Farkeball > Hoofball

[canarydan23 4,060]

I have nothing against the new formation or style of play, it's just the lack of foresight which has potentially blitzed our transfer budget. It now looks like we spent the bulk of it on players that don't fit into our new formation. 

[Yellow Wal 314]

6 minutes ago, canarydan23 said:

I have nothing against the new formation or style of play, it's just the lack of foresight which has potentially blitzed our transfer budget. It now looks like we spent the bulk of it on players that don't fit into our new formation. 

What on earth makes you think we will be playing this formation for the rest of the season?

Just because we have played it for the last two games means nothing. Against opposition which are nowhere near as physical as Burnley I feel we will see a different formation. We now have the players to do that.

[Clever Farke 64]

2 hours ago, Petriix said:

This is embarrassing. We've become a nothing team who just boot it up the pitch. What happened to our slick passing through the phases? What about keeping possession?

I never thought we'd see this under Farke. We've completely lost our identity.

 

Why is it embarrassing? This is the pragmatic side Farke was accused of not having.  A plan a,b,c etc. Last time we could only play one way.  Now we can mix it up to play against different sides. Farke has himself said he isn’t wedded to one approach! 
 

[Petriix 2,834]

7 minutes ago, Clever Farke said:

Why is it embarrassing? This is the pragmatic side Farke was accused of not having.  A plan a,b,c etc. Last time we could only play one way.  Now we can mix it up to play against different sides. Farke has himself said he isn’t wedded to one approach! 
 

It's embarrassing because we've just about clung on for a draw against one of the worst teams in the league. If we want to survive we need to be targeting this kind of game as wins. Most games will be against far better players. If we were ever going to give it a go it was today.

What we've shown with this performance is that we believe we're so awful that we won't even try to come out and attack against anyone. Quite where a win is going to come from is beyond me.

[1902 1,167]

8 minutes ago, Petriix said:

It's embarrassing because we've just about clung on for a draw against one of the worst teams in the league. If we want to survive we need to be targeting this kind of game as wins. Most games will be against far better players. If we were ever going to give it a go it was today.

What we've shown with this performance is that we believe we're so awful that we won't even try to come out and attack against anyone. Quite where a win is going to come from is beyond me.

We didn't set up to draw, we set up to not concede and to get a goal or two ourselves. So that the worst case scenario is you still get a point. Literally what we have failed to do successfully under Farke and something he resolved today.

We are not going to concede a shed load and then outscore teams in this league, it's as strong as I can remember it being and teams defend relatively well nowadays. We finally are playing like we understand what's required, don't concede stupid goals and try to nick one. It's basically how the premier league functions in the current era.

I happen to agree it's not pretty, but if you are webbed to the idea of us outplaying teams week in week out on a budget smaller than anyone elses, you are webbed to relegation. 

Edited October 2, 2021 by 1902

[Christoph Stiepermann 1,135]

It doesn't work when you're the inferior team and the opposition isn't playing badly. This is kind of a known established fact in football. We have tried to play that way despite changing our formation, see our last PL season and our first 5 games this year. It simply breaks down if you don't have the quality and athleticism to play it more accurately, more consistently and at a faster pace to work at this level. I know it sucks but every other PL team and some in the Championship all have excellent teams, excellent managers, excellent owners and excellent transfer strategies and have a lot more money than us. So fans are going to have to accept that we can't play that way at this level. It's taken the club longer than I'd have liked to realize it but at last the penny seems to have dropped, hopefully fans will accept some compromises.

 

I thoroughly enjoyed today. We gave as good as we got, didn't look a soft touch, had chances and looked like a team capable of grinding out some results in this league. Aside from about 20 mins at Arsenal and intermittent periods at Everton this is the first time we've looked like a PL side this season and I'm extremely encouraged. I just hope we keep up this battling intensity and then as confidence grows the attack starts to click. 

[Petriix 2,834]

There's some serious cognitive dissonance going on here. If we aren't going to win against Burnley, who are we going to beat? 

We can't stay up by picking up the odd point here and there against the worst teams. We need to win by going out and attacking.

I'm all for being a bit tighter in midfield but we effectively played 6 at the back today. If we're really saying that we can't commit more than 2 players forward then I don't think we'll win a single game all season.

[Son Ova Gunn 165]

Absolutely no problem being more direct and have been wanting to see us move the ball forwards more quickly for some time. Appreciate this was an attempt at trying to stop the rot and when we don’t make silly mistakes at the back (possibly as a result of being more direct hence less opportunity to lose to high press) we clearly can be more solid and difficult to beat. Let’s not dress it up any further than that though, it wasn’t a good result, it was a point against the second worst team in the league so far, who are setting their own records for not being able to win a home game. 2 points dropped if any real ambition to beat relegation.

[Wings of a Sparrow 1,413]

Do you know I only hear our own 'fans' talk of us being embarrassing. Not other fans. None.

[Christoph Stiepermann 1,135]

5 minutes ago, Petriix said:

There's some serious cognitive dissonance going on here. If we aren't going to win against Burnley, who are we going to beat? 

We can't stay up by picking up the odd point here and there against the worst teams. We need to win by going out and attacking.

I'm all for being a bit tighter in midfield but we effectively played 6 at the back today. If we're really saying that we can't commit more than 2 players forward then I don't think we'll win a single game all season.

But we won't win enough by going all out attacking. We've already proven that. Try to think of this as a start, a base to build off of. Nobody would be happy if we played like that for the rest of the season, but we're now getting the basics right.

I was starting to go insane, losing my bloody mind at us trying to play clever intricate football but forgetting the absolute basics that you need to even stand a chance at this level. We're now defending properly, we're clearing when necessary, we're concentrating on set pieces, we're trying to win 50/50's and duels, we're trying to get the ball forward quickly if we can, we're pressuring the ref etc etc. Yes that alone isn't enough, but it's a start and is necessary to start to grind out some results to build confidence and bed the new players in. 

When we start to find our feet we can start to introduce Rashica and Tzolis more and we'll create more chances as the new players start to bed in and gel together. We needed to do this from game 1 and we needed another out and out ball winner like Tettey but whatever, at least we're not being totally stupid and naive anymore, this is better than what we saw v Watford where we tried to attack them but they just punished us brutally and smothered our weaker players. 

[norfolkngood 1,086]

i Think we did well Today 

Any away point in the PL is a good point 

I think we are a striker short Pukki had chances and he has to take them at this level you get one or two a game  

we had chances to win the game today and if we play like that against the weaker teams more points will follow 

 

 

 

[Ken Hairy 3,769]

57 minutes ago, Petriix said:

It's embarrassing because we've just about clung on for a draw against one of the worst teams in the league. If we want to survive we need to be targeting this kind of game as wins. Most games will be against far better players. If we were ever going to give it a go it was today.

What we've shown with this performance is that we believe we're so awful that we won't even try to come out and attack against anyone. Quite where a win is going to come from is beyond me.

Must be really embarrassing for Leicester then as they drew to them at home.... 

[Hank shoots Skyler 2,094]

18 minutes ago, Petriix said:

There's some serious cognitive dissonance going on here. If we aren't going to win against Burnley, who are we going to beat? 

We can't stay up by picking up the odd point here and there against the worst teams. We need to win by going out and attacking.

But you still haven’t really considered the fact that we’d just lost 6 in a row, do you not think we will try be more expansive with a few more results under our belt? The key issue today was to stop the rot, we did that.

A clean sheet and a draw away in the PL is always a good result. And when you’ve just gone and lost 6 games in a row and ended the last PL campaign in embarrassment, that single point looks all the more precious.

We can start worrying about ‘style’ points in a few weeks time when we’ve managed to stay steely at the back and competitive, and built a bit of confidence in the team. 

Weird that you think we can just suddenly flick a switch and play Farkeball, we have had an entire team overall over the summer, it’s going to take gradual steps. It starts with a solid base (remember how Farke tightened us up after that awful Millwall game in his first season?) and then we build from there. The signs are today and versus Everton excluding the individual errors that we are making some progress. There’s bound to be more. 

Please take a deep breath and have some patience sir!

[Petriix 2,834]

16 minutes ago, Christoph Stiepermann said:

But we won't win enough by going all out attacking. We've already proven that. Try to think of this as a start, a base to build off of. Nobody would be happy if we played like that for the rest of the season, but we're now getting the basics right.

I was starting to go insane, losing my bloody mind at us trying to play clever intricate football but forgetting the absolute basics that you need to even stand a chance at this level. We're now defending properly, we're clearing when necessary, we're concentrating on set pieces, we're trying to win 50/50's and duels, we're trying to get the ball forward quickly if we can, we're pressuring the ref etc etc. Yes that alone isn't enough, but it's a start and is necessary to start to grind out some results to build confidence and bed the new players in. 

When we start to find our feet we can start to introduce Rashica and Tzolis more and we'll create more chances as the new players start to bed in and gel together. We needed to do this from game 1 and we needed another out and out ball winner like Tettey but whatever, at least we're not being totally stupid and naive anymore, this is better than what we saw v Watford where we tried to attack them but they just punished us brutally and smothered our weaker players. 

I’m not asking for ‘all out attacking’, just a pragmatic balance between attack and defence. 4 attackers (3 with important defensive roles), 2 midfielders with an emphasis on positional discipline and 4 defenders seems a decent mix like in our 4-2-3-1. Today we played with 2 attackers, 3 midfielders and 5 defenders which I’d call ‘all out defence’. It’s totally out of balance and gives us no options.

I really don’t see how we can build on that other than to say that we will try to become more adventurous after cutting out the mistakes. I still saw some awful discipline in midfield today and a better team would have easily beaten us. 

[TheGunnShow 5,937]

Baby steps, please!

Remember Farke's early days when all our scores could have been done by binary code with a litany of 0-1, 1-0, 1-1, 0-0 etc? That was all about getting a team to gel whilst he learned the league. After things clicked, you saw the Farkeball that wowed the league. It takes time, consistent good results and confidence to get there. With six league defeats in a row and our worst start in our history, you've not got any of those.

At that point, playing pretty means little. For teams with confidence close to rock bottom, pretty passing rarely works. Get it longer and play the percentages. Confidence lubricates the smoothness of play.

[Christoph Stiepermann 1,135]

45 minutes ago, Petriix said:

I’m not asking for ‘all out attacking’, just a pragmatic balance between attack and defence. 4 attackers (3 with important defensive roles), 2 midfielders with an emphasis on positional discipline and 4 defenders seems a decent mix like in our 4-2-3-1. Today we played with 2 attackers, 3 midfielders and 5 defenders which I’d call ‘all out defence’. It’s totally out of balance and gives us no options.

I really don’t see how we can build on that other than to say that we will try to become more adventurous after cutting out the mistakes. I still saw some awful discipline in midfield today and a better team would have easily beaten us. 

I agree that a better team would have beaten us today. Burnley probably would have if they had Cornet fit and Lennon didn't have such a poor game. They are their only two players with pace who could cause us issues. But we've been so abject, so poor and so naive and looked so unsuited to this division before this game that you have to take encouragement from the much better if not great performance today and hope we can build on it.

 

I agree it wasn't great overall and if that's the standard for the rest of the year it will be pretty grim, but I also think we should recognize it as a large step in the right direction and a sign that we can battle and dig in, we can defend and we can win individual duels etc.

If we set up 433 or 4321 today with Pukki alone and Gilmour in midfield they would have just taken us apart. Pukki wouldn't have got a touch being bullied by having two defenders on him so we'd have no outball, that means they would just pressure us constantly and we'd have no one to clear it to. We'd be sat deep all game without the right players to make that work, we'd be forced into mistakes, Gilmour would get bullied and crowded out and without the 3rd CB Hanley wouldn't have been free to track their runs from deep and they would have almost certainly scored at least a couple against us. 

I get what you're saying as well about it not being a choice between defensive or attacking as well and that there's a whole spectrum of possible approaches. But from my point of view that wasn't overly defensive today and the only thing I'd argue in terms of tactics is that I would have brought Rashica or Tzolis on for Pukki 10 minutes earlier. You have to sit back a bit against Burnley to expose their lack of technical ability though, this is the perfect type of game to say that less is sometimes more in terms of how much you go for it. For me we found the near perfect blend of pragmatism. It will be interesting to see what we do v Brighton now though. they're much more like Watford than Burnley although better across the park, we've shown we can stand up to brute physicality, let's see if we can now adapt to deal with pace. 

[Petriix 2,834]

7 minutes ago, Christoph Stiepermann said:

I agree that a better team would have beaten us today. Burnley probably would have if they had Cornet fit and Lennon didn't have such a poor game. They are their only two players with pace who could cause us issues. But we've been so abject, so poor and so naive and looked so unsuited to this division before this game that you have to take encouragement from the much better if not great performance today and hope we can build on it.

 

I agree it wasn't great overall and if that's the standard for the rest of the year it will be pretty grim, but I also think we should recognize it as a large step in the right direction and a sign that we can battle and dig in, we can defend and we can win individual duels etc.

If we set up 433 or 4321 today with Pukki alone and Gilmour in midfield they would have just taken us apart. Pukki wouldn't have got a touch being bullied by having two defenders on him so we'd have no outball, that means they would just pressure us constantly and we'd have no one to clear it to. We'd be sat deep all game without the right players to make that work, we'd be forced into mistakes, Gilmour would get bullied and crowded out and without the 3rd CB Hanley wouldn't have been free to track their runs from deep and they would have almost certainly scored at least a couple against us. 

I get what you're saying as well about it not being a choice between defensive or attacking as well and that there's a whole spectrum of possible approaches. But from my point of view that wasn't overly defensive today and the only thing I'd argue in terms of tactics is that I would have brought Rashica or Tzolis on for Pukki 10 minutes earlier. You have to sit back a bit against Burnley to expose their lack of technical ability though, this is the perfect type of game to say that less is sometimes more in terms of how much you go for it. For me we found the near perfect blend of pragmatism. It will be interesting to see what we do v Brighton now though. they're much more like Watford than Burnley although better across the park, we've shown we can stand up to brute physicality, let's see if we can now adapt to deal with pace. 

I don't think Pukki would be isolated with a dynamic 3 man attacking midfield behind him. And I think a more disciplined doubt pivot behind them would be more solid than the single CDM with the two box-to-box type midfielders we seem wedded to. 

A bit more threat in attack would make it harder for teams to dominate us as they would be more vulnerable to the counter.

Brighton are a far better side than Burnley and more deserving of respect. I'd like to see us more compact and look to break fast. We don't need 3 CBs to do that. 

[Creative Midfielder 1,996]

3 hours ago, 1902 said:

This is absurd, we were beaten 10 games in a row and got just over 20 points in a season trying to play possession based football where we move it through the phases because the quality of our players wasn't high enough to play that way in the premiership.

So Farke has done the logical thing and tried to set us up in a different way. Now we actually look a little bit competitive, it's all "we have lost our Identity". 

I want us to stay up, more than I want us to be beaten playing good football.

Personally I'm the complete opposite, I would much rather be beaten playing good football than endure a season of playing the same negative and uninteresting EPL standard dross that the majority of the Prem plays in order to grind out enough points so that they can repeat the same dreary process next season.

But I accept that I'm in a minority on that and I completely agree with you that given the pressure that Farke is under from almost all quarters to grind out results at the expense of playing entertaining football then what he did today was perfectly logical.

What is more, it worked but the idiots who were moaning for the last few weeks that we should be doing what we did today but that Farke was incapable of changing the way we play don't seem to like being proven wrong. So all of a sudden we have a completely different sets of moans - some people should be a lot more careful what they wish for 😃

[By Hook or Ian crook 917]

18 minutes ago, Creative Midfielder said:

Personally I'm the complete opposite, I would much rather be beaten playing good football than endure a season of playing the same negative and uninteresting EPL standard dross that the majority of the Prem plays in order to grind out enough points so that they can repeat the same dreary process next season.

But I accept that I'm in a minority on that and I completely agree with you that given the pressure that Farke is under from almost all quarters to grind out results at the expense of playing entertaining football then what he did today was perfectly logical.

What is more, it worked but the idiots who were moaning for the last few weeks that we should be doing what we did today but that Farke was incapable of changing the way we play don't seem to like being proven wrong. So all of a sudden we have a completely different sets of moans - some people should be a lot more careful what they wish for 😃

I share your views on playing a style easy on the eye and more attack minded even if it means we get relegated. There is also every chance we play a boring defensive style and go down anyway. 

[lake district canary 4,531]

A bit of perspective is needed. We urgently needed to not lose today and make sure we didn't get another loss, so it was a good performance from that perspective and stopped the run we've been on.

Burnely were not "there for the taking" either.  This is one of the more meaningless phrases that people use when they think they should win a match. They were as desperate to get points today as well as us - and this meant the match was unlikely to be a free for all attacking spectacular.

And we haven't abandoned anything in our style - we merely did the job that was required.  There will be matches where we should be more attacking - today was not one of those matches.

[Canary Jedi 579]

I didn’t watch the game today. Were the long balls aimless or was there some system they were trying to play eg Sargent knocking down to Pukki?

[lake district canary 4,531]

1 minute ago, Canary Jedi said:

I didn’t watch the game today. Were the long balls aimless or was there some system they were trying to play eg Sargent knocking down to Pukki?

It wasn't all long ball by any means, Krul kicked long more than usual, that's all, but that was to negate any attempts by Burnley to close us down.  There was no hoof ball.

[Clever Farke 64]

3 hours ago, Petriix said:

It's embarrassing because we've just about clung on for a draw against one of the worst teams in the league. If we want to survive we need to be targeting this kind of game as wins. Most games will be against far better players. If we were ever going to give it a go it was today.

What we've shown with this performance is that we believe we're so awful that we won't even try to come out and attack against anyone. Quite where a win is going to come from is beyond me.

So you advocate us going back to the gung ho attacking, we’ll score more than you approach that has seen us fail abysmally at this level? Nobody is doing cartwheels after a draw at Burnley but we can’t just go out and win games at this level while being all over the place at the back.  We simply have to stop conceding soft goals to have any chance. Then try to build in that. 
 

[Petriix 2,834]

27 minutes ago, Clever Farke said:

So you advocate us going back to the gung ho attacking, we’ll score more than you approach that has seen us fail abysmally at this level? Nobody is doing cartwheels after a draw at Burnley but we can’t just go out and win games at this level while being all over the place at the back.  We simply have to stop conceding soft goals to have any chance. Then try to build in that. 
 

Absolutely not; not that we were 'gung ho' last season. Just a balance between attack and defence. The double pivot is actually much more defensively solid than the looser midfield 3 we've been playing prior to the switch to 5 at the back. 

I just think that attack is the best form of defence. If we give the opposition something to worry about then they cannot dominate. If they over-commit then we can hit them on the break. We need a number 10.

[Mullet 293]

5 hours ago, Petriix said:

I don't see how a backs-to-the-wall 0-0 against the second worst team in the league with zero attacking intent could possibly build any confidence or momentum.

Hooray, we didn't lose! But we've completely abandoned any semblance of playing proper football. If we want to build anything then we need to be playing a style of football that has some kind of aim other than not losing against the worst teams in the league. What teams could we possibly beat playing like that?

I've never complained about Farke not having a plan B. This season he seems to have plans B to G, and now plan G is where he's sticking. I preferred plan A where we were exciting to watch. As far as I can tell he hasn't actually tried plan A at all this season.

I think Farke has stuck too much to his principles of playing across the back and we are too slow going forward. That hasn't worked for 15 top flight games and we have been masters of our own downfall. At least today Farke made a culture change of being more solid and harder to beat. At least today we scrapped for an ugly point. Once we become harder to beat we can try to be more offensive. 

[Creative Midfielder 1,996]

10 hours ago, By Hook or Ian crook said:

I share your views on playing a style easy on the eye and more attack minded even if it means we get relegated. There is also every chance we play a boring defensive style and go down anyway. 

Exactly, which would make the season a  total waste (apart from topping up the coffers of course 😃).

[Canary Jedi 579]

10 hours ago, lake district canary said:

It wasn't all long ball by any means, Krul kicked long more than usual, that's all, but that was to negate any attempts by Burnley to close us down.  There was no hoof ball.

Nice for you Lakey not to have to travel too far to watch us play, and you also got see see first point and first clean sheet! 👍

[lake district canary 4,531]

1 minute ago, Canary Jedi said:

10 hours ago, lake district canary said:

It wasn't all long ball by any means, Krul kicked long more than usual, that's all, but that was to negate any attempts by Burnley to close us down.  There was no hoof ball.

Nice for you Lakey not to have to travel too far to watch us play, and you also got see see first point and first clean sheet!

Yes, wasn't sure what to expect seeing us live, but was very encouraged by what I saw - and the fans were magnificent from start to finish.

[By Hook or Ian crook 917]

2 minutes ago, lake district canary said:

Yes, wasn't sure what to expect seeing us live, but was very encouraged by what I saw - and the fans were magnificent from start to finish.

The fans always are magnificent always a real credit to the club with the way they follow. Imagine being Burnley and playing in what looked a half empty stadium week in week out. I’m proud that we sell out even in league 1 not just the big games in the premiership 

[By Hook or Ian crook 917]

9 hours ago, Mullet said:

I think Farke has stuck too much to his principles of playing across the back and we are too slow going forward. That hasn't worked for 15 top flight games and we have been masters of our own downfall. At least today Farke made a culture change of being more solid and harder to beat. At least today we scrapped for an ugly point. Once we become harder to beat we can try to be more offensive. 

Farke has certainly stuck to some of his philosophy about trying to maintain possession and build out from the back. The part of his philosophy he has given in on is the link between building out from the back and the players who link up at the front. 
 

I’ll give you a couple of examples of things that have concerned me so far this season.
 

1)We defend a corner with all of our players in our box did we really buy Rashica and Tzolis or Pukki to defend corners? No. If we leave one on the half way line they have to leave 2, if we leave 2 they have to leave 3, which actually makes defending easier for us because they have less players in the box who can score so a simple form of attacking pragmatism would benefit not only our defensive capabilities but also our ability to attack on the break. 

2) because of our formation choice all of our midfielders get pulled out of shape and position and effectively become 3 extra defenders and offer very little going forward. In almost all games this season, because the opponents have had a 2 on 1 overlap on the wings, with us not playing a winger to push onto their fullback one of the midfield 3 have had to push over on the cover. inevitably this leaves more space in the middle of the park to exploit or should the midfielder not push over they continue to enjoy overload situations against our fullbacks. Now with playing 5 at the back the midfield 3 are the support for and link for your top 2 how is any player going to be able to have any kind of thought of moving forward when they are have to spend their entire game covering an overload or then getting out numbered in the middle when there is a chance we can break. 
 

3) most premiership sides play with 1 up top. If we can defend against 1 player with 2 i’m not really sure how adding a 3rd is any better. Just replace the one’s who can’t compete at this level. Hanley seems to be undroppable by Farke and we seem of of changed our entire formation for his benefit and not dropping him. Off the top of my head I can not think of a single team who plays with a traditional 2 up top other than Burnley who we just played. Most seem to play with a 9 and two wingers / outside forwards. 

Edited October 3, 2021 by By Hook or Ian crook