Solidity in the terms of personel, yes. Not a wholesale change in tactical philosophy.

Just because you play defensively it doesn't mean you will be more solid for it. A team that's s**t defensively is better off attacking, hide the negatives, accentuate the positives.

Being s**t at defending and inviting pressure is just stupid. That's just asking for problems.

The truth is that we don't have a squad of players who are able to out results like Stoke or West Ham. We were successful last year because we had a squad capable of flexible attacking football.

Now that quality has been nulified, fullbacks stay in their own half, wingers cut inside and provide little width for a strike force that thrives on crosses and we have a midfield missing its two most creative outlets...

So we're playing this rigid style of football but are worse off for it, what's the harm in trying the same methods that worked so well before? We can't realistically do much worse than we are right now by playing the way we did last season. The crap we're trying right now isn't working, last season's way hasn't been proved to be ineffective this season because we haven't tried it!

Also, a lot of the chances that we create now are far from guilt edged and clear cut. Too many long range pot shots instead of clever link up play that results in good opportunities. Yes we're still creating chances, just not as many good ones.

Posted By: Common Sense Police, Sep 29, 23:48:14