Will this style of play ever work?

[The_77]

6 hours ago, Tuna said:

Can a new manager adapt the style and get it to work at this level? I know you'll all say no, but you know we will appoint another similar manager. Point is, can it be tinkered with to make us better defensively, because this is the biggest problem with the team right now, stop conceding sloppy goals and the results will improve.

His whole approach is so inherently flawed in that it’s purely based on possession leads to success, it’s a total case of “correlation equals causation.”
 

When he speaks about tactics, it’s painfully clear that he doesn’t understand the reasons for any of the outcomes he’s after and that he doesn’t know how to get from point A to point B.

[Dr Marco]

we sit at the back,

and counter attack,

bottom of league one,

you made us sing that...

[Richmondfox]

6 hours ago, Tuna said:

We've basically built a team to play this style, so if we appoint someone who will just do it better and make us more defensively sound, we may improve!

Have we actually built a team for this style or collected players that Martin has shoehorned to play his flawed style.   
 

You stop passing around the back, play out quickly and create overlaps with the wingers. 
 

The game early in the season where Page was running the show, the cbs passing quickly and he turned at pace.  That is the style and it felt like the team were ignoring the tactics. I recall the game after that he switched to Thomas being the left side cb controlling the tempo and passes into the middle from the halfway line and we got battered. 

 

[Leicester_Loyal]

5 hours ago, Monk said:

Martins in a tough position now. I suspect he is safe from the sack for a while yet because of the financial implications. 
 

so what do you do if you’re him?

 

double down on this style?

 

or adapt it?

 

I suspect he will try this style with Smallbone in the team. Might make a difference. That experiment has to last a few games. 
 

but beside that I don’t see it improving and I don’t think he will adapt. 

He's already said a few days ago he won't change or adapt, he'll fall on his sword if it doesn't work.

 

His own words.

[Sol thewall Bamba]

It's a decade out of date.

[Guesty]

One problem I've always found is the type of players needed to pull it off. It's hard to find players who can do it while also doing the defensive stuff/dirty work/digging in when the going gets tough. Players like Rodri are rare; even Man City went to s**t when he got injured the other year.

 

 It's full of technically gifted players who throughout their youth days have never/rarely been the players who had to dig in when the going gets tough; their team mates did that while they pinged the ball around the pitch. And it really shows, every time we try to play it with our joke of a recruitment team.

 

It maybe could work with the right manager, the right recruitment team and the right players. None of which we have. But even then, it's outdated and one dimentional.

[cityfanlee23]

Relative to where we are as a club and what our goals are, no. 

Can possession football work? Yes, can it work at Leicester City long term? No. 

I can't think of any real examples that would be close to what we are attempting to achieve actually working, are there any examples of a 3rd/lower league team trying to force a club identity of dominating possession football with 60%-70% possession targets that has actually gone to the top division and been able to stay up consistently and build a successful club from it? If there are it's a very small amount of clubs. 

You get the odd season where possession football can help win a division with a strong squad, look at Cardiff for example, the moment they got promoted and become one of the underdog teams, they now sit 21st with 1 win in 9 and are proudly top of the possession stats whilst looking at a relegation scrap, they need significant investment to make this work at this level. Bologna had a great 2 seasons under Motta playing genuinely attractive possession football (Ironically with Kristiansen in there), and he spent £100m in his 2nd season. 

To make this work long time you need 3 things. 
1) 75% of Players good enough to play the system well
2) Money to spend buying the niche players you need 
3) A culture of success and togetherness. 

We are trying to brute force this with 0/3 of those things. 

This only ends one way, and knowing Top it will be too late to recover it when the guy finally makes a decision. 
If we take action now the season can be recovered. 

[Mark 'expert' Lawrenson]

Pass and move the ball quickly and it can work, there has to be purpose to the passes though not just passing for passings sake along the back line.