Is there any point of playing tippy tappy football in tier 5?

[maddogslater]

Great Post anticlough, had some great times with Warnock but was glad to see the back of him after that Tuesday night 0 2 to Sunderland, it was awful football. Next up was Tranmere at home , couldn't believe it when we kicked off by passing the ball along the grass, won 5 1

[SwalePie]

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.

Great post that.

[laddo]

ac has been on fire this season no doubt about it. Great contributions

[jackal2]

The problem with these debates is that they often get simplified into 'tippy tappy' versus 'long/direct ball', but the solution is probably somewhere in between.

I've got no issue with the team playing football on the floor, and there have been spells in games this season when we've done it really quickly and well, but at other times we've looked far too slow and/or have taken excessive risks in areas of the field where you don't have recovery time if you lose the ball. The solution, surely, is to tell players not to overplay in their own half, but to be as creative as they wish in the opponent's half, whether that means quick passing movements or individuals taking defenders on. It won't always come off, but at least when it doesn't you have more time to recover.

The main problem with a style of play that is overly intricate, especially if it's in the wrong areas, is that it relies on most if not all of your players being on form and full of confidence. The reality at National League level is that most players are not as consistent, confident and gifted as those you find at the higher levels, which is why they're playing in this league. Therefore, it makes sense to adopt a more pragmatic style of play that can still grind out results on those days when some players are not at their best or most confident. My concern at present is that we play into the hands of teams who come to disrupt our rhythm, because we don't mix up our approach enough.

To be fair to IB, I've heard him say in interviews that he doesn't mind us playing a longer ball, say to big Kyle, if that's where the space appears when teams press us, so maybe he really is trying to develop a team that can mix up its approach to suit the conditions, but at present there are times when the players aren't spotting those opportunities and seem a bit over-programmed to 'build from the back' every time.

I do agree with anticlough's sentiments above, though. Maybe we simply do have to be patient while IB coaches and develops an intelligent team that can adapt to different challenges from different opponents. As long as the coach himself is not overly insistent on a single Plan A and does give the players the licence to go to a Plan B or even C, and wants them to develop the intelligence to make those decisions themselves on the pitch, then the eventual results could make the wait worthwhile.

[SlockyNCFC]

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.

Another +1 from me for this excellent post.

Whilst Warnock has clearly had success as a manager (not least at Notts) and deserves a level of respect, he is certainly not as infallible as some who revere him seem to believe. I have him in a similar bracket to Martin Allen and Sam Allardyce - very adept at short term jobs like getting there or thereabouts teams promoted or keeping limited teams up. His Plan A is fantastic when it works. Sooner or later, though, his blood and thunder methods wear out, there is no Plan B and the team unravels just the same as a manager insisting on playing the Dario Gradi way with no adaptability the other way.

You then either need to move on quickly or he'll have you back where you started.

[Elite_Pie]

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.

I agree that we have to see this experiment through, I just don’t share your confidence that it will work.

[the_anticlough]

I agree that we have to see this experiment through, I just don’t share your confidence that it will work.

Phew, thought I'd get nothing but a pasting for that post so cheers fellas...

I think we've all got doubts. My confidence in IB grows and grows. Managers/Head coaches are where all accountability congregates at football clubs. But that can't be fair, and they said Ian takes care of the team and there are other guys in charge of recruitment. So let them and the owners take the heat for the shortfalls in the squad building for this season...

My hunch is we've got a good one in charge of the team. If he gets good backing from the owners and recruitment does its job, the club will be on the up. Without that, even Wilko and Warno at their peaks would have their work cut out to get out of this league.

[optipez]

For all the playing through the thirds and playing the passing game, a pretty large percentage of our goals have come from set pieces, moments of individualism and longer balls, ( not aimless punts ). The longer balls have stretched teams, the multi pass without much forward movement part of the game allow the opposition to get their banks of four in place and to just watch us play in front of them.
It should also be remembered that all our wins are against bottom half teams and we've taken 1 pt from 12 against teams in the top half.
We played longer against Halifax and went two up, played very tip tap against Altrincham and looked like we'd never score. At the moment we're a mid table team and inconsistent like one.
Personally, I like to see us play football but with some dynamism, the turning inside and backwards rather than driving forwards, even if it means losing the ball too often means we don't test keepers more than a couple of times in a match.

[jackal2]

Another +1 from me for this excellent post.

Whilst Warnock has clearly had success as a manager (not least at Notts) and deserves a level of respect, he is certainly not as infallible as some who revere him seem to believe. I have him in a similar bracket to Martin Allen and Sam Allardyce - very adept at short term jobs like getting there or thereabouts teams promoted or keeping limited teams up. His Plan A is fantastic when it works. Sooner or later, though, his blood and thunder methods wear out, there is no Plan B and the team unravels just the same as a manager insisting on playing the Dario Gradi way with no adaptability the other way.

Over the course of their careers you can definitely argue that Warnock and Allen are impact managers, which probably owes more to their ways of motivating and managing players than their playing preferred style.

Allardyce is definitely a devotee of direct football and has had a number of short-term jobs in recent years, but let's not forget he achieved - and sustained - success at a high level making Bolton a very competitive Premier League side for several years. His value was probably best illustrated by their decline from the very point he left.

Dario Gradi at the other end of the scale was very much a 'play football on the floor' man, but he too achieved a sustained improvement at Crewe, albeit very gradually, eventually taking them up to the Championship and keeping them there for a while, which was arguably more incredible than Wycombe's achievement in getting there.

[i961pie]

True, but we also conceded 4 late goals to Woking, and 3 to 10-man Halifax. I prefer Burchnall to Fullarton and Ardley, but in my opinion the theory that our passing game leaves teams exhausted half way through is just a myth.

I agree, the opposition are happy for us to pass it sideways and back in our own half they don't have to run around and chase anything.
Us scoring goals in the second half is mainly down to IB changing the formation or making substitutions.