Neil Dawson
UTC Legend
Did you go to Arsenal Neil? I normally share your view but Wednesday but was awful. Really terrible. I didn’t want another repeat of that.
I did go to Arsenal yes. I think we could go round in circles on this and we are never going to convince each other!
It’s like we have been left with a very polarised view point on here. Arsenal we were wide open. City we were as defensive, statistically, as any team has ever been and certainly in my watching history of 40 years I have never seen a team attack less. Is there not something in the middle though? Is it not a spectrum. Chelsea at home arguably was that. Still kept five in midfield and one up front...still allowed the full backs to overlap when in possession but without the ball all bar one was back. It meant we were defensively minded with good shape but offensively we had options which took Chelsea back down the pitch and gave us a break.
That back five meant we had four players who could possibly attack, one of whom was Surman and the other a full back. That’s why we never looked like scoring, not City’s defence. We have scored against City at their place this year from open play but we had a go at them. We lost by two goals while Saturday we lost by one. Not the hugest of differences.
So, of course we should change when we play the big teams, I have been advocating that for years but you have to gamble some sort of bodies forwards if you want to claim you are trying to win. Are people seriously suggesting our record against tall, organised defenders of set pieces is that impressive we were hoping to get a free kick or corner to score off?
We played to avoid a humiliation. Fair enough, we needed to. All I am saying is next time we play a side like this let’s keep a back four and five in midfield and have a go when we are not defending. It’s the Bournemouth way and it has got us plenty of shock results. Playing the way we did Saturday never will.