Parking the Bus

[Booker4]

So I've read as many will the comments from City fans on the View From, and I decided to debate with a few of them on their forum on various points which probably is a waste of time and obviously you're outnumbered, but one thing they seemed to think was that teams that park the bus deserve to lose because it's negative and that ultimately it doesn't work because you end up conceding at some point anyway and deny yourselves the opportunities to attack by playing so defensively. I think if we'd tried to attack more we'd have got ripped apart. The way Bournemouth and Brentford play was mentioned as a better way to play against City, personally I think we're not comparable to Brentford as they have built their success on an almost unique transfer strategy and been able to sign some very good technical players which are the envy of many. Against teams in and around us then I'd expect that we'll have more of a go but even then I wouldn't expect swathes of attacking moves. In my view Hecky got it spot on yesterday, they think he and our tactics are prehistoric which just sounds very entitled but there you go.

But I'm interested as to what other Blades think, am I in the minority that thought we got it right yesterday? We also had no experienced strikers again yesterday but Traore in particular is looking a great addition. If we'd attacked more could we have opened the scoring and then sat back more? I think we'd have given far more opportunities to them if we'd attacked more/committed more forward.

 

[Davalon]

As well as the fact that we're looking to play a more counter attacking style this season (from Hecky himself), I think our approach yesterday won't be a regular occurrence.

Taking into account the opposition mostly, but also the players we had on the pitch, especially up front, we can't go toe to toe with City and expect anything other than a comfortable loss.

We'll need to be more adventurous in plenty of games and I'm sure we will be but it's getting the balance for me. Close losses to the big teams could make the difference literally, on goals at the seasons end.

I'm not advocating regularly negative set ups but at this moment we haven't got the personnel to take games to the bigger clubs like we did in the Champ. It's being pragmatic.

I'm not expecting Hecky to take the Warnock away game tactical route which bordered on cowardice but equally its about points, not entertaining the PL day trippers and boring pundits.

 

[United Aren't Back.]

As long as we don't start idolising the likes of Manchester City and saying 'we are expected to get a draw against that' then I'll be able to accept it. Put up a fight, and attack when practical.

 

[Benitachel]

I thought we got it right yesterday. Before hand I thought we were in for a hiding. At the end I was disappointed we didn’t get a draw. If we had their money then of course we wouldn’t park the bus.

 

[Whiston Blade]

We have to play to our strengths, if we went toe-to-toe with Manchester & tried to play like them, attack more and go for it we'd have got battered. The stats say we got battered but the score line say's otherwise. We were so close to getting a huge point. On another day we would have come out with a draw.

I really don't care what other teams fans or the pundits think about how we play. We've spent nowt compared to the money they've thrown around.

 

[Ndiayewillalwaysloveyou]

A draw would have felt like a win in the PL.

 

[Broomhall Blade]

I think you have to factor in we are behind alot of teams in preparation.
We lost our two best players pretty close to the opening day of the season, we have made 8 signings one only yesterday and a fair few who haven't had a proper Pre-Season.
I also think our Pre-Season was poor admittedly it was effected by some of the points above, but we didn't seem too play many games with the players who were going too start.

 

[mcbladeface]

They do come across as particularly entitled ("it's so boring for us to watch defensive teams every week" oh boo-fucking-hoo). They are speaking from a position of unbelievable privilege and have become incredibly ignorant to what it's actually like for a lot of other teams.

Us getting promotion in all likelihood staved off administration but it has hardly delivered us to safety either and our position remains financially precarious even with the promise of parachute payments. This is something they simply can no longer comprehend in the slightest. They aren't about to go under or run out of money. They whinge because our priority shockingly wasn't to put on a spectacle or "have a crack" but to put out a performance that might nick us a point or at least keep our goal difference respectable so we can keep alive a slim hope of staying up. If it were toward the end of the season where we're several points adrift and need points then maybe they'd have a point but at this stage in the season? Really?

They're clueless. They either need to realise we aren't all here to make them look good or accept that one of the consequences of amassing a squad as good as theirs means that they're going to have to watch teams shut up shop against them.

 

[Flumps]

Incredibly easy to have that attitude when you have that squad with their wealth and capability. It's like Verstappen having a go at me for not being up his arse on the race track when he's in his F1 car and I'm in me diesel.

Can't outright say it but I suspect yesterday was about limiting the damage and avoiding embarrassment, they certainly did that and even Haaland looked to be getting pissed off, his reaction when he scored looked more like a "thank fuck for that" than anything.

Burnley have twice now played the way city want teams to play against them and they conceded what? About 9 goals over those two matches?

 

[Yoonited]

So I've read as many will the comments from City fans on the View From, and I decided to debate with a few of them on their forum on various points which probably is a waste of time and obviously you're outnumbered, but one thing they seemed to think was that teams that park the bus deserve to lose because it's negative and that ultimately it doesn't work because you end up conceding at some point anyway and deny yourselves the opportunities to attack by playing so defensively. I think if we'd tried to attack more we'd have got ripped apart. The way Bournemouth and Brentford play was mentioned as a better way to play against City, personally I think we're not comparable to Brentford as they have built their success on an almost unique transfer strategy and been able to sign some very good technical players which are the envy of many. Against teams in and around us then I'd expect that we'll have more of a go but even then I wouldn't expect swathes of attacking moves. In my view Hecky got it spot on yesterday, they think he and our tactics are prehistoric which just sounds very entitled but there you go.

But I'm interested as to what other Blades think, am I in the minority that thought we got it right yesterday? We also had no experienced strikers again yesterday but Traore in particular is looking a great addition. If we'd attacked more could we have opened the scoring and then sat back more? I think we'd have given far more opportunities to them if we'd attacked more/committed more forward.

Why would Hecky set us up to be lambs to the slaughter.Good on ya Booker for exploring though I imagine you were always going to get the responses you did.
They probably reflect closed minded "fans" who don't pay much attention to much outside the tittyhad.
Hal's guest on SUW today gave a more balanced view.
City aren't our yardstick so let em talk their ill conceived nonsense.
Shearer n Richards said we were excellent and are probably more qualified to analyse.
I realise they're not the word of god.
Given our resources the game plan was bob on.
The crowd seemed to think so too

 

[Freethinker]

Why would Hecky set us up to be lambs to the slaughter.Good on ya Booker for exploring though I imagine you were always going to get the responses you did.
They probably reflect closed minded "fans" who don't pay much attention to much outside the tittyhad.
Hal's guest on SUW today gave a more balanced view.
City aren't our yardstick so let em talk their ill conceived nonsense.
Shearer n Richards said we were excellent and are probably more qualified to analyse.
I realise they're not the word of god.
Given our resources the game plan was bob on.
The crowd seemed to think so too

I thought the tactics were ok but we didn't do enough with the ball when we had it we basically hoofed it over the midfield for it to come straight back,if the midfield are as good as we think we should have some possession, so why hoof it over them, only when mcburnie came on did the ball begin to stick and some passing football started,I realize they're miles ahead of us but we shouldn't be afraid of passing to feet imo.

 

[Colombia Blade]

It's a difference of perspective isn't it? If you're a relatively young/new Man City fan (below the age of 30 ish), then you're likely watching football to be entertained, and want opposition teams to play so that City can entertain them. Older Man City fans who supported their team while spiralling down to the third tier and back probably have a more humble view. We don't have the money to be entertaining, we have the money to maybe ground out results any way we can. Only when City win the league or a cup final can a lot of their fans get as excited/emotional as we did just scoring a random goal against them. Yes, we parked the bus, and it very nearly got us something out of the game - something young City fans will never ever be able to understand...

 

[shorehamview]

“Parking the bus” is a tactic weaker teams employ against stronger ones. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Moaning when the opposition do it is just that, moaning. Just because they’re the best team in the world right now doesn’t mean Hecky should tell his team to roll over and have their tummies tickled and let the megastars score a bucketful.

They’re free to not like it, and we are free to take no notice, or to tell them to stop whining like a bunch of entitled brats, because that’s what they’re coming across as.

Little skint Sheffield United didn’t let the champions score lots? Tough shit.

 

[YES Blade]

End of the day, how ever we approach a match against Man City is likely to end in defeat.

Parking in the bus is really our only hope and even then it only gives us a slim hope. It’s pretty ridiculous the gap in quality that exists in the Premier League.

 

[SuperBobbyHatton]

Totally agree, any other way would have been madness. Their fans will have to learn to live with it and stop whining because poorer, less talented teams are not there to enable them to go to a 7-0 hammering every week.

 

[Edgar Allan Poo]

All out attack next time and send the goalie up for corners too.

 

[Bennyand the Blades]

Lot of fresh faces around the team, so lets give them time to gel before we start getting too critical ..
I know we all want it now, but I think we wont know how good the new team is till around Christmas when they've settled in ....

 

[Booker4]

They do come across as particularly entitled ("it's so boring for us to watch defensive teams every week" oh boo-fucking-hoo). They are speaking from a position of unbelievable privilege and have become incredibly ignorant to what it's actually like for a lot of other teams.

Us getting promotion in all likelihood staved off administration but it has hardly delivered us to safety either and our position remains financially precarious even with the promise of parachute payments. This is something they simply can no longer comprehend in the slightest. They aren't about to go under or run out of money. They whinge because our priority shockingly wasn't to put on a spectacle or "have a crack" but to put out a performance that might nick us a point or at least keep our goal difference respectable so we can keep alive a slim hope of staying up. If it were toward the end of the season where we're several points adrift and need points then maybe they'd have a point but at this stage in the season? Really?

They're clueless. They either need to realise we aren't all here to make them look good or accept that one of the consequences of amassing a squad as good as theirs means that they're going to have to watch teams shut up shop against them.

Nails it for me that! Their argument, from those that had the view, was that it doesn't work to park the bus; well had Larouci not given away the ball so easily I'm not so sure City would have scored again. We were defending so well and whilst they had chances, it still needed a top corner finish to win it. Brentford are not comparable to us in my opinion, we are more akin to when Burnley went up under Dyche and whilst I think we arguably play better football than Burnley did then, we have a similar small budget and have to play accordingly. Will be interesting to see how we play v the other top sides, I doubt it will be massively different even when we have more attacking players. We'll see but I loved yesterday and thought we played exactly the right way.

 

[unchosen]

 

[Gimli]

So I've read as many will the comments from City fans on the View From, and I decided to debate with a few of them on their forum on various points which probably is a waste of time and obviously you're outnumbered, but one thing they seemed to think was that teams that park the bus deserve to lose because it's negative and that ultimately it doesn't work because you end up conceding at some point anyway and deny yourselves the opportunities to attack by playing so defensively. I think if we'd tried to attack more we'd have got ripped apart. The way Bournemouth and Brentford play was mentioned as a better way to play against City, personally I think we're not comparable to Brentford as they have built their success on an almost unique transfer strategy and been able to sign some very good technical players which are the envy of many. Against teams in and around us then I'd expect that we'll have more of a go but even then I wouldn't expect swathes of attacking moves. In my view Hecky got it spot on yesterday, they think he and our tactics are prehistoric which just sounds very entitled but there you go.

But I'm interested as to what other Blades think, am I in the minority that thought we got it right yesterday? We also had no experienced strikers again yesterday but Traore in particular is looking a great addition. If we'd attacked more could we have opened the scoring and then sat back more? I think we'd have given far more opportunities to them if we'd attacked more/committed more forward.

I mean Bournemouth lost 9-0 to Liverpool last season so I can’t really see how that should be something to try and emulate, City are considerably better than Liverpool too.

They can say what they want about how they would like us to play - usually they want teams to attack because it makes it easier for them, I suspect they might be a little bit annoyed that we didn’t just roll over for them and take our 4-0 beating like a good little relegation team.

At the end of the day, we played how we did and with 5 minutes left (plus however many hours of stoppage time admittedly) we were level at 1-1 so which method is more effective?

 

[itsinyerblood]

Clearly they are well past the sucking stage, they have a serious need to swallow too.

To offer a genuine attacking threat we'd need 2-3 technically gifted attacking players, plus at least one creative midfield (Pirlo comes to mind) who can thread a needle like it's second nature.

Defensively they are good, no doubt, but our job isn't to make life easy for anyone, but I guess that's what they refer to as 'cowardly'.........strewth, give me strength.

 

[loveWalrusDaveTheBlade]

We should play exactly how the opposition don’t want us to play. We very nearly pulled it off yesterday despite being clearly the weaker of the two teams.
Weaker teams would be very happy if we choose to park the bus against them. It is for that reason that we won’t.

 

[Pedro's Winger]

Right approach yesterday given the opposition but we were still disappointing in terms of retaining possession on the occasions we had it.
Same problem in the Palace home game and unless we find a way to keep and use the ball far better we'll be going down very quickly as we'll simply not create anywhere near enough chances to win games.

 

[loveWalrusDaveTheBlade]

Right approach yesterday given the opposition but we were still disappointing in terms of retaining possession on the occasions we had it.
Same problem in the Palace home game and unless we find a way to keep and use the ball far better we'll be going down very quickly as we'll simply not create anywhere near enough chances to win games.

Agreed. McBurnie made a huge difference when he came on yesterday - he was able to hold the ball when receiving it up front, and then used it intelligently to build attacks. I really like Osula, but McBurnie gave him an object lesson in how to withstand the physical pressure of their Centre halves ( particularly given that the ref seemed blind to the amount of shoving that Osula received yesterday), and make the ball stick.
Needs more than him to address the challenge that you highlight, but I think it will come.

 

[SittingontheBall]

Before kick off I would have taken 0-3.
At 88mins I was in dreamland.
By 97mins I was disappointed.
By 120mins I was proud of the way we played (and still a bit disappointed not to have got a point).

If it takes parking the bus against the treble winners to get me there I’ll take it any day of the week.

Anyone who’s a regular on here knows that our ‘faithful’ have a habit of turning on their perceived underperforming players out of pure disappointment. They’ve paid so much for their players that when they’re disappointed they blame the opposition cloggers and busparkers and lenient referees. Can’t possibly be their superstars that almost fell short, can it?

I quite like that they’re disappointed after playing us.

 

[Gimli]

To add to my previous comment above, I generally find that any approach that the opponents don’t like is pretty decent

 

[Ned the Donkey]

I thought we got it right yesterday. Before hand I thought we were in for a hiding. At the end I was disappointed we didn’t get a draw. If we had their money then of course we wouldn’t park the bus.

Exactly.

 

[sheff_blade90]

we've been on both sides of this as we been huge team in championship & L1. weve been the minnow in the premier league. our job is to get a point & if we get a bonus then brilliant

but these teams have forgotten about is they are victims of their own success. we know we cant go toe to toe. this is a team that last season but 4 past real Madrid & sevilla, 6 past man utd & 7 past leipzeg. so if they can do that champions league teams what on earth would they do to us.

 

[SwissBlade]

So I've read as many will the comments from City fans on the View From, and I decided to debate with a few of them on their forum on various points which probably is a waste of time and obviously you're outnumbered, but one thing they seemed to think was that teams that park the bus deserve to lose because it's negative and that ultimately it doesn't work because you end up conceding at some point anyway and deny yourselves the opportunities to attack by playing so defensively. I think if we'd tried to attack more we'd have got ripped apart. The way Bournemouth and Brentford play was mentioned as a better way to play against City, personally I think we're not comparable to Brentford as they have built their success on an almost unique transfer strategy and been able to sign some very good technical players which are the envy of many. Against teams in and around us then I'd expect that we'll have more of a go but even then I wouldn't expect swathes of attacking moves. In my view Hecky got it spot on yesterday, they think he and our tactics are prehistoric which just sounds very entitled but there you go.

But I'm interested as to what other Blades think, am I in the minority that thought we got it right yesterday? We also had no experienced strikers again yesterday but Traore in particular is looking a great addition. If we'd attacked more could we have opened the scoring and then sat back more? I think we'd have given far more opportunities to them if we'd attacked more/committed more forward.

I saw a lot of these comments on Roy's View From and they were both surprising and unsurprising.

Prior to the game, i would've taken a -1 GD defeat. I didn't hold out much hope of a draw and no chance of a win, unless we got a freak break away goal. A newly promoted Blades team last time around, i'd have given more chance, but the start this season has been slower due to late arrivals of new players and several players not having been replaced in time, so i didn't give us much hope against the Champions of Europe, FA Cup and Premier League.

We played City at Wembley a few months ago with a much more cohesive team and we got beat 3-0... so to get anything better than that in a season when GD will be very very important, i think a solid defensive performance was always going to be key.

We're not an established PL side and whilst i don't put too much emphasis on player values and spending, the success of Man City and the strength of their side is something we couldn't take lightly.

We parked the bus to limit damage to our GD. We wouldn't do the same against many of the sides below the top 6 so it was a cautious approach.

Even at 0-1 down, i was reluctant to try and push too much because we'd not made much progress into their half all game, so you'd forgive us for sticking to a 0-1 defeat.

I thought chasing the equaliser was quite bold. That might sound a defeatist attitude and its rare that i think like this but i really think the GD will be so important.

Really showed some fight to go for and get the equaliser as well, so its good that we did go for it.

In another game we might've hung on, but in another game we might've also been 2-3 down by HT. So i can't really fault our approach in the end.

I actually think we didn't disgrace ourselves and we got a fairly decent result. City have beaten Newcastle, narrowly (no slouches) and Burnley by a convincing margin. So for us to narrowly lose with our park the bus tactics is ok for me.

I expect very different against Everton, but i'd also expect for us to focus on being solid early on, then push out more as the game goes on.

 

[Disco_Blade]

We were roughly 5 mins away from a draw against the Champions of England & Europe and still in it (Anel) with only moments to go.

So…..

We got it bang on. Well,…..very close.

As great as Man City were, I’d die of boredom watching that week in week out. Getting their only excitement from the latest 70mill signing news on Sky Sports News. No wonder they want teams to try and ‘play’ against them, tossers.

Zzzzzzzz

Maybe stick to the rules of FFP and it would be more level and teams might ‘play’ more.