How important to you is the style of football we play?

[willalbion]

Vital for me, I'd rather be a mid to high championship team playing good football than a hoofball stoke/Wimbledon/dark ages into the premiership. Style over substance but then I am shallow as f@ck.

 

[Triggaaar]

How important to you is the style of football we play?

Very.

Would you be willing to accept hoofball if it got us promoted?

No.

Would you rather we continued to play as we do now and accept that we may not get promoted playing that way?

Given the choice between that and hoofball, yes. But obviously there are other ways.

There were loads on here who didn't give a shit how England played under Sven as long as we won.

I don't go and watch England every other week, and if they won the WC I wouldn't care if it was with hoofball. If you were offering me premier league and champions league titles, yes, I'd accept hoofball - but you only offered me promotion, you tight bar steward.

 

[Randsta]

I'd love a few more long balls but love it 99% of the time

 

[Brighton Breezy]

It depends what you mean by important. Would I rather we play nice, attacking football? Yes. Would us playing bad football stop me going to watch the Albion? Nope.

Affordability of tickets would have a far bigger impact on how I felt about going to the Albion than how successful we were.

 

[Seagull73]

Out of interest, what style of play would you like to see?

You won't get an answer because he doesn't know.

 

[otk]

Given the choice between that and hoofball, yes. But obviously there are other ways.
I don't go and watch England every other week, and if they won the WC I wouldn't care if it was with hoofball. If you were offering me premier league and champions league titles, yes, I'd accept hoofball - but you only offered me promotion, you tight bar steward.

I'm struggling to think of anything that was won with hoofball, other than some lower league promotions/tin pot cup possibly

I think it is unlikely the Prem or CL will be won this way, thankfully

 

[Ulloa's Soul Patch]

I love our passing footy. I'd rather lose than play hoofball

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

The plan B should be in answer to the opposition and sorting out if the A plan isn't working. Plan B shirley must be flexible enough to the situation we are presented with

Sure. The reason I ask is that the typical English response when things ain't going right is launch the ball foward. . Or do the same but in a more hurried manner.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

I'm not in favour but look what Stoke have achieved playing it, not pretty but effective. I doubt that they would have done as well for so long, results wise, if they hadn't played that way.

It is probably the case that Stoke might not have faired so well if they played a different style but this is because of the type of players they have. They choose this style and bought the personnel to play it. Had they choose another style they would have bought different players. There are other teams in the Prem comparable to Stoke which demonstrate you can play football and survive. I was really hoping that things were changing in English football but Roy Hodgson and this thread demonstrates minds are still stuck in the dark ages.

Also, Pulis paid a bloody fortune for the rubbish in his team. His net spend is 3rd over the past few years. I will argue that he could have bought some much better players and probably achieved more with proper footballers. 10m for Crouch...FFS.

 

[turienzo's lovechild]

i go to be entertained, so for me it's very important

as for our current style of play- we're on the right lines it just needs a bit of tweaking...which may need a new manager

 

[Icy Gull]

. I was really hoping that things were changing in English football but Roy Hodgson and this thread demonstrates minds are still stuck in the dark ages.

Really? It seems just about everyone on this thread is against changing our style too much.

As for English football, I tried to watch last night but fell asleep early into the 2nd half, what I did see was reminiscent of League One football, with better players. I have totally given up on England ever being any good or watchable.

 

[hans kraay fan club]

i go to be entertained, so for me it's very important

as for our current style of play- we're on the right lines it just needs a bit of tweaking...which may need a new manager

All of this. And to be honest, to my layman's eye, the required tweaks are very straightforward:

1. Move the ball more quickly. (Have the confidence in your touch, to play that simple pass first time, rather than stopping the ball first). What we have: Greer to Calde. Trap. Calde to Greer. Trap. Greer to Upson. Trap. Upson to Bridge. Its too slow, and allows the opposition to always re-organise.
What we need: Greer to Calde to Greer to Bridge, in half the time. The opposition have shifted to (their) left side as the ball went out from the back to Calde, but we have the ball at Bridge's feet 4 seconds later. Bridge carries the ball into SPACE.

2. Mix it up a little.
Greer to Clade to Greer to Kusczcak to Greer to Bridcutt to Upson, has its merits, one of which is to slowly draw the opposition towards us. Just sometimes, when we see this happening, the end of this move should be a chipped ball in behind the defence for KLL or Buckley to sprint onto. Again - identify the SPACE that your possesion football has created, and USE it.

3. MOVE off the ball. This is the biggest one, and the one that everyone who has ever played football at ANY level, must undertsand to be true. What happens now is the defenders / keeper knock it about between them but 95% of the time, when they recieve the ball for the second or third time in the move, they recieve it in excatly the same position that they did the first time. This kind of possession can create spaces (as in point 2) but it doesn't move the play forwards. Bridcutt gets it, and so does Bridge. Not the others though. Greer passes it out to a full back, then stands still, or drops back 10 yards to be the easy option pass. Kusczcak is always available to take that fall back pass, so the CB dropping off adds nothing. Pass it then move forwards into space. Pass move, pass move.

Simple basics really, when you write it down.

 

[Meade's Ball]

I would become a tad disgruntled if we threw away our chic stylings to become long-ball louts who look to win games by simply battling through and being courageous and beefy. Under Gus we had an identity, which was mostly effective, and i hope we don't give that up to supposedly guarantee success with our very own Pulis force. The football should relate to the city and have its artistic and expressionistic side, to be dreamy and creative and not just this compendium of ugly beasts that we see playing for the teams of hard graft. The AMEX sort of demands culture on and off the field.

 

[Blues Rock DJ]

Simple answer.......get one more goal than the opposition ?

 

[Jimmy Grimble]

I wonder how NSC would have reacted (NSC in its current form) to Adams' first spell as manager?

I know it wasn't route one football, but it was very direct at times and clearly very successful (although reliant on BZ) for us.

 

[The Sock of Poskett]

All of this. And to be honest, to my layman's eye, the required tweaks are very straightforward:

1. Move the ball more quickly. (Have the confidence in your touch, to play that simple pass first time, rather than stopping the ball first). What we have: Greer to Calde. Trap. Calde to Greer. Trap. Greer to Upson. Trap. Upson to Bridge. Its too slow, and allows the opposition to always re-organise.
What we need: Greer to Calde to Greer to Bridge, in half the time. The opposition have shifted to (their) left side as the ball went out from the back to Calde, but we have the ball at Bridge's feet 4 seconds later. Bridge carries the ball into SPACE.

2. Mix it up a little.
Greer to Clade to Greer to Kusczcak to Greer to Bridcutt to Upson, has its merits, one of which is to slowly draw the opposition towards us. Just sometimes, when we see this happening, the end of this move should be a chipped ball in behind the defence for KLL or Buckley to sprint onto. Again - identify the SPACE that your possesion football has created, and USE it.

3. MOVE off the ball. This is the biggest one, and the one that everyone who has ever played football at ANY level, must undertsand to be true. What happens now is the defenders / keeper knock it about between them but 95% of the time, when they recieve the ball for the second or third time in the move, they recieve it in excatly the same position that they did the first time. This kind of possession can create spaces (as in point 2) but it doesn't move the play forwards. Bridcutt gets it, and so does Bridge. Not the others though. Greer passes it out to a full back, then stands still, or drops back 10 yards to be the easy option pass. Kusczcak is always available to take that fall back pass, so the CB dropping off adds nothing. Pass it then move forwards into space. Pass move, pass move.

Simple basics really, when you write it down.

Totally agree. However, this mainly covers the defensive and possession side of our game. The other part that needs tweaking is when we get in the final third:
1 More clinical finishing. The missing points last season were as much due to not killing games off and taking our chances when on top, as conceding silly late goals. Having Leo from the start might have fixed that.
2 A better final ball – the players with the pace to beat defenders (Kaz and Buckley) too often let themselves down with a poor cross, which was also not helped by ...
3 Midfielders taking a chance to get on the end of things - which happened too rarely
4 Willingness to shoot more often – too many promising openings were not capitalised on because a player seemed to always be looking for another player in a slightly better position. Get the goal in your sights, have a crack.

Don't think any of the above would require a fundamental change in our style, just a little more adventure and quality where it counts.

 

[BUTTERBALL]

With a few adjustments ie tempo, I want to stick with Gus's template

 

[HastingsSeagull]

Pure hoof no but certainly a big element. Not that it would suit any of our current retained players. So won't happen. Thankfully.

 

[HenryC]

I find it interesting (and very comforting) that a seemingly large majority place a huge importance on the style of football that we play...I don't know about others but I now find it very irritating when I see teams playing the hoofball style. The latest team that I have noticed in this regard is England...they show no patience at all and can't wait to loft it down the channels or kick it vertically. Also West Ham last year springs to mind and, of course Stoke. Having been spoilt over the last few years by our flairmeisters I don't think I'd be happy to pay to watch some of these other teams...

 

[yxee]

If we actually played like Barcelona, with a coherent strategy, with midfielders running all over the place, rarely (if ever) misplacing passes, and pressing as if our lives depended on it to regain possession, then I'd love it. At the moment we're not that, we're just a team that wins games quite often because of the talent of our players... an awkward hybrid between a successful possession-based team and one that is afraid to shoot from distance or misplace a long ball.

The effectiveness of it is shown in our win/draw/loss record. We're conceding few goals, and scoring few. Passing it around without regular penetration is not making games more exciting to watch, it's sterilising them as we stacked up endless draws. Honestly, I'd rather see us throw the steady build up out the window and go for broke trying to win a game, at the risk of throwing away a drawing position, once in a while. That's more exciting to me than aiming to break a pass completion record so that commentators can regurgitate "pretty football" cliches.