Garcia's style of play

[Kalimantan Gull]

In the very first interview he gave as our manager, didn't OG say "My instinct is always to attack."

If only... How can he say that and then, when we are losing at home to the bottom side, fail to bring on a proven goalscorer in Lita until it is far too late?

mirrors of Keegan for England

 

[Surf's Up]

A fit Buckley hmmm, noticed him limping around last night after five minutes, looking at the bench, rubbing his foot. Is there such an animal anymore, a fit Buckley?

Not really, Buckley has had serious sick note tendencies since he's been with us - I seem to remember a Watford fan suggesting this would be the case when we signed him.

 

[trueblue]

It did seem last night that we had the attitude that if we were patient, we'd get the win. That backfired as Barnsley just grew in confidence. I think against the lower-ranked teams, a bit of early impatience could be a good thing.

 

[Machiavelli]

Whilst the OP may well be right, you have to give the guy a break. He has had one single season of management in an uncompetitive fourteen team league. He is by no means a complete manager and still has much to learn. He has now been thrown in the deep-end in the championship and is going to need a season or two get to grips with it. There are experienced options out there but TB wanted to go with Oscar, so now we must be patient with him.

This, broadly.

 

[Machiavelli]

I just wish more than anything that we'd stop treating the first 45 minutes as a warm up session.

Goals in the first half still count, you guys.

And as much as I admire Oscar's cool, calm and collected style, I simply cannot invision him handing out a proper old skool bollocking. Which is probably what we need at the moment.

Having said all that, I still think he's the right man for the job.

And this, entirely.

 

[Machiavelli]

Well, yes, I think we owe him more than a season!, unless he turns out to be complete bobbins. For one thing, he needs to be able to sign his own players and build his own team before we can truly judge. But I'm in the 'hope' he's the right man for the job camp because there is little evidence to go on to 'know' he's the right guy

We will know he's the right guy when we get promoted. Beyond that we can just think and hope. But note, also, TB brought him in with the academy and training ground in mind. This is a long-term decision, something that are all too rare in current football, which I applaud and, as I consequence, will wait that little bit longer before declaring him complete bobbins.
I also think you underplay what Oscar has achieved thus far in his managerial career at Barcelona and MTA.

 

[Machiavelli]

One thing that I didn't understand when Gus was here and I still don't understand now Garcia is manager. When you are playing a team at the bottom of the table and lacking confidence you should attack at pace from the kick off, when you are at home. We passed the ball around but were completely toothless for the first 10 mins, after that Barnsley started to grow in confidence and were very positive. In fact they outplayed us for most of the first half. We are starting so slowly and I just can't understand why

In fairness to Oscar though, you cannot legislate for absolute shit defending from experienced players which resulted in the two Barnsley goals.

Agree with all of this.

 

[The Wizard]

****ing morons on here, don't even know why I'm surprised, one defeat after 7 unbeaten and we have threads like this from moronic people. We are over achieving this year if anything with the injuries we've had. We were woeful last night & Garcia got his tactics awfully wrong no doubt about it but threads like this after one loss & then certain posts in it make me wonder if some actually know ANYTHING at all about football or this league we are in.

Take a look at the results so far this season, there is LOADS of examples of similar things to what happened last night. We are in a fairly decent position without Ulloa, Buckley, Orlandi, CMS & Kaz.

 

[Wilko]

I really like Poyet apart from one thing- being too cautious especially at home to lowly opposition. The fact that Garcia also chooses to play ONE up front at home to Barnsley really is ****ing frustrating. As someone else pointed out, look at the top 3 teams in this division- they all play two up top.

I do not mind 1 up front away at QPR to grind out a draw, I just cannot fathom how any manager comes to the conclusion to play with one non pacey striker up front at home to the team bottom of the league.

 

[Machiavelli]

THANKYOU

I really don't understand the continual binfests whenever we lose one game.

Yes, we should have won on paper, but the game isn't played on paper. Teams have bad days, some have more than others. On paper, should Watford have beaten Yeovil at the weekend? Should Leicester have beaten Sheffield Wednesday? Should QPR have beaten Doncaster? This league is insane, sometimes impossible to predict.
We don't have a God given right to spank each team we come across. We've a new manager who is still getting used to the league (and to those who say that we've given him a chance....less than half a season is not a chance) and still getting our more effective players back to fitness.

Give Oscar the chance to bring the players he wants in (that we can afford) and see how he does. I don't expect fireworks this season and many said the same at the start (though i suspect some may have extremely short memories). We're not good enough to win the league, we're probably not good enough to sustain a play-off spot but we know how good we can be and once we have the consistency and the players we'll come good.

Thank you too Grombleton.

 

[One Love]

You could magic up a set of perfect tactics and if the players perform like last night we still wont have won. Last night was not all Oscars fault. It was a poor performance nothing sinister no-one is inept they just played badly in a game and lost.

That would be all well and good if we had been playing well all season and last night was one rogue bad game.

I took a friend who is a lifetime Brighton fan but lives abroad for his first game this season. He was shocked at how bad we were after about 20 minutes and he couldn't understand why I was so calm and accepting of it.

I'm just used to it.

 

[Bold Seagull]

You could magic up a set of perfect tactics and if the players perform like last night we still wont have won. Last night was not all Oscars fault. It was a poor performance nothing sinister no-one is inept they just played badly in a game and lost.

I said this on the way home. Doesn't matter what formation or tactics, if your players collectively are at 90% or so, you aren't going to win football games in this league. I can't remember us being that slow to close down space before. In fact, under Oscar I feel our closing down has been better than under GP, but last night was an aberration.

 

[Bold Seagull]

I'm just used to it.

You missed the Blackburn game?

 

[goldstone]

I really like Poyet apart from one thing- being too cautious especially at home to lowly opposition. The fact that Garcia also chooses to play ONE up front at home to Barnsley really is ****ing frustrating. As someone else pointed out, look at the top 3 teams in this division- they all play two up top.

I do not mind 1 up front away at QPR to grind out a draw, I just cannot fathom how any manager comes to the conclusion to play with one non pacey striker up front at home to the team bottom of the league.

Agree with you about the one-up-front thing. VERY frustrating last night. Have to say that OG went down quite a few notches in my estimation. He cannot maybe be blamed for the lack of energy/effort by the team, but having seen the first half display he should have done much more to correct the situation and attempt to get us a win. Bringing Buckley on was OK, but he should have gone with two strikers from half time (having figured out as the fans did that one striker against the bottom team was getting us absolutely nowhere) probably replacing Lopez.

 

[seagullsovergrimsby]

You could magic up a set of perfect tactics and if the players perform like last night we still wont have won. Last night was not all Oscars fault. It was a poor performance nothing sinister no-one is inept they just played badly in a game and lost.

Agreed. There will be games now and then when it all goes to pot. It only becomes a problem if we play like that against Leicester as a pattern will emerge.

 

[Petee]

good grief


we are playing in a bonkers league ................. have you seen Watford's recent form?

Class, skill, guile and application are of marginal advantage in this division. It's a tear up, shits and giggles party of flashes of brilliance (step up Mr Barnes and JFC) and utter shit (step up one of the Watford defenders in their 3-0 defeat to Yeovil). Just enjoy it, it's entertaining.

Precisely this. Everyone has an off day and it has been proven that anyone can beat anyone in this league. Just look at last night. The bottom 2 picking up wins against us and Leicester. As you said, Watford are completely out of form and Yeovil (the team everyone expected to have absolute no chance) have got some big wins recently. This is why I love this league! It is completely open!

 

[Rookie]

The lack of pace is killing the way Oscar would prefer to play. You could see last night once Buckley and Kemy were on we were getting behind them. The team that started last night was painfully slow and I would be very surprised come the summer (or even January) if we don't get some pace in at full back

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Agreed. There will be games now and then when it all goes to pot. It only becomes a problem if we play like that against Leicester as a pattern will emerge.

I've just read this thread again and don't see any over reactions, just frustration that we lost a game that we should have been capable of winning.

Unfortunately I have seen a pattern emerging, having been to Wigan away where we really rode our luck, and then Bournemouth and again last night. I had commented on the slow laborious first half play in several games previously too.

 

[Machiavelli]

This isn't the style of play he used at Tel Aviv and the style that probably got him the job in the 1st place, I wonder how Tony feels about it, he must have thought he was getting an attack minded manager.
This of course could still be the case once everyone is fit but only time will tell and if it is then he may well play 3 up front when need which he did on many occasions at Tel Aviv.

Over the summer, I watched that youtube clip on the goals MTA scored last season, and what struck me was how many goals they scored early on in the game. We began this season by scoring early goals too. As much as I'm a fan of Oscar, on too many occasions we've taken ages to get going. I'm not convinced that Oscar has changed his style of play in the move from MTA to B&HA, or even from the start of the season until now, and note that too many of the messages on this board say that he's inflexible. I think there's sufficient scope within his system -- or 'philosophy' as he calls it -- for flexibility. Especially after last night, I can see why people are insisting that he hasn't imposed his identity on the club, but disagree, and think that this has been hampered by injuries, and views have been overstated because of last night's dire first hour. He's just tweaking Gus' style, pressing higher up the pitch (although there was precious little pressing anywhere on the pitch last night), and encouraging us to move the ball around the pitch more rapidly.

 

[Brighton Mod]

Not really, Buckley has had serious sick note tendencies since he's been with us - I seem to remember a Watford fan suggesting this would be the case when we signed him.

I know a physiotherapist who has an ear on these things and he confirms what you have written above, unfortunately.