Style of play

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Bladezz

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Obviously the Hecky discussion is circulating everywhere and someone mentioned our style of play. What is our style of play now we are in the PL?

Last time in the PL 352, we had over lapping centre halves, we passed it out from the back. I remember our like 40 pass goal at Tottenham (a) under Wilder so we tried to keep a hold of it (didn’t always work).

We were lauded around the PL as this is how you should be when promoted. Burnley we all know are trying to dominate possession they had 60% possession against Man Utd at home. Luton signed everyone 6ft+ and trying to bosh it long.

But now…we are obviously sticking with 352… but I don’t even know what our style of play is now? Our style of play against Newcastle was to bomb it long to small strikers? We sometimes try to pass it out then launch it?

I have no issue in having a long ball style but then if that’s the case we have signed the wrong players.

I think that’s the main reason Hecky is under pressure as there is no style of play anymore.
 

Bladezz said:
Obviously the Hecky discussion is circulating everywhere and someone mentioned our style of play. What is our style of play now we are in the PL?

Last time in the PL 352, we had over lapping centre halves, we passed it out from the back. I remember our like 40 pass goal at Tottenham (a) under Wilder so we tried to keep a hold of it (didn’t always work).

We were lauded around the PL as this is how you should be when promoted. Burnley we all know are trying to dominate possession they had 60% possession against Man Utd at home. Luton signed everyone 6ft+ and trying to bosh it long.

But now…we are obviously sticking with 352… but I don’t even know what our style of play is now? Our style of play against Newcastle was to bomb it long to small strikers? We sometimes try to pass it out then launch it?

I have no issue in having a long ball style but then if that’s the case we have signed the wrong players.

I think that’s the main reason Hecky is under pressure as there is no style of play anymore.
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If it was just this season it would be understandable, and you could accept it as part of the process with new players and adjusting to the Premier League. The worrying thing for me though, is that this was also the case last year in the Championship. Without Ndiaye I fear we'll be an also-ran next year if (when) we're back down there, as there is no discernible system.
 
Berkshire Blade said:
Last year we had the high press. Then we sold two of the players involved in that and haven't looked close to it whatsoever
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Yes we sold 2 players. Berge was never really the pressing player (not having a dig but he wasn’t exactly all action).

Ndiaye I agree with. So when we replaced him why didn’t we sign someone who can press?
 
As discussed on another thread, our 'style'/plan last season was simply to get it to Ndiaye and hope either him or any of the players around him could make something happen.

Without him (other than pump it long to McBurnie) I'm struggling to see what our plan is. We don't have the players to play it out from the back as without the 'free spirit' (a la Ndiaye/McGoldrick) we're far too static, predictable and easy to close down. Plus Robinson, Egan and Ahmedovic (unless he's running with it) are liabilities with ball at feet.

At this stage it really is looking like our only plan this season was Ndiaye and he's now sat on the bench in France.

Make no mistake we're bang in trouble.
 
If the plan was just to pass it to Ndiaye then we are basically saying our promotion last season was down to Ndiaye rather than Hecky?
 
We haven't had a style of play since Hecky was appointed.

Last season we were strong defensively and then had individual brilliance from McAtee and Ndiaye to create something. Clean sheets and those two players meant we grinded out a lot of wins by one goal.

This season without them we've been horrible to watch. We have no patterns of play at all.

Our back 5 knock it side to side safely at snails pace until pressed and then we go back to Wes who kicks it long and we lose possession.

We need to be moving the ball faster to create space and openings. Norwood also drops deep and gets involved in the snail passes and all of a sudden, 7 of our players are in our defensive third. This makes it so easy for teams to set a pressing trap and force us to lose the ball in a dangerous area or again, kick it long.

We need to up the tempo when playing out from the back and stop giving teams an age to setup shape while we tap it round slowly.
 
It’s impossible to judge any system from the Newcastle game, we were all over the place. At one point Egan was as far forward as a centre mid leaving acres of space behind him (which they passed round and I think scored from).

Who’s told him to do that? No one I’d assume.

Our style is still 3-5-2 I’d say, but without the wing back pushing forward. The point of that system is those two positions then covering defensive and midfield as required.

The wing backs don’t bomb on so the midfield is overloaded, causing us to compress narrow and leaving space on the wings, then we can’t defend crosses.

3-5-2 isn’t working atm, but we don’t have the personnel to play a flat 4 (we shipped goals in that formation Sunday).

So to answer the original point I don’t think we have a system / style at the moment.
 
In possession there can't be a plan because due to the gulf in class we don't have anyone good enough to get past his opposite number ...
So we just pass it safely around without threatening the opposition until we lose it.
We have no wingers to get past people and deliver crosses.
We never play the ball beyond opposing defenders for our guys to run onto.
We are too small & weak to dominate the opposition physically.
Simply put , we have no means of putting the opposition under pressure.
Changing the manager isn't going to help coz the squad is set and there's no money.
The plan has always been to get relegated having averted disaster with one season's PL money.
We just have to grin and bear it till we return to our natural home in the Championship.
 
I'm not sure what we are trying to do at the moment. Post-match, Hecky actually said "we wanted an open game". Why? Did we think that would benefit us? Why didn't we want an open game against City or Spurs, where we basically stuck every man behind the ball and tried to shithouse our way to points, but did against Newcastle?

We look like the worst coached team in the league at the moment. There are massive gaps everywhere. We don't seem to have a plan of how to build up and it's like we've done no work on pressing or what to do out of possession. I'm sure we have, but it doesn't look that way.
 
Bladezz said:
Yes we sold 2 players. Berge was never really the pressing player (not having a dig but he wasn’t exactly all action).

Ndiaye I agree with. So when we replaced him why didn’t we sign someone who can press?
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Berge was often used as the runner to come from deeper once the ball was won though. Granted he wasn't getting stuck in or harassing often himself!
 
I made a thread regarding this a couple of weeks ago.

I highlighted that from 2016 we’ve played a 3-5-2 and the first 3 years we had a few different ways we can attack with overlapping centre halfs, Duffy finding space and fleck being a box to box midfielder.

We got to the prem in 2019 and went to a flat 3 midfield but still had overlapping centre halves to create an overload.

We got relegated as we had a flat 3 midfield but with no overlapping centre halves which led to us being Dave McGoldrick FC and be an embarrassment

The past 2 seasons in the championship Hecky has got lucky having Gibbs-White & Ndiaye and he has literally said to the players, give the ball to one of them & let’s see what we can do. One of the players admitted that in a press conference ( I think it was Tommy Doyle )

The tactics this season have literally been damage limitation as we’re conceded on average 22 shots a game and we have got no outlook when we get forward. It’s fucking horrendous

We’ve got no style of play. As soon as we get the ball it’s like a game of hot potato. Any time we’re under pressure it’s a fuck it and hoof mentality, there’s no thought process about anything. We can’t expect to do a great deal with McBurnie up top cos if he wins the ball in the air, Archer will be fast asleep. Baldock/Bogle can’t attack and put a ball in the box. Thomas I haven’t seen anything to suggest me he can do either. Got no overlapping centre backs for overloads, it’s going to be a season of let’s give the ball McAtee and let’s hope he turns into Lionel Messi for a dozen games a season to give us any sort of chance.
 
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IdLiketoRogerMoore said:
As discussed on another thread, our 'style'/plan last season was simply to get it to Ndiaye and hope either him or any of the players around him could make something happen.

Without him (other than pump it long to McBurnie) I'm struggling to see what our plan is. We don't have the players to play it out from the back as without the 'free spirit' (a la Ndiaye/McGoldrick) we're far too static, predictable and easy to close down. Plus Robinson, Egan and Ahmedovic (unless he's running with it) are liabilities with ball at feet.

At this stage it really is looking like our only plan this season was Ndiaye and he's now sat on the bench in France.

Make no mistake we're bang in trouble.
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You cant keep on this Ndiaye was the team thing. we hadnt done that badly till sun. Then for whatever reason the players decided to take a rest. agree we dont have a style but to start with last season we were still playing fast one touch and go football. Its similar to what happened with Blackwell, he stopped the creativity, and we strated struggling
 
bogo40 said:
You cant keep on this Ndiaye was the team thing. we hadnt done that badly till sun. Then for whatever reason the players decided to take a rest. agree we dont have a style but to start with last season we were still playing fast one touch and go football. Its similar to what happened with Blackwell, he stopped the creativity, and we strated struggling
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Leaving Ndiaye aside then, as you request. Look at the data. Beans posted something on another thread about the number of shots we've allowed in the 5 games this season and the expected goals. We're allowing 1.8 expected goals against.... Throw in the lack of style to our play and how are we going to score goals?

Like i say, we're bang in trouble.
 

You can count the games on one hand where we looked like a real good side for 90 mins.

We often looked poor/disjoined over a full 90 under Wilder, but we had an identity and we knew how we were going to play and how we were going to score goals. Patterns, Runs, Set-Piece ideas.

Now we just pass to feet, never beyond. We are never on the front foot. We don't do much inventive at all and if we do the receiving player doesn't expect it either so nothing comes of it.

I couldn't tell you how we play, because I don't know myself.
 
Sharp as a blade said:
Our back 5 knock it side to side safely at snails pace until pressed and then we go back to Wes who kicks it long and we lose possession.
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This ^ has been the issue since the second half of last season, got away with it in the Chumpionship and even then it caused us some issues with being pressed and rushed into mistakes.
 
3-5-2 hoofball is what I've been seeing, aside from the last game. As others have said, we don't have anyone good enough to run past Premier League opposition. What I'm seeing is regular long balls either into the channels or directly to McBurnie, who I assume we're hoping can either bring it down or go down to win a free kick higher up. I don't necessarily have a big problem with that approach if there's evidence to suggest it gives us attacking opportunities, but what is so frustrating to see is when the ball lands in our third and we immediately just launch the fucker. There's rarely an attempt to actually play football on the deck when a counter opportunity arises and we just get outmuscled in the air instead. If we do actually play it on the deck, we keep possession but then that eventually just comes back to Wes to launch it.

It's difficult to fully see what our plans are because we're sat in so often defending. The goals we've scored aside from Archers first against Everton and Bogles against City have basically come from making something from a defensive clearance, either that or the second phase of corner.

We do still try Baldock/Bogle or Lowe/Thomas moving into the channels and Anel/Robbo moving up. I think just the pure talent of Ndiaye last season gave us something extra in attack and we built a lot of our style last season around that.

The biggest problem we have with our overlapping system this year is 1) actually getting into those areas without losing the ball and 2) Being able to whip a cross in from the overlap that isn't then cleared and left with Egan alone on the halfway line having a fag.

No idea what Hecky will try for West Ham but Antonio will have no problem holding up a ball from a defensive West Ham clearance and laying it off to Bowen with our wingbacks still up the field.
 
Hecky has been making a living copying Wilder's tactics/formation... minus the overlapping centre backs and the 'pashun'. Hecky couldn't motivate a dog to go on a walk
 
MojoMuffin said:
3-5-2 hoofball is what I've been seeing, aside from the last game. As others have said, we don't have anyone good enough to run past Premier League opposition. What I'm seeing is regular long balls either into the channels or directly to McBurnie, who I assume we're hoping can either bring it down or go down to win a free kick higher up. I don't necessarily have a big problem with that approach if there's evidence to suggest it gives us attacking opportunities, but what is so frustrating to see is when the ball lands in our third and we immediately just launch the fucker. There's rarely an attempt to actually play football on the deck when a counter opportunity arises and we just get outmuscled in the air instead. If we do actually play it on the deck, we keep possession but then that eventually just comes back to Wes to launch it.

It's difficult to fully see what our plans are because we're sat in so often defending. The goals we've scored aside from Archers first against Everton and Bogles against City have basically come from making something from a defensive clearance, either that or the second phase of corner.

We do still try Baldock/Bogle or Lowe/Thomas moving into the channels and Anel/Robbo moving up. I think just the pure talent of Ndiaye last season gave us something extra in attack and we built a lot of our style last season around that.

The biggest problem we have with our overlapping system this year is 1) actually getting into those areas without losing the ball and 2) Being able to whip a cross in from the overlap that isn't then cleared and left with Egan alone on the halfway line having a fag.

No idea what Hecky will try for West Ham but Antonio will have no problem holding up a ball from a defensive West Ham clearance and laying it off to Bowen with our wingbacks still up the field.
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Fookin Lmao at Egan having a fag on the halfway line.....couldn't of put it any better messen 🤣
 
Last season we did really well considering the injuries and deserved promotion. What more could we have done? We rarely played the same team two weeks running. Wilder years we could have picked the team as everybody always seemed fit barring a coupme such as Coutts and Freeman. This year we haven't had a proper pre-season with all the new players coming in so late so we are playing catch up. It is going to be a long hard slog but we have shown some good organisation and defending for most of the time. Sunday was such a one off it will be interesting to see what happens next few matches to see of the players can get over it.
 
3-5-2 is the new 4-4-2. What I mean by that is that in the last decade or so 4-4-2 became old hat. The same is happening now with 3-5-2. Very few teams in the Premier League play that system. I mean, we played 3-5-2 under Spackman over 25 years ago, so it's hardly innovative.
The three centre halves easily get left exposed when playing against a team playing 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1. The argument is that 3-5-2 is just what our players have become accustomed to playing so we can't really change it but at some point we are going to have to try and evolve.
When we do try a Plan B it seems to be a 4-4-2 (diamond) but I'm not sure that's the best option either. As for 4-3-3, we haven't got the pace, power or quality for that.
Which doesn't leave us with a lot of options.
Something like 4-3-2-1 might work, with McBurnie as the loan striker and Archer and McAtee playing off him. Having three in midfield would also give some needed protection to the back four.
 
I don’t think we have had a consistent style of play for over 2 or 3 seasons. A lot of the time I can’t see what our aim or tactics is in a match. Worryingly though quite a lot of the time the players or management don’t seem to know either. Last season we got the results but in a lot of the matches it wasn’t a great team performance, we were rescued by a great individual performance from one of the players. We could get away with that in the championship but not in the premier league.
 
What surprised me the most was that I was happy when the team was announced and we had an extra body in midfield as I felt we’ve been overran all season there. It made no difference and made it worse. Fuck knows where to go from here. I still want to see us ditch 5 at the back in the near future though, it’s become a lot easier to play against since our covid relegation season.
 
Our first year up with Wilder we had a noticeable system that was more than just 352 with overlapping cbs. We had lots of movement in midfield with Lunstram arriving in the box on the right when we attacked down the left and vice versa. Enda and George also cut inside quite a bit and received the ball centrally.

The second season was a disaster as teams figured us out and we ended up with the ball going up a wing then coming back down before going up the other wing. The teams we played ran at us down the centre and exploited our weakness of holding a high line and getting caught on the turn.

The last few seasons have been more of the same except in the championship we could match or beat the opposition. But we haven't had a specific system in evidence.

We have a number of problems to fix.
1 communication and organisation.
Midfield are leaving huge gaps and are not covering off these gaps. Our defence is not cohesive especially the 3 cbs.

2. We are too slow in moving the ball in midfield. Against Newcastle we could not string 3 passes together without the last recipient being crowded and losing the ball or humping if forward.

3. There are times when you need to hoof it but we don't have the players up top for it. McBurnie to a certain extent can do it. But nothing like Beto in the Everton game who was a real handful.

4. In the earlier games we had lots of endeavour. While not winning we were hard to beat. Sunday finished our positivity. And we need to address the lack of effort quickly.
 
Nagima said:
Our first year up with Wilder we had a noticeable system that was more than just 352 with overlapping cbs. We had lots of movement in midfield with Lunstram arriving in the box on the right when we attacked down the left and vice versa. Enda and George also cut inside quite a bit and received the ball centrally.

The second season was a disaster as teams figured us out and we ended up with the ball going up a wing then coming back down before going up the other wing. The teams we played ran at us down the centre and exploited our weakness of holding a high line and getting caught on the turn.

The last few seasons have been more of the same except in the championship we could match or beat the opposition. But we haven't had a specific system in evidence.

We have a number of problems to fix.
1 communication and organisation.
Midfield are leaving huge gaps and are not covering off these gaps. Our defence is not cohesive especially the 3 cbs.

2. We are too slow in moving the ball in midfield. Against Newcastle we could not string 3 passes together without the last recipient being crowded and losing the ball or humping if forward.

3. There are times when you need to hoof it but we don't have the players up top for it. McBurnie to a certain extent can do it. But nothing like Beto in the Everton game who was a real handful.

4. In the earlier games we had lots of endeavour. While not winning we were hard to beat. Sunday finished our positivity. And we need to address the lack of effort quickly.
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All very good points, but the major problem still remains - what are we trying to do when we get the ball? Moving fast or slow makes no frickin difference if you don't have a plan. How are we going to score goals? When coaching my lads U12's team, that's what we keep working on.

In the Wilder years it was to create overloads out wide and recycle the ball through a No 10 and shift to where we have spare men. This evolved as we got to the PL, but as you (and others) point out, this got found out and we didn't adapt.

The past two seasons we've had MGW/Ndiaye (and to a lesser extent McAtee) and we set up with quite a solid system to free them up to play. If we still had those players we'd have a valid case of continuing to play that way as against the likes of Burnley, Luton we'd be ok. However we don't. I'm not convinced this current side finishes top 2 in the Championship.

I find it staggering that we didn't have 2 or 3 contingency plans in place in case Ndiaye left, stayed but broke a leg, stayed and form dipped..... After all the angst of Sunday, this is the thing that is boiling my piss. The evidence is there that our entire season was intrinsically linked to one player and him not leaving/getting injured/form dropping.

We're bang in trouble.
 
BalticBlade said:
3-5-2 is the new 4-4-2. What I mean by that is that in the last decade or so 4-4-2 became old hat. The same is happening now with 3-5-2.
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In 2021, the champions of Italy, Spain and Europe all played 3 at the back. Leicester won the FA Cup with 3 at the back (against Chelsea, also playing 3 at the back). Has it really become old hat in just two years? Inter just got to a CL final playing 3-5-2.

Of course, they have/had better players, but that would be true in any system.
 

The players across the middle area of the pitch - Thomas, Bogle, Norwood, Souza, Hamer, McAtee are all relatively comfortable on the ball as well. There's no reason we can't act least attempt to keep the ball a bit. The 2019/20 team managed it with arguably less technical players.
 
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