Lillehamring

The problem is we have the mavericks (mavididi, fatawu, vardy, even KDH) - the problem is they're largely ineffective, if there was end product from these players it would be the perfect counterbalance to the sedate winks/vesty/hermansen core.

But enzo definitely adjusted from the boro game, where he hardly changed anything and left it late when he did - his intentions against watford were very clear - improve straight away or i make changes. and he did, and we kicked on much earlier.

But we don't play at 'a single pace' - this has been discussed throughout this thread - the slow play is merely the preamble to a sudden increase in pace when the gaps appear. The problem recently is that these bursts of pace haven't been bursty enough. But even when we up the intensity, there will still be the seemingly interminable standing on the ball phases - because that's the key to the system. Right now we are, in dancing parlance, playing a waltz: slow slow quick quick slow - it's that extra step. what we should be doing (and have been doing), (perfect, i know) is a foxtrot: slow slow quick quick.

Oddly enough, we're playing in a way that i've hated watching Spain play for years - ie. endless passing in the hope of creating a chance and, if nothing has happened by 70 minutes, throw everything at the goal. The way we tire out teams, and the quality advantage we have means that the last 15-20 minute blitzkrieg is the safety net in case we haven't broken down the opponent. Annoyingly we haven't scored early that often to allow us to not need the blitzkrieg part of our game. So i don't hink it's a case of limiting our attacking dominance, it's actually, ha, a Plan A and a Plan B. Plan A is all softly softly catchee monkey patient play trying to find the gaps, plan B is blitzkrieg.

I think your third point answers your first - when the bi-product of our 'boring' football is 23 shots, the problem isn't the build up, it's the end product - with none of our front 5 really impressing so far. People tend to forget that the passing amongst the defenders, in many games, takes place on the half way line or even in the opposition half, certainly as the game wears on, so it's not a lack of being in an advanced position or even how quickly we get there, it's what we do with it when we get there. Our counter attacking is actually subject to the same shortfall, we often find ourselves breaking, sometimes with an overload, but almost invariably whoever is on the ball ****s it up with a bad decision or a bad pass. certainly in the more recent games.

I think there are moments we do play at a higher tempo, and not just when we go on our 'mad half hours' looking for a last minute winner. But these moments don't stand out, they're more subtle because they aren't necessarily rampaging counter attacks. I think some of the problem right now is that the intention is to go: 1. slow patient start, standing on the ball if necessary, waiting for... 2. sudden burst of play when the gaps open up to advence to the final third to create 3. attack on the goal. unfortunately, too often three turns into: 3. pass back to the defenders (looking at you JJ), or 3. fail to break through a deep set defence and end up making a bad decision/taking a poor shot. But i'd like to think that the reason for this is either a. not being fully up to speed with the system and team mates, b. a lack of confidence in the final third, or c. not having the right players to convert the chances.

The problem with this is that not every team is set up to play this way (including, by the looks of it spurs) - i'm sure our defence would be horribly exposed by this type of football... Which brings us to the fact that playing this way is not necessarily going to work - granted spurs started well but their last three games they've lost after taking the lead, one can forgive them the chelsea loss having lost a player (that said, 3 of their wins came against 10 or 9 men), but to concede leads against wolves and villa (at home, no less) is a really worrying trend. It's all well and good calling for a certain type of football, but it has to fit the personnel available and the tactical philosophy of the manager. enzo clearly is a student of the game and, so far, he has literally made the best career start by any manager ever, so clearly it's a formula that works, if it's not to your taste, fair enough, but whining about it at any given opportunity isn't going to change anything - I can only suggest that you look closer at the logic behind playing the way we do and learn to enjoy it, surely it has to be better than watching us lose week in week out?

But the flip side of that is that the faster we pass the higher the propensity to misplace a pass - and we know we don't have the defenders to risk getting caught on the counter. It's a balancing act between control/losing control - and given our results, it's clear that 14 out of 17 times we've got it right, and even in those losses, especially hull, it was really down to finishing rather than game management that cost us.

The point is that without the possession work they put in in the first half it isn't possible to then have the energy to play the way we played in the second. If we go crazy in the first half, we aren't necessarily going to generate more chances than we did playing slowly, but we'd certainly be knackered by the 80th minute when watford started to attack. We've seen how these teams sit deep and then have a go for the last 10, 20, 30 minutes - by conserving energy first half we're able to deal with these surges, and of course, reserve energy to throw everything at the opposition if we're still chasing a goal ourselves. For what it's worth of those 11 shots, 3 forced saves, 4 were blocked, one was KDHs free kick that almost went in. 6 of them were from inside the box, the longest shot was the free kick

I suspect that the Leeds we witnessed is not the Leeds that turns up every day. I watched their game against stoke, and they spent long periods sitting deep and defending and hardly created anything.

Then this all comes down to how one perceives things. As spectators we have to ask ourselves: is this a team patiently looking for an opportunity to break down a deep set opponent, or is this a bunch of players that don't care and can't be arsed. For me it is clearly the first of these. And given the results we've had, it seems apparent that these players are up for it and are certainly putting the effort in - only we play a style where effort is not running about like an idiot it's letting the ball do the work.

Had our finishing been better we had more than enough chances to have put that game to bed by half time, long before they were tired out - so it's not fair to say we're relying on tiring teams out to win games, that really is our safety net.

These other teams that 'manage it' - i'm not sure who you're thinking of that go all in for 90 minutes - against us, i suppose leeds and sunderland did, but sunderland failed to score, and leeds needed a corner, the woodwork and a last minute wonder save to get something for all their effort. but are they playing like that week in, week out? - i suspect not. And i think in part, you answer the second part yourself - why can't we do it for 90 minutes? - because they're human - that intensity that saw us totally dominate just can't be sustained for more than 30-40 minutes, we tire out our pray and then press the accelerator - it' so simple, it's brilliant - and it works, we don't need to do it for 90 minutes. As for being bored in the meantime - against watford it took us 14 minutes to manage a shot, can that be put down entirely to us being poor, or for watford having a bit of a go before parking the bus, or simply that bus parking - or perhaps a bit of all three. but in the next 15 minutes we had four shots, the next 15 minutes 7 shots, after the break we had 3 shots (but we do tend to start the 2nd half slow), the next 15 we had 4 shots, the rest of the game 6 shots - that's a lot of action and events by my book! In fact if you take away the first 14 minutes and the last period where watford started playing - that's a 68 minute spell where we had 22 shots, that's a shot on average every 3 minutes - is it really such a hardship that outside of this period there isn't much happening? I'm not sure what people expect to see, have we ever been a swashbuckling all action team? the problem isn't that it's any more boring than any other team, it's just that we're letting the ball do the work - work smart, not hard - so it seems like nothing is happening, when in reality we're creating more chances and scoring more goals than any other team, just in a very gentle easy style.

The difference is, Enzo still hasn't reached a point where all it needs is tweaks, as Pep is. We're still trying to apply the fundamentals, once he feels were up to speed, then well probably see more tweaks. Which isn't, it's worth adding, to say he doesn't make tweaks - he makes them constantly - yesterday for example in the first half, he had ricardo pushing wide and forward with nacho acting as the 2nd pivot. Other games, late and chasing, he's brought a second striker on for the #8 rather than a straight swap - to name just two incidents.

I think you also have to factor in that, coming off two straight losses, under sky high expectations, the players were probably a bit nervous and a bit damaged in their confidence. I'm not sure it was significantly slower or more negative than any of the other games where teams have come to us and parked the bus. I think fans just need to get used to the Slowly, slowly Catchee monkey approach that this system relies on. It seems that people are mistaking patient, considered football for negative, uninspired football. As mentioned elsewhere, we had 11 shots in the first half - so we must have been doing something creative and attacking.

It was very early in the game, we've conceded early, against the run of play before and the response is usually to keep calm and carry on. Anyway, it's moot - they didn't score, they didn't even shoot.

You're hardly in a position to speculate.

Harsh. Mcateer was denied a goal by a top class save, and is only just back from injury. He's actually outperforming his chances this season, his 4 goals have come from an xG of just 2.9 (compare to nacho of 5 from 5.6) - he's on a good trajectory and with time, if he starts to create more chances for himself, he could be an easy first choice. And as exciting as fatawu seems, he's not delivering - he's played 50% more than mcateer and has just the 1 goal (his xG is a lowly 0.7), so i'm not sure there is a clear 1st choice in his position just yet.

sure it had a high xG because it was a brilliant opportunity, but the moment he fails to make contact it ceases to be anything more than if it had never happened - it's like the old phrase: a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush - the fact that KDH takes the shot means that it has a chance to go in, whilst the guy missing the shot means it will never be a goal, even more so with mcateers header - that's forced the keeper to make a great save, surely that is a better chance than a guy in a good position that doesn't manage to get to the ball. on that logic, the chance justin had from the quickly taken free kick was just as good a chance, even though justin fails to get on it. There's nothing obtuse about my reasoning - here's a metaphor about things happening or not happening: if a man jumps out of a plane and pulls his ripcord, his parachute opens and chances are he lands safely, if a man jumps out of a plane goes to pull his ripcord, but fails to do so...he's dead.

There's a difference between picking up on an area where we can improve and simply posting 'we're shit'.

Remember that we are still learning how to play this way - there are going to be limitations and teething pains - we can't be awesome straight away, it takes time.

I'm not sure how there is even a question here - i don't see how you can be lauding the merits of something that never happened. It was a great ball into the box, that's it, nothing else happened, the striker could have been tying his shoe lace for the impact he had on creating any kind of goal bound shot!

That is what i said, yes.

fair enough, i remember it being tighter than that - it wasn't classed as a shot on target, so it must have been going wide when mads caught it?

And yet, apart from his quick thinking on that free quick, far too much of his play, even from that red zone, was back to vestergaard.