Originally Posted by
jackal2
I think the difference is that Burchnall doesn't want to settle for passive football, whereas sometimes it seemed that Ardley did. I'm sure IB wants his team to play attacking forward passes and maintain a high tempo, but for some reason it seems like he has to kick them up the arse at half-time in every game to get them to do it. Some of our players seem very reluctant to take responsibility for making things happen, opting instead to play 'safe' football which invites pressure eventually turns out to be unsafe. IB has said himself that we are not yet playing anything like the football he wants to see, so it's not a case of him pretending everything's great or 'respecting the point'.
The question is, do the players truly believe in their ability to build from the back, and if you've got a seriously disrupted team with some new and unfamiliar faces, is it wise to rely so heavily on a style that potentially exposes weaknesses and unfamiliarity between players?
Over 25 years I've seen Notts play every style of football imaginable, and I've yet to see anything more reliable and successful than the old Warnock adage - 'get the ball out of your half as soon as possible and play your football in the opponent's half'. Warnock was often wrongly labelled a long-ball manager, but in truth his teams played some very entertaining passing football in the attacking third of the pitch, where you can afford to take risks and still have space to recover.
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