I'm worried but have t accept we have fundamentally changed

[greyarea]

...our style of play. We are no longer going to be a 70% possession based team, playing in the other teams half with a high press, looking to force mistakes.

We are going to be a team who are going to look break on any lose situations and fight/pressure as the opposition enter a fighting zone just over half way. We are going to have less possession.

Personally I am worried and loved David Wagner's quite complex system of play. I like the notion of if we have the ball the opposition cannot score.  

Wagners was all about compression of space and forming overloads in key areas of the halfspaces. It is true we dominated games without scoring lots of goals, through recycling possession, but it did mean we could see out games 1-0, 2-1, etc. Especially in the promotion season and first season in the Prem. 

Under Siewert we will be more attacking but also much more open. Because we are going to be playing a structure over 70yards of the pitch. 

The players are working hard but I do worry about the tactics we are employing.


Please, to any God out there, even if it is the great Om and will buy a tortoise statue if we can get a win against Fulham on friday. Please, please let us turn this dark corner.

[dugnet]

Our lack of quality in the centre of the pitch was all too evident yesterday.

The first half was pretty even with both sides having a couple of opportunities.

The 2nd after we went ahead was about holding a shape and seeing the game out. I would have preferred that we had looked to take control of the game and get another to win it. Perhaps it was a lack of confidence having won so fee games for so long? Our one player who has the ability to unlock a defence is Pritchard. When he had the ball there were so few options ahead of him things broke down.

Defensively we were adequate, Kachunga may lack quality to be a match winner but work rate and effort couldn't be faulted. Quaner offered nothing up front but he put in the effort to track and defend.

Diakhaby is bloody frustrating, ability to burn but disappears in games.

Having been very critical of Siewert this week at least we had a solid shape and coped defensively. However this was against a very average QPR team. There was no evidence of a team looking to be in control of the game. Is this down to tactics/coaching or poor balance in the team or down to a lack of quality in key areas? Or is it a combination of all 3?

It was better than Derby, it also reaffirmed how tough this league is but if anyone had any hopes of mounting a credible challenge at the top end of the table there wasn't much to provide real hope. Overall to return to the Championship as average but moribund is disappointing. All the issues debated in the the last week are still pertinent and we are only a couple of bad results away from real frustration being vented at those in charge.

Sadly, bar either Siewert really improving things (no evidence yet this is likely), proving many of us wrong and saving his job, we can't change much until January. What it did highlight was that the recruitment decisions taken over the past 18 months had not served us well.

The best I can see this season is remaining in the Championship, having just been relegated being happy to avoid another relegation is not much of a comforting thought really.

[Bassingham Terrier]

One thing that definitely changed was that we took the lead.
This created a situation that we are wholly unaccustomed to.
We now have to relearn how to defend a lead.
Yesterday was a perfect example of how NOT to do it; sit back, invite pressure and expect Quaner to jump and head a ball.

[turbo2]

Aug 11, 2019 8:44:52 GMT 1 Bassingham Terrier said:

One thing that definitely changed was that we took the lead.
This created a situation that we are wholly unaccustomed to.
We now have to relearn how to defend a lead.
Yesterday was a perfect example of how NOT to do it; sit back, invite pressure and expect Quaner to jump and head a ball.

That’s a great point MT. I said after the game that we need a win simply to remember what it feels like

But to win you have to learn how to defend a lead and that’s something we’ve not done in a long time

[Chips Longhorn]

Greyarea you were coming on here in February predicting we would beat the drop. If you are now accepting we are rubbish maybe that means we are turning a corner ;-)

[Walton-on-the-Hill Terrier]

Greyarea’s thread titles always read as if they belong on Newsnow.