We'll find out come May
Agree with rainbow, Jacob and nw6's comments.
It's lazy journalism and inappropriate to overuse the label 'tippy tappy' with negative connotations. Just as it is to label much more direct football as long ball / hoof ball. I'm the same as rainbow I just got very bored with too many years of a more direct aerial approach. It hasn't helped that since Big Sam it's not really been successful.
We'll find out come May
When we get it right it's a pleasure to watch however this season our biggest problem has been giving the ball away too easily and being turned over by the opposition.
We have the players to be successful playing this way although we do need a bit more steel in midfield.
So for me tippy tappy or passing football can be a winner.
We've just got to get better at it.
I don't think your Moneyball thread proved anything besides a lot of people not understanding what moneyball is, yourself included. It's more about picking players up like Kyle Wootton who to many people didn't inspire any confidence at all when you looked at his record but look how he's turned out...
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On style of play though, it's irrelevant whether we play like Barcelona or Stoke if we fail to do simple things like see out results with a bit of game management/leadership and defend set peices. Both of the latter you'd say were not helped by us missing 3 senior defenders (including Slocombe).
Playing the way we try to gives us an edge over all the other teams just trying to boot it and try and win second balls and it into the box as soon as possible, a lot of these teams have been doing that for years and have been defending against it for years, the last thing a lot of these big lump defenders want is to be stretched all over the pitch and that's shown a few times this season when opposition players have had their hands on their knees knackered at half time.
There's a reason we looked comfortable in the games we threw away recently until late on, it's because we were outplaying them, the problem is more mental than anything, added on with inexperienced players having to step up to fill the roles of experienced leaders.
2 second half goals against Aldershot and the O'Brien dissallowed one (so 3) and we scored in the 41st, 45th and 57th minute against Wealdstone. It's easier said than done to capitlise on it but give me the chances created under Burchnall any day over managers like Fullerton and Ardley being conservative and respecting the point (or the narrow defeat in Fullarton's case).
With some patience this team will only get better imo, ripping everything up and starting from scratch like we did (twice) under Nolan, Kewell and Ardley is how you end up in non league.
Yeah Rainbow, let's hope they do both of those things.
My most intense period of following Notts was the Jimmy/Wilko promotion and top flight years. What a team, and how ahead of his time was Wilko back then, getting the team to play out from the back with a 4-2-4...
We've seen a lot of nostalgia about the Warnock team ten years later. But as great as it was, I remember saying to my mates at the time that I saw us get promoted to the top flight without watching a single good game of football (having been spoilt with the Pedro, Don, Rash, Mair, Chiedozie and Supermac team).
Wilko's style proved good for promotion and 3 top flight seasons despite people like Gerry Gow telling him it would never work. Warnock's style is more fragile - once that urgency, super-motivated, up-and-at-em trick fades a bit you're left with poor footballers with bad playing habits. That's why Warnock's teams have burnt out and collapsed every time, why he relegated Notts and almost every other team he's managed. His style is based on winding up players to outperform and when that wears off you're not left with the the footballing habits/abilities you need to succeed. It's less sustainable. This is why fans have to be patient and get behind what the club and IB are trying too - they'll leave us with a footballing philosophy that'll serve us well for the next decade - good players able to play good, skilful football.
Last edited by the_anticlough; 11-10-2021 at 05:42 PM.
Is the issue the style of play or how we are executing in the final 3rd? My take on this season is that we wouldn’t be too bothered by the ‘build from the back’ approach or the less than Stella defence if we were cutting up front. All very well having ‘the most touches in the opposition box’ but where’s all the goals to go with it? Maybe one for our resident statisticians - a league table of possession/final third entries/touches in the opposing box v expected goals. I’d expect the latter to be nowhere in the rankings? I’m all for training ground ‘muscle memory’ but at times this year it’s been like watching me on fifa ‘95 trying to score the same goal* over and over which is too predictable and easy to defend.
*and not sure we’ve scored one of those yet either…