Originally Posted by
jackal2
No, but unlike you I've seen enough Notts County games this season to offer an informed opinion. We had our best results playing a direct style in the first half of the season, and in mid-season Nolan brought in a couple of new players, changed to a five-man midfield and clearly did give the players licence to play much more of a passing game in two home games to Exeter and Crawley. They actually did it quite well and played some good attacking football, but it also made us too open defensively and we ultimately lost both games, costing us 6 points which would have got us automatic promotion. It was a nice idea, but the wrong time to experiment, and those two defeats knocked our confidence and affected us for a while. So, ironically, if we had stuck to the more direct plan A we may well have finished in the top three, but if nothing else it demonstrated Nolan's desire not to just settle for direct football as a permanent tactic. People remember him playing under Sam Allardyce and probably make the long-ball assumption from that, but he also spent a significant spell of his career at West Ham, the so-called "Academy of Football", so there's no reason to assume his managerial career will be defined by one approach.
West Brom and Stoke were as competitive as clubs their size are ever entitled to expect in the Premier league under Tony Pulis, finishing well inside the top ten on occasions. So yes you're right that the new managers were inept, because apparently they were unable to understand that their predecessor Pulis had already implemented the style most likely to bring relative success to teams with their limited resources. I'll grant you the fan bases at both clubs were split over Pulis' tactics, because a lot of football fans are basically thick and don't even realise when they've got it good, but now at least they may get the chance to watch some very pretty football in the Championship (or lower) for a while!