Personally I want an end to these ‘caution first’ containment managers. That doesn’t mean I’m expecting guardiola type football because believe it or not you can have exciting football without constant silky passing moves.
Things that *** me off that I want to see an end to is:
No movement up front and from midfield - We seem to have had this problem for years, static isolated strikers. Monk was the only manager who looked like trying to solve it, some of the moves from Britt, braithwaite and bamford were really good when things clicked.
Aimless balls up the pitch - For the love of god can we please get a manager who isn’t seemingly happy just to see the ball going up the pitch by any means necessary. We almost always lose it and end up under pressure. Again I’m not expecting to play out from the back, but at least good it up there with a plan, target a full back or get guys up in support of the receiver.
Attacking patterns of play - When was the last time we regularly put some good forward passing moves together? When did we regularly counter with purpose and direction? Sick of seeing the majority of our goals come from seemingly ‘lucky’ ball rebounds, loose balls in the box etc. I call it ‘hopeful’ football where you just ‘get it in there’. Yes many goals will come from this route but I don’t want it to be our ONLY chance of goals.
There are other smaller things but in the end I just want a manager that wants to play football. Not one that puts defence above everything, not a launcher, not one who wants to fill the team with big lads and people that ‘get about’.
I think Karanka was the closest thing to what we can hope for, all he needed to do was just loosen up the ropes on the forwards and midfield a bit. Get the ball out a bit earlier, let players make forward runs a bit earlier.
I feel our biggest mistake was ripping up what Karanka had built, despite our performance in the premiership he had built a totally solid base to build from, it simply needed tweaking. Imagine what we could have added to the base of that team with The £50m monk had to spend.
Which I guess sums up what direction I want, stop ripping things up and starting again every couple of seasons, decide what you want and stick with it why oh why we never went for dean smith after monk left I’ll never know, he was tailor made for what we needed.
I'd like us to go back to 4 at the back now Tav is back.
Bettinelli
Dijksteel fry McNair Bola
Morsy
Saville
Tav
Kebano Watmore
Akpom
Reason I prefer 4 at the back is that I like both Bola and dijksteel but neither are creative. By having a flat back 4 and morsy sat in front of them (no where near the oppositions box) then we can focus on playing a more dynamic game ahead of those 5 without much fear of counters. Plus were playing bloody coventry, we don't need 7 dedicated defenders on the pitch.
Kebano, watmore and Tav all need to see more ball in the oppositions 3rd and I think saville would probably be the best of our average midfielders to help facilitate that because he covers a lot of grass and links things up. Howson is badly in need of a rest.
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