Bwian
Kiss my (_!_)
- Jul 14, 2003
- 15,898
But you have to ask what kind of movement you want (or CH wants). Do you want vertical or horizontal movement? And what happens if you make that movement, say horizontally to widen the pitch, and the pass isn’t good enough? The ball gets turned over and suddenly the team is a defender down...
I’ve seen enough of us under CH to know that, at Premier League level at least, he’s asking the players to play the percentages which means picking safer passes and making very specific runs within a tactical system that mean we aren’t exposed.
Also, is it really lazy not running 50 yards vertically to make space at every opportunity? Because that’s often what’s been required of our wide men in CHs system... if you compare that with a lot of other teams, their wide men are making runs that are half or a quarter of that distance because they’re simply positioned higher up the pitch. That makes it much easier to a) be in space and b) make clever movements to utilise space effectively. But again, that systemic, not down to laziness.
Where does this come from with other teams? Are their players inherently more tactically aware? Smarter than our lot? Or do they learn that from their coaches? The Premier League is not an easy place for clubs like ours until we've got a few seasons under our belts so why make it more difficult? Things looked to be improving with the change of formation but at West Ham and Fulham we go 2 goals up and resort to type, inviting teams to attack by gradually dropping back. Concede 1 goal and we become even more cautious and introverted. Frustrates the beejesus out of me sometimes.
A 7 point advantage can vanish quite quickly.