Parker, tactics and the board

bigfatolly said:
I seem to remember going to City and Spurs under Eddie ,playing defensively and getting hit for 5 .
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Eddie started by attacking them, then switched to mass rank defending. Whatever the system you will probably lose if it’s Liverpool, Spurs and Man City and the others you can catch on a poor season or off day slightly more easily. I think it’s a free hit so might as well have a go at it…
 
Neil Dawson said:
Eddie started by attacking them, then switched to mass rank defending. Whatever the system you will probably lose if it’s Liverpool, Spurs and Man City and the others you can catch on a poor season or off day slightly more easily. I think it’s a free hit so might as well have a go at it…
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If it’s truly a “free hit”, it’s more valid (imho) to use the opportunity to practice and refine playing the system Parker believes will yield results against “weaker” teams. There weren’t many positives from the first half performance, but the team can learn from what went wrong - collectively and individually.

I do agree it’s more entertaining to “have a go” if you’re very likely to lose either way. But I think we should save the Hail Mary football for the time being. Few of us expected to gain anything from this run of 3 games save experience of playing against the best players in the league. The learning points from these 3 games may however prove to be crucial in helping us pick up points elsewhere. We won’t of course know until later in the season.
 
Standent said:
If it’s truly a “free hit”, it’s more valid (imho) to use the opportunity to practice and refine playing the system Parker believes will yield results against “weaker” teams. There weren’t many positives from the first half performance, but the team can learn from what went wrong - collectively and individually.

I do agree it’s more entertaining to “have a go” if you’re very likely to lose either way. But I think we should save the Hail Mary football for the time being. Few of us expected to gain anything from this run of 3 games save experience of playing against the best players in the league. The learning points from these 3 games may however prove to be crucial in helping us pick up points elsewhere. We won’t of course know until later in the season.
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Indeed, was thinking similar yesterday, as in if you're considering formations, styles, there's probably more 'value' in being effective in the games you have higher chance of winning in... obviously you want to go into all the games trying to win.

So whilst its not as simple of course as saying 'well we'll play like we did v Villa against all mid to lower 'ranked' teams' and win so it doesn't matter if we get hammered v the 'elite', there could be a possibility that Parker' way may be extremely effective against our peers, which is more important imo over the course of the season. Remember, our record against the 6 in Championship was very good, the best of all the clubs iirc, so maybe his formula will deliver again this season against mid/lower teams... hopefully that is the case!
 
Standent said:
If it’s truly a “free hit”, it’s more valid (imho) to use the opportunity to practice and refine playing the system Parker believes will yield results against “weaker” teams. There weren’t many positives from the first half performance, but the team can learn from what went wrong - collectively and individually.

I do agree it’s more entertaining to “have a go” if you’re very likely to lose either way. But I think we should save the Hail Mary football for the time being. Few of us expected to gain anything from this run of 3 games save experience of playing against the best players in the league. The learning points from these 3 games may however prove to be crucial in helping us pick up points elsewhere. We won’t of course know until later in the season.
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You can practise and refine a system against the top teams, hoping that when you play the weaker teams you will be better all you want , but many of the weaker teams will pick us apart if we attempt to play the way we have in the last 2 games.

We seem to lack energy and a clue about how we want to play . Launching the ball to Moore who is isolated is not a style.
Saturday we improved second half but the reality of clear chances are that it could easily have been 6 or 7 if it wasn’t for Travers .
I know Arsenal are a good team but we made them look so much better by not laying a single glove on them.

You have to be brave in football, and I hope Parker does take the shackles off and allows us to properly play
 
bigfatolly said:
I seem to remember going to City and Spurs under Eddie ,playing defensively and getting hit for 5 .
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Outside of the odd occasion, I think you might be confusing playing defensively with not having an opportunity to attack.

After every defeat it would be "look at Burnley they didn't give [different top 6 side] a sniff THAT's how we should play", now it's "look at Leeds they pressed all the way up the pitch THAT's how we should play".

Then it was "we need to adapt our game for the bigger sides", now it's "a free hit we should use it as a training match"
 
bpl234 said:
You can practise and refine a system against the top teams, hoping that when you play the weaker teams you will be better all you want , but many of the weaker teams will pick us apart if we attempt to play the way we have in the last 2 games.

We seem to lack energy and a clue about how we want to play . Launching the ball to Moore who is isolated is not a style.
Saturday we improved second half but the reality of clear chances are that it could easily have been 6 or 7 if it wasn’t for Travers .
I know Arsenal are a good team but we made them look so much better by not laying a single glove on them.

You have to be brave in football, and I hope Parker does take the shackles off and allows us to properly play
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Yes, but again, we did fine v Villa, its just the recent 2 games that's caused concern in some quarters. I doubt we're going to 'perform' like v other teams.
 
When you're penned in defending you need a pacy outlet.

Unfortunately with Solanke missing Moore, on the rare occasion we got out of our own half had a ball hoofed up to him 10 yards inside the opposition half with two defenders to contend with.

If he did manage to retain possession his nearest team mate was 25 yards away.

No slight on Moore as he will be valuable when Solanke is fit, but the lone target man in a team defending, generally went out of style in 1985.

If you're going to play like that you have to have a speedy player and hit the channels, or at least play the ball on the deck.

We really need Solanke back.
 
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I think you can arguably say Man City and Liverpool away (and possibly home) are "free hits", but if we're going to say the whole top six are in that category then that's effectively a third of the season we're writing off. We need to play in a style that at least gives them something to worry about and it needs to be a clear style. Palace have done it through counter attacking at pace, Leeds and Fulham through a high, energetic press. Just pick a style that isn't sit back and whack it up to Moore, as that will yield success about 0.0001% of the time.

If we go to Anfield and set up like that it'll be lambs to the slaughter. A month in to the season and we'll have had one competitive match....missing the Championship a bit already!
 
Kudos said:
Outside of the odd occasion, I think you might be confusing playing defensively with not having an opportunity to attack.

After every defeat it would be "look at Burnley they didn't give [different top 6 side] a sniff THAT's how we should play", now it's "look at Leeds they pressed all the way up the pitch THAT's how we should play".

Then it was "we need to adapt our game for the bigger sides", now it's "a free hit we should use it as a training match"
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Eddie went from attacking all teams with abandon (generalised synopsis… lost to top teams, beat the bottom teams) to counter attacking all teams (general synopsis defeated less heavily by top teams less effective against bottom teams and eventually relegated as a result). The adaption of games I always hoped for with him was that he would have two styles available and play his old way against the bottom teams and counter attacking against the top teams. Maybe it’s not possible to effectively switch styles through the season though. Too much for players? What do I know compared to him but to me it made sense!
 
MB1980 said:
Yes, but again, we did fine v Villa, its just the recent 2 games that's caused concern in some quarters. I doubt we're going to 'perform' like v other teams.
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The Villa game seems to be becoming a poster boy for ‘we will be alright’. We had 34% possession at home, 3 shots on target of which 2 went in, and an astonishingly low (for the PL) 70% passing accuracy which was due to the lumping the ball up front at every opportunity. I’m not one of the stattos on here but know enough about the game to say it’s hard to repeat these statistics and win.
 
Kudos said:
Outside of the odd occasion, I think you might be confusing playing defensively with not having an opportunity to attack.

After every defeat it would be "look at Burnley they didn't give [different top 6 side] a sniff THAT's how we should play", now it's "look at Leeds they pressed all the way up the pitch THAT's how we should play".

Then it was "we need to adapt our game for the bigger sides", now it's "a free hit we should use it as a training match"
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Same old story...If we lose it's the wrong approach no matter what it is, and if there's a long-winded way of blaming the board even better. It doesn't matter if it completely contradicts previous criticisms of how we approached these games because you can always declare some alternative approach would have worked. This season is going to be so tiresome.. probably on the pitch, definitely on here.
 
Neil Dawson said:
The Villa game seems to be becoming a poster boy for ‘we will be alright’. We had 34% possession at home, 3 shots on target of which 2 went in, and an astonishingly low (for the PL) 70% passing accuracy which was due to the lumping the ball up front at every opportunity. I’m not one of the stattos on here but know enough about the game to say it’s hard to repeat these statistics and win.
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Playing devil's advocate, I'd point out certain clubs and managers have made a life for themselves doing just that repeatedly!

This is a rather harsh and one sided way of presenting that game.

Our 2-3 chances were the only decent chances of the entire game, because our defence was good enough to restrict Villa to shooting wide from 25 yards + all game. As you said yourself that day, it was the best organised we'd ever looked in the PL.

If you can monopolise the decent chances in any match, you're probably going to win.

Obviously we're not going to keep Man City, Arsenal (or Liverpool) away from goal all game no matter how well organised. So there is fair argument for wanting to carry more threat and accept we will give chances up at the other end inevitably.

Against City, two of the goals came about directly because we went on the attack, and got counter-attacked. We could have camped in our half and refused those openings to go forwards, and probably kept the score down to maybe 2 or 3, but we do have to find a balance.

I think most would agree our second half balance on Saturday was better. But let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater and denigrate what we have done well so far this season for the sake of fitting a narrative.
 
I would never favour 5-4-1 or 5-3-2 as a regular formation. Luckily it worked against Villa but overall is a recipe for disaster. The team needs two decent wingers who can perform at this level. Of the current squad I would probably favour Anthony and Brooks although the latter isn’t a true winger really.
 
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northstandmark said:
Playing devil's advocate, I'd point out certain clubs and managers have made a life for themselves doing just that repeatedly!

This is a rather harsh and one sided way of presenting that game.

Our 2-3 chances were the only decent chances of the entire game, because our defence was good enough to restrict Villa to shooting wide from 25 yards + all game. As you said yourself that day, it was the best organised we'd ever looked in the PL.

If you can monopolise the decent chances in any match, you're probably going to win.

Obviously we're not going to keep Man City, Arsenal (or Liverpool) away from goal all game no matter how well organised. So there is fair argument for wanting to carry more threat and accept we will give chances up at the other end inevitably.

Against City, two of the goals came about directly because we went on the attack, and got counter-attacked. We could have camped in our half and refused those openings to go forwards, and probably kept the score down to maybe 2 or 3, but we do have to find a balance.

I think most would agree our second half balance on Saturday was better. But let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater and denigrate what we have done well so far this season for the sake of fitting a narrative.
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im not denigrating a well organised performance. I’m just pointing out before it gets used too much as a blueprint that the chances are if you have 34% possession in any match and create 3 chances you won’t win many games of football. One of our goals was deflected… on another day that deflection doesn’t fall as kindly… We have to either up possession higher up the pitch or create more chances. We’ve had two shots on target in the subsequent 180 mins so five shots on target in three games of football. Ask Fulham fans how this pans out….
 
Every season usually has defining moments... Last year it was the P'boro game and the booing... I think/hope, Arsenal could be that game, despite it being ridiculously early in the season. I know this spell of games will not define our season 1 bit, however, I think most on here would have believed we could have maybe nicked a point against Arsenal... and certainly didn't think the 45 minute first half onslaught was going to happen. It really was men v boys, however I am adamant that it was more to do with how Parker set us up as opposed to the personnel out on the field...

At 0-2 Arsenal would have come out knowing they were still in a game and had a job to do still, yet we came out with renewed vigour, a change of formation and a couple of subs and we began to dominate, albeit only for 10 mins... But had we started the game in that fashion, we would never have been 0-3 down on 55 mins...

Parker needs to look at himself for that first half as much as the players. We do need a couple of new players yes, but we do have quality in our ranks... It just needs to be utilised better, as several players are clearly not comfortable in the whole 'chasing shadows' defensive set up...

... and PLEASE can we forget about playing Moore up top on his own...
 
LewSwimmin said:
"I was bitterly disappointed with the first half, really," Parker said in his post-match press conference. "I thought we showed a real lack of humility about us."
Has anyone got any idea on what he meant by that statement?
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My guess is he wanted to say something like, "we showed too much respect to Arsenal, we showed too much humility, we were deferential."

But I guess he got his words mangled up a bit.
 
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