cityfanlee23

People have spent most of this season talking about how we should be mid table in the prem, how Enzo is going to be one of the best in the world and we are lucky to have him, piling on anyone who has the audacity to say they want us to change a few things, cult like behaviour.

Incorrect, he's going straight to the very top and we are lucky to have him

Reminds me of old Arsenal at times, trying to walk it in. The point of this football system is to move the ball left to right QUICKLY to force the opponent to RUN to change structure causing them to tire out, this play is so damn slow you can literally see hull players walking across the pitch.

What other solution would there be if we continue throwing it away? Tbh we are only 20 mins in and I think we have the talent to win this still, but what good does sacking the board staff do to our immediate problems? and I assume this is a dig at Rudkin? is it his fault we have a manager who refuses to adapt to his players? I mean i guess it probably is in a way....

That’s what happens when you refuse to adapt a system to suit the players you have and instead force them to play a way they clearly aren’t comfortable with, and the opponents have largely figured out how to punish us for it. But hey, straight to the very top.

Tactics* They aren’t the same, infact they aren’t anywhere close, one of them is exciting too.

Fun fact, Leicester have the same amount of possession this season as Leverkusen. Possession can be both meaningful and exciting to watch….

Ignoring the penalty, what a pointless 6 minutes of meaningless passing.

I’m not suggesting we could sign him as I think he would likely get a position at a more established prem club like Brighton or West Ham, but what do people think about Scott Mctominay? He comes across as severely underrated for me, every time he plays for United he puts in a decent performance and is a very honest player who leads by example. He’s constantly coming up with winning goals/assists/created chances and yet regardless of what he does he’s constantly back on the bench. Deserves to be treated better in my opinion and I’d take him if he was available. Don’t think he’s on a mindblowing wage there either. He’s made 24 appearances and averaged 57 minutes, most of his minutes came in the first half of the season and has played as a DM, CM, CAM and even as a “shadow striker” or whatever you call that position. Versatile, young, rumoured 60k a week, proven premier league talent, contract up in 2025.

I don't think he's the worst tactician in the league by a long shot, but with that said, we have put in so many howlers this season with arguably the best team in the division. Even games where we've won comfortably we've had really poor first halves on a regular basis, with the squad we have, we should be absolutely dominating teams like tonight but we are not. We've had way more howlers than truly outstanding performances relative to our quality.

No.

I sincerely hope the club are not looking at it this way. The premier league is potentially what, 11 games away? and this team needs at minimum 10 new players who can all play the way we want.

If we go up we are in serious trouble playing this way. Take the points but my god, we need to spend an absolute fortune or Rudkin needs to perform transfer miracles

This is a VERY different Sunderland to the Mowbray team we played before. Bloody hell, should be 3-0 already but we take that goal, hopefully get another quickly and put the game to bed.

Can't see it. Hope I'm wrong but at this moment in time, I think we will scrape up in the top 2 this season, then get absolutely humbled in the premier league and Enzo will be gone before Christmas. Enzo is utterly defiant and will play this system regardless of the players he has, in the championship we have a bit of wiggle room because ultimately our players are by far some of the best in this division and that quality is seeing us through, not in the premier league though, we don't have the finances to go out and spend the 150m+ required to get this team into a technical position to be able to play this against the premier league teams. I am biased because I don't think this system works without top-class talent and I'm a gegenpress fan myself, I just cannot see us being able to pull of the 7-8 top class (cheap) signings required to make it work.

Yeah I think I may have hit my head repeatedly before typing that

I think this season they have made steps to turn around the mess they oversaw over the last few seasons, they have appointed a manager who has managed to turn the ship around, and obviously for most of this season has built a lot of belief in his system with much of the fan base and players who are sticking to it. Financially they have invested wisely this season, and we were never in a position to accommodate infinite signings. Ultimately it’s become clear that in order to play the way we want to, we needed more players which was simply not possible given we have the highest wage budget in the history of the 2nd division, a completely unsustainable wage at this level. The only issue I have with the owners at present is the lack of communication. The next big test is deciding what we do in summer, but that relies on which division we are in and how we achieve it. We need our fan groups to really force this issue and demand the owners talk to the fans or at minimum give us statements 3-4 times a season with updates on the club. But overall I don’t think they’ve done much wrong since relegation. Still a long road ahead to regain trust. I really don’t understand the argument that not spending more in January is their fault. They shouldn’t need to given the players we have.

Thankfully I’m not paid to fix these issues, but my thoughts would be if you don’t have the players to play a very specific and complex way, don’t play that way until you do, play a way that works to their strengths, and try to implement the system over time. So far it’s worked out but if we keep dropping points something has to give as the teams around us are playing pragmatic football and they are cutting the gap.

Only if Enzo refuses to change. If he plays to the teams strengths a bit more but within a loose structure of controlling the ball we have more than enough quality to comfortably go up. If he continues to be stubborn and refuses to change even when it’s clearly not working in relation to the opposition setup, personnel, or both, then we could end up in trouble. I have absolutely no faith in his ability to put his ideals aside so I’m just hoping we have enough quality to get this over the line.

I think controlling the ball is pretty much the only aspect of Man City’s play that we have adopted. Man City are very effective at “pushing the button” to attack, they go long, they play through balls through the middle, they have overlapping full backs. We don’t really attempt any of that, I think we assumed he was trying to adopt Man City’s style but in the end we are quite far away, and to be honest I no longer believe it’s because we don’t have the players capable of doing it, the parts of our game that are missing are often the most simple aspects of the game (overlapping wingbacks)

I think it’s purely down to playing style, I’ve honestly no idea why we signed him, he’s a premier league defender in the right system. I can imagine pretty much any other manager would walk into us day 1 and promote him to the starting 11. It’s really strange and a perfect example of why we can’t afford to sign an 8.

To be honest, Leadership begins in the managers office. We have plenty of characters who have been leaders before. Vestergaard was very much a leader at Southampton, Vardy has been a leader, Albrighton is very experienced and can be part of a leadership group, Coady is a leader, Winks is massively experienced and can be encouraged to lead, Vardy has been a leader of sorts. Why are none of these players stepping up where they have stepped up before? The fact we continue to play a guy guilty of drink driving on the wrong side of the road is a massive lack of leadership. Someone needs to grab these experienced players and tell them to pull themselves together because it’s clearly not coming from the top, whether that be coach or board level.

There’s definitely been an arrogance from a large section of fans that if you aren’t fully sold on the tactics or even dislike them, then you’re just too stupid to understand them. Our league position is great and we’ve had a big turnaround in fortunes, but there seems to be this consensus (on here atleast) that we are only top because of Enzos system, and that we couldn’t be top with any other. I like Enzo and I’m accepting his system is here to stay until the day he goes, so I’ve found more enjoyment in it, but I just wish he would be a bit more pragmatic, too many occasions this year we would have imo absolutely rolled teams over if we had adopted a different way of playing. (And no, I don’t mean route one before anyone assumes)

Having that amount of premier league quality and a raft of top championship players. Vestergaard Vardy Iheanacho Daka Albrighton Hermansen All of those would get into the top 3 teams in this league. Need I go on? You’ve made a really convenient case that because of Enzo’s genius we masked flaws, but when it’s not going so well during games throughout the season it’s because the players are weak and we needed to strengthen. Enzo when we win, players and board when we lose/throw points away. So many games this season we’ve been below par for large parts of the game but our sheer quality at this level has seen us through. In reality, the main issue is we have a VERY strict way of playing that most of our squad are obviously not competent enough to play and see games off. Yet we continue to adopt the same style, and if plan A doesn’t work, Plan B is pretty much the same footprint but we try to do it better.

I can’t disagree with that I think it’s 6-of-1 half a dozen of the other. We were not really in a position to make widescale changes, so it’s on the manager to not blow it by switching up the style if we don’t have the players to play the way he wants yet. But he absolutely refuses to change, and that concerns me massively.