What’s our style of play?

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Concentrating on last night , there were fundamental flaws in the setup which could have been corrected even with Hamer & Seriki missing from Tuesday.

Ask yourself what it was about midfield that produced that appalling first half and then what is was about Seriki that won the game on Tuesday.

It was the 3rd time Burrows had failed in MF and yet he played him there again in a 2 with a knackered Peck.

Why not put an extra body next to Peck in a 433 ?

Put Brewster or O'Hare to the R of him and Brooks to the L.

Last night we had BBD then Brewster on the L who are both R footers.
Think about what Seriki does on the R when he attacks the outside.

We had Brooks then JRS on the R who are both L footers

In the circs of a game in which we had no width and all Hull needed to do was block the middle...
Why not for once drop this goddam inverted crap and switch flankers to their natural side ?
It could not have been worse.

We could even have gone 352 but I haven't the energy to type much more.

The point is , no matter what's actually happening on the pitch (which was so obvious last night) Wilder is either stubborn to the point of failure or cannot fathom a change of setup to improve our chances.
He just puts subs on and sticks to the failing system.

And then afterwards talks about how he'd have liked more time before playing Cannon - well , don't play him then !
The RS interviewers are so shit scared of asking him anything difficult , it's almost funny.
They even forgot to ask why Seriki was out (after being the hero on Tuesday) they are so busy giving him the offside goal excuses to spare his blushes !

What's wrong with a gentle question like
"Did you consider a change of shape in view of the injuries ?"
or
"You are after a RB , is this coz Gilchrist , Seriki & Shackleton aren't enough ?"
or
"Goals conceded has increased in January - are you still looking for a CB with the attributes to replace Souttar ?"

Their boring sycophantic line of questions is never likely to jog his mind onto the real issues.
 

My Grandad said that in the 70’s John Harris told Trevor Hockey that he had one job - Win the Ball and give it to Tony.

I think our style this year for everybody has been Win the Ball and give it to Gus. No wonder we looked like headless chickens last night.

UTB & FTP!
 
Keen Blade said:
Concentrating on last night , there were fundamental flaws in the setup which could have been corrected even with Hamer & Seriki missing from Tuesday.

Ask yourself what it was about midfield that produced that appalling first half and then what is was about Seriki that won the game on Tuesday.

It was the 3rd time Burrows had failed in MF and yet he played him there again in a 2 with a knackered Peck.

Why not put an extra body next to Peck in a 433 ?

Put Brewster or O'Hare to the R of him and Brooks to the L.

Last night we had BBD then Brewster on the L who are both R footers.
Think about what Seriki does on the R when he attacks the outside.

We had Brooks then JRS on the R who are both L footers

In the circs of a game in which we had no width and all Hull needed to do was block the middle...
Why not for once drop this goddam inverted crap and switch flankers to their natural side ?
It could not have been worse.

We could even have gone 352 but I haven't the energy to type much more.

The point is , no matter what's actually happening on the pitch (which was so obvious last night) Wilder is either stubborn to the point of failure or cannot fathom a change of setup to improve our chances.
He just puts subs on and sticks to the failing system.

And then afterwards talks about how he'd have liked more time before playing Cannon - well , don't play him then !
The RS interviewers are so shit scared of asking him anything difficult , it's almost funny.
They even forgot to ask why Seriki was out (after being the hero on Tuesday) they are so busy giving him the offside goal excuses to spare his blushes !

What's wrong with a gentle question like
"Did you consider a change of shape in view of the injuries ?"
or
"You are after a RB , is this coz Gilchrist , Seriki & Shackleton aren't enough ?"
or
"Goals conceded has increased in January - are you still looking for a CB with the attributes to replace Souttar ?"

Their boring sycophantic line of questions is never likely to jog his mind onto the real issues.
Click to expand...
Shit scared of him aren't they? It's so obvious it's embarrassing to watch

It reflects terribly on Wilder, btw, because he basically bullies them into asking easy questions, clearly thinks he's above being challenged, and simply isn't interested in telling fans anything more than the bare minimum

Agree about the wingers on their natural side. To never even try it is staggering. Presumably it interferes with The Formula and "numbers"
 
Looking at last night specifically, we were always going to struggle. Regardless of how we had set up, we simply did not have any options in midfield. Even if we'd switched to a shape requiring only 2 in there, we would have, at best, had Peck and Souza, and they would have both been knackered after an hour.

To look at this season as a whole, I've been fairly satisfied with our play. While it hasn't always been the most dramatic to watch, we've gotten results, and we've done so with an utterly threadbare squad.

That said, I do get the feeling that the side is currently less than the sum ifnits parts. That, considering the quality of players we have, we should be able to deliver a more threatening style of play, in spite of the lack of quantity in the squad.

I feel like we would benefit greatly from playing a 433, rather than the 4231 we are attempting now. Just the slight change of the #10 dropping deeper, and playing as a #8, would give us much more stability, in what is the most crucial area of the pitch.

Souza (or Choudhury if/when he comes in), sat behind 2 of Arblaster/Hamer/Davies/O'Hare/Peck, not only makes it much easier to dominate a battle for possession, but also creates opportunities for runs forward from deeper midfield positions.

I know that many on here have criticised the inverted wingers used so far this season. I personally don't have a problem with them, IF they are used in tandem with a full back who is able to support properly.

Our biggest issue down the right has not been Brooks or JRS cutting in all the time. It has been not having an offensive full back behind them to create space, and a crossing threat from wide. Seriki demonstrated this wonderfully on Tuesday. Although Gilchrist's defensive contributions have been terrific for much of the season, his lack of will to get forward means the responsibility of posing a threat infield and out wide, all falls on the winger.

This is emphasised when you look at Burrows getting forward on the left, and scoring goals like the one at Blackburn. He was able to progress into the box, because his man in front of him moved infield and dragged the opposing full back out of the way.

In an ideal world where we have a fully fit squad (not accounting for potential incomings), I'd very much like to see us line up like this:

--------------------Cooper--------------------
Seriki------Anel------JLT------Burrows
---------------------Souza---------------------
---------Arblaster-------Hamer----------
Brooks----------------------------------BBD
-------------------Campbell------------------

Of course, that team includes players who aren't available, and doesn't account for possible signings we might yet make. So you can replace Seriki with Jonjoe Kenny if we sign him, JLT with any CB we might bring in, and Arblaster with O'Hare.

I have a feeling that, if we get promoted this season, that we would switch to something akin to this for the PL. Wilder made a similar tactical change, by bringing Lundstram into the side, when he last got us promoted to the Prem.

We've made terrific progress in such a short period of time. This season, we've had huge player turnover, complete tactical overhaul, and an enormous injury list. Any of those alone, could be enough to rule a team out of the running for promotion. Wilder has managed to get us to this point, firmly involved in a fight for top 2, despite dealing with all 3 at once. And that doesn't even cover the takeover, and uncertainty that that must have caused.

I'm fully behind Wilder at this point. If he gets injuries out of the way, beds new signings in, and we're still struggling, then perhaps the owners will look at it in the summer. But doing so now would be suicide.
 
If United promotion challenges under Wilder were Beatles albums they'd be;
2016/17 in League One - Please Please Me , new and exciting
2019/20 from Championship - the White Album, different and experimental
2023/25 - Let It Be, a bit tired but some of the old magic is still there.
I think.
 
1973Blade said:
If United promotion challenges under Wilder were Beatles albums they'd be;
2016/17 in League One - Please Please Me , new and exciting
2019/20 from Championship - the White Album, different and experimental
2023/25 - Let It Be, a bit tired but some of the old magic is still there.
I think.
Click to expand...
Or singles
2016/17 She loves you
2019/20 Do you want to know a secret
2024/25 We can work it out

and of course who could forget 2017/18 Hello Goodbye
 
Sheffsteel said:
Agree…when we play it does remind me of Southgate’s England.
We can have spells of looking really good but we also have spells in the same game where we fall apart or look like we’ve just met.

Sometimes our lack of cohesion is masked due to (like England) having high quality individuals who can score from nothing,
However like England team spirit and effort shown by the players is always high, so it could be worse.

Don’t think it’s quite fair to criticise Wilder too much tho due to the horrendous injuries.
Souttar was a massive loss, he dominated defence, so clean sheets looked so easy.
Also Arblaster and Vini Souza were showing signs of being the best midfielder pairing in the league, so they are a massive loss too.
Click to expand...
So many sides are playing this kind of way now. Lots of possession but then too slow to really create something. Interesting that our disallowed goal on Friday came for a long kick by Cooper and a flick on header from Brewster. What has disappointed me is that we don't seem to get bodies in the box to attack any crosses. It looks like we want the perfect goal and a tap in.
 

3 games in 6 days with a patched together team - i'm not sure it's the right time to answer that questions.

Prior to that I would say we are a high pressure team who look to force mistakes from the opposition whilst also keeping a solid base.

Additionally when we come against a team that is hard to break down we had just started to link play in the holes well (with Hamer/Campbell/O'Hare/Brewster) and that was starting to look very promising.

We then lost Campbell and Hamer was suspended.
 
It's almost as though we're still early days in a large scale rebuild. 🤷🏼‍♂️ Naff all backing by the previous owner (at least more recently), huge squad turnover and then the new owners only just coming through the door (albeit backing the manager straight away).

Who'd have thunk that that would be tricky to do. Well done to the management team and squad for being so competitive. I'm sure they'd be the first to recognise that it could be even better still.
 
Cheeky Blade said:
It was winning for a good bit…then losing then winning etc…
Click to expand...

That’s the way the pisspot cracks mate, this is Sheffield United, not Barcelona. Here we are, 2nd in the table, and still people are moaning about our style of play, or because a weakened team had a bad day at the orifice on Friday night. Sure, let’s sing when we’re winning, but let’s accept that it won’t happen every week and cut them some slack..
 
I think the "style of play" phrase is a little outdated, but I do understand the OPs point and that is, we don't have an identity.

Tactics these days are for the most part broken down into 3 parts, in possession, out of possession and transition.

My rudimentary football knowledge thinks we have some clarity on 2 of those, out of possession and transition, but it's when we are in possession where we suffer from a lack of a game plan/style of play/whatever you want to call it.

Out of possession we are pretty adaptable and we've had success pressing up high (think Norwich H, Hull A) (usually with O'Hare the first man) and conversely if we're under pressure we have been happy to sit in, get narrow and defend the box.

This will often see us have some dangerous counter attacks in transition and I can recall many a goal we've scored from. With willing runners like Hamer, O'Hare, Campbell, and now BBD, Seriki and hopefully a better JRS, we have players who can play on the break in transition as well as get back in to do some defending.

Finally, our most frustrating part, when we've got the ball. As everyone knows injuries to Blaster, Souttar and Vini have really affected us but have also significantly compounded this issue. Principally we like to play up from the back utilizing our 2 CMs/CDMs (whatever) as a base which allows fullbacks to get high and then with the 4 forward players we will have 5 to attack with, depending on the side we go down.

I've noticed a number of things in recent games which back up the need for a new CM and a new CB.
-Anel and Robbo spend far too much time passing between each other
-Without Blaster and/or Vini, we don't take it off the CB's, causing the above.
-Gilchrist and Anel's performances have suffered hugely since Souttar's absence
-We don't appear to have any patterns of play (think overlapping CBs)
-This means we don't appear to have a great deal of attacking impetus and rely on individual brilliance (or risk taking) like Hamer

We need a ball player in midfield, I suspect Vini will take over that role with Hamza as the destroyer. We need a CB who is defensively competent and can bring some confidence and stability back to Gilchrist and Anel. I want to see us have some kind of 'plan' when we've got the ball in the opposition half, as opposed to just knocking it about between players until eventually someone mis controls it or plays a hopeful ball into a channel where the opposition mop it up.
 
I become frustrated when we get to the bye-line and there's no movement from players in the box. They are static. It's crying out for a forward to get to the near post in front of the defender.

I realise with JRS and Brooks the chances of them getting to the bye-line are limited due to their inability to use 2 feet (unbelievable that we still have one footed professional footballers) but when Seriki is on it should be a given that we get to that cross first.

That's the least Seriki deserves,
 
‘Give the ball to Hamer and hope he does something with it’ pretty much sums up how we play. This supersedes giving it to Ndiaye and MGW in past Championship seasons.

We don’t press particularly well, we aren’t a massively possession heavy side, we don’t get it wide and gerritinbox, we don’t gerritforard quickly.

The formula to get us top at Christmas was to keep compact and solid at the back and in midfield and pinch a goal up the other end. Now we’ve lost the solidity at the back we are relying on individuals to win us games.
 
7/8 of our players can go on the pitch and put in a performance against anyone in this league, we have no system or style of play, whoever the coaches are I don't know whatever they're coaching during the week, but they're not tactically aware enough imo to take us any higher, we need, injuries included,. The players are out of position, Rak-Sakyi has gone from an exciting player to looking ordinary, Hamer out of position, Burrows midfield, left back, left midfielder ?🤔,
Brewster now in midfield, makes me wonder if they know what's going on, do we need another manager, coaching team to take us to the next level ?
 
I can understand not rushing players back into action from injury, but if you're going to bring them on at half time then I'd rather you start them and take them off at half time.

Surely it's better to start with a strong team and hopefully take a lead which you might have to defend with a weaker team when you take those players off, then start with a weaker team, go behind, then have to bring the stronger players on to chase the game. It baffles me that we don't do this. We hand teams an advantage and it's no coincidence that we've started to concede first.

We could've done so much better against Hull by starting Campbell with Cannon up top and Souza in midfield, then take Souza and Campbell off at half time for Brewster and someone to replace Souza.
 
ThirdGenBlade said:
My Grandad said that in the 70’s John Harris told Trevor Hockey that he had one job - Win the Ball and give it to Tony.

I think our style this year for everybody has been Win the Ball and give it to Gus. No wonder we looked like headless chickens last night.

UTB & FTP!
Click to expand...
he needs to stop getting stupid bookings were just not the same team without him
 
bornablade said:
I become frustrated when we get to the bye-line and there's no movement from players in the box. They are static. It's crying out for a forward to get to the near post in front of the defender.

I realise with JRS and Brooks the chances of them getting to the bye-line are limited due to their inability to use 2 feet (unbelievable that we still have one footed professional footballers) but when Seriki is on it should be a given that we get to that cross first.

That's the least Seriki deserves,
Click to expand...
Brooks main weakness is his lack of effort. He looks good one game then the next he looks half hearted like he doesn't care. Wilder allegedly dropped him for poor effort in training. I could believe that.

With regards to both Brooks and Rak-Sakyi, their main inability is the inability to stay wide and take on players, dragging the full back out of position which opens up gaps for the striker and supporting runner to exploit. Instead they cut inside where the full back goes with them and then the centre back assist in closing them down and they lose the ball.

"But Tony, Rak-Sakyi always gets double marked because teams recognise his threat." No he really doesn't. The above is what happens and the moron doesn't recognise it and tries to run through the middle of them both. He doesn't have the football nuance to see what is about to happen and release the ball to someone instead, usually Gilchrist on the overlap who he ignores. Rak-Sakyi has the footballing brain of a peanut.
 
raul said:
That side has gone, kaput, it has ceased to be sans the lynchpin at the back and the connecting cog in the middle are no more.

In my mind we are akin to 97/98. Wonderful till Jan - but injuries taking their toll- then post black Thursday a cobbling together patch up job until the end of the season.
Click to expand...
Surely, it's the opposite, in as much we haven't sold any of our best players (Hamer, Cooper, Souza, etc.) but actually bought in fresh faces for large money. Whilst they may not work out, the board has been positive and supported the manager; not sold the greatest assets to kill automatic promotion prospects.
 

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