depending on the players available to me I'd then decide if I was going to attack that by pressing high, defend it by conceding the wings and cluttering up the middle, force us back into our own half and allow some tip tap around our own area or hit on the break. That would depend on who I have in my squad. Meanwhile, our own playbook is always the same, isn't it?

 

[BN41Albion]

Our league position and likelihood of dropping into the bottom 3 soon suggests no

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Not difficult. Can you play an unwavering style of football in a top division when your player budget should put you in the bottom 'x' number of teams?

Essentially I see this as what Bloom, Potter and Ashworth are trying to do. Should we have a plan A, B, C and, indeed, X? Or stick to our guns? Or buy Messi?

If I'm an opposition coach opening a file called "playing Brighton" my notes would contain the following:

"lots of possession"
"only real pace is Lamptey"
"terrible on zone defence at set pieces"

Depending on the players available to me I'd then decide if I was going to attack that by pressing high, defend it by conceding the wings and cluttering up the middle, force us back into our own half and allow some tip tap around our own area or hit on the break. That would depend on who I have in my squad. Meanwhile, our own playbook is always the same, isn't it?

So you mean that we play the same way every game, and the style is a little above the capabilities of the playing staff?

Tricky.....

We play good football. We do change things around, but in a nuanced way and we always do stick to the 'good football' thing. Maybe we could go a bit more negative, two rows of five like WBA for the first 55 minutes today. We'd not concede many. Mmmmmm......nnnnn. No. Not for me.

Apart from anything else we don't have the personnel. WBA has a team of big athletic lumps. The attacks are largely kick and run. We'd need to get rid of half our squad. No idea who we'd replace them with, but I'm sure there are some big lads playing for Sheffield Wednesday, QPR and the like.

No, to me it would be like trading in your attractive, mysterious, but delicate missus for some hearty bird who was always willing to take one up the wrong 'un, but who smelt of minestrone and was more than happy to do the first while eating the seacond AND watch East Enders, all at the same time.

Versatility isn't everything.

 

[Swansman]

Not difficult. Can you play an unwavering style of football in a top division when your player budget should put you in the bottom 'x' number of teams?

Essentially I see this as what Bloom, Potter and Ashworth are trying to do. Should we have a plan A, B, C and, indeed, X? Or stick to our guns? Or buy Messi?

If I'm an opposition coach opening a file called "playing Brighton" my notes would contain the following:

"lots of possession"
"only real pace is Lamptey"
"terrible on zone defence at set pieces"

Depending on the players available to me I'd then decide if I was going to attack that by pressing high, defend it by conceding the wings and cluttering up the middle, force us back into our own half and allow some tip tap around our own area or hit on the break. That would depend on who I have in my squad. Meanwhile, our own playbook is always the same, isn't it?

Some say its always the same, some say Potter tinkers too much.

All I can say is that every manager including Potter at this level in 2020 analyse and adapt to their opponent.

 

[GT49er]

I think the style is fine, but actually watching it today I was amazed at how slowly we move the ball - we're passing to a man in space, sure, but we roll the ball towards him so slowly and gently that the opposition have all the time in the world to close him down before the ball gets to him.
There is also a fine line to be drawn between playing out from the back and fannying around at the back - and we're slightly the wrong side of that line, IMHO, of course.

 

[Weststander]

We may not like them, but Bmuff spent 5 years in the EPL playing good football on the deck, countless wins against the Top 6. 0-5 anyone?

In the end that pourous defence and a crippling number of injuries ended the run.

Imho proving that a lower budget club can play good football and survive.

 

[maresfield seagull]

I think the style is fine, but actually watching it today I was amazed at how slowly we move the ball - we're passing to a man in space, sure, but we roll the ball towards him so slowly and gently that the opposition have all the time in the world to close him down before the ball gets to him.
There is also a fine line to be drawn between playing out from the back and fannying around at the back - and we're slightly the wrong side of that line, IMHO, of course.

I concur
pinging the passes rather than rolling them might just also help to increase the tempo and have an overall positive effect on the transition part of attacking forward play
I seem to recall Crouchy on his podcast mentioning Gerard absolutely fizzing passes at him in training when he first joined Liverpool
In a this is what’s expected get used to it way

 

[studio150]

Burnley have a style.

I'm getting bored with all this different ways of attacking Potter. If you turn the clock back two years, there were loads of posters, saying I'd rather the team got relegated than suffer this ultra defensive approach under CH. We want to see an attractive style of football. Well you've now got it, but it's still not good enough.

I'm starting to believe if we won every game 5-0 a lot of our fans would be moaning that we should have scored 8 every week.

 

[The Fits]

If the question is 'can you play good football and stay up?'. The answer is yes.