NW, Tactics, Entertainment and Success

Before we enter the final meltdown (either way) at the end of season as we learn our fate, I thought I'd put a theory forward as to why we changed our style after the amazing start we had to the season - and what this might mean IF we were to be promoted. It's all speculation but matches what I've seen happen this season.

I think NW had put together a team for this season that he'd hoped to build on for NEXT season, with a view to seeing which players had what it took to get promoted and which didn't. To this end at the start of the season he just told the players to go out and enjoy themselves so he could see what he had available to him. We did this brilliantly with players like NM-L showing him he might already have sufficient quality players in the side.

The unbeaten start to the season took him and everyone else by surprise, making him reassess his approach and goals for this year and he made the choice fairly early on to revert from a 'carefree' style to a 'serious about getting promoted' style which involved playing a much tighter and cagier game. This change sacrificed some of the flair which saw us take Villa and others apart early on.

What I'm coming to is that I think we're capable of reverting to playing the more entertaining style of football we saw early on with these same players and, that with the addition of just a few key players next year, we could potentially cause a few surprises next year IF we are able to achieve promotion.

I'd like to think you were right, but Neil Warnock often says that, at his age, he is not one who plans much for the future and I tend to believe he is doing what he thinks is most likely to get us the results we needed to maintain our position in the table.

I've made it clear in other threads that I go to games these days and the only real pleasure I get from them comes from the results. I whinge about why we can't play like we were doing in August, but, in our manager's defence, it should be said that maybe our most influential player during that period has, generally, fallen some way short of his early season levels since then - I actually thought Mendez-Laing played pretty well on Saturday, but his decline from his early season heights must be a factor in how we have tried to play the game since the early autumn.

NML seems to have lost the ability to beat a man..same with Junior.
That may explain our loss of flair. Hopefully they'll step up in the crucial run in.

Are they ( especially in Hoilett”s case) feeling tired after a long season and have lost that extra gear they had when fresh at the start of the season ? Also as been alluded are we playing differently hence them not getting the same service ?
I thought Wildschut looked bright in his cameo of 10 minutes or so ...

Where's Harris nowadays..been a waste of space all season