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Dubai Mark

Is it "Formula Football" some people want?

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So, just back from a trip home having taken in the Southampton match. During the match I was discussing with my mate how Southampton were playing, what I called "Formula Football". I called it this because it was very, very repititious (I thought a little boring) and was all based around well practised set plays, often the same or similar as the previous one, and we played them almost like we knew what was going to happen next . It was as if they were unable to conjure anything up from scratch, even with their record signing up front lacked imagination (who didnt have a clue and looked very poor, terrible first touch), I am sure others noticed this? Its like they are waiting for a set play code or instruction from their coach before they start to play the ball when they gain possesion.

Then I read in one of the papers, in addition to other media saying they played well, that they did a good impression of Barcelona''s style of play.

City on the other hand were much less predictable and certainly had the ability to start things off the cuff so to speak without having to wait for each team member to be in the exact position before a move could start. I personally preferred the style of play from our team, OK I know I have on the usual yellow & Green tinted specs, but I am liking the way our game seems to be developing and I am confident that we have much more to come over the season....and I really dont want to see the "from me to you and back to you" type of football, bores the pants off me.   

That said, I guess there are many on here who would prefer to see City play in the "Barcelona style", like Liverpool, Swansea and Southampton appear to be doing, is this what you want? or, are you happy to see the style CH and his coaching team are evolving, which is clearly based on defensive organisation (and boy do we look orgainsaed in defence!) as a priority but now we have better players and more options its moving to a slightly more fluid style when it comes to being offensive......... 

  

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Last season, bar the final 2 games, was boring even when we won. This season is beginning to look much better if the 2nd half vs Everton and the entire Soton game were the intended product.

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Mark,What an original post. I think you are on to something. In the modern game coaching is strangling a lot of the creativity out of the game. Virtually all but the really big clubs are now playing an identical 4-2-3-1 formation with the emphasis on shape. This has had the effect of levelling up variation by making teams hard to beat (Hull really didnt do that badly for a newly promoted team away to both Chlesea and Man City) and ensuring that bottom 2/3rds of the table is fairly tight in terms of the points spread.

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Agreed Reading.

 

In fact Spurs H+A, Villa H+A, Everton H+A, Swansea H+A, WBA H +A, Man City H+A, Arsenal H+A would have graced any season.

 

Interestingly the duller matches and more exciting matches seemed to mirror home and away form.

 

 

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Louis, it was really so noticeable with Southampton........from where we were sitting you could see the players taking up specific positions and the ball was worked in the same pattern or very similar pattern many times....it was like they had four or five main set-plays and outside of that struggled to put any passes together, break the play down (if you can) and they become much less effective because they dont recover very well each time and then struggle to pick you up as they are drilled into set play formations all the time.....very technical I guess.   

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I think every team plays to their strengths, and will use a tried and tested formula to some respects.Its more about what formula is more aesthetically pleasing, and therefore entertaining. Would I want to grind out Premiership survival season after season playing awful, predictable football, no.But I want to see us win games, and survive in this league, and want to be entertained into the bargain. So if we find something that works then I would expect us to use it to win games. Looking at the type of players we have signed, and the squad we are building, I would like to think that once it all clicks into place we should be playing some pretty nice stuff. I am willing to be patient for this to happen.And lets face it, we used to have a regular formula of "Get it to Huckerby" and that was exciting. Mind you we got relegated lol.

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I think you can set out to play a certain way for a limited time, but have to have a Plan B, even C, as variables inevitably occur during a game (opposition''s movement/tactics, bounce of ball, injuries etc)

Is it over complicated sometimes?

The basis of football is of course, to get the ball into the oppositon''s net at one end of a (relatively) small piece of land. Doesn''t sound too difficult, but of course, different factors apply during any game (be it Prem or Sunday morning games).

How you achieve that is more refined, the higher up the scale you go, and perhaps, we as fans subconsciously appreciate the finer arts of this, at the level we find ourselves now.

Personally, I liked watching the movement of teams like Barcelona, and Arsenal even, when they have been in full flow over recent times. Swansea, to a point, but we have sussed out how to beat them over the last few games, even though their style (certainly possession stats) is to be lauded also.

I feel, if you are a Manager, that you have to give your team a detailed set on instructions, but also have to give them the trust to react, during a game, to other factors that may override your plans.

If you , as a player, played to a set of instructions and didn''t deviate from these, then you would get sussed eventually, and ultimately fail.

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