Why do we persist in parking the bus?

We have 5 points away from home this season.

You could argue the park the bus style has been successful once in all the times we have employed it this season.

Huddersfield away finished 0-0 but with the home team being down to 10 men for almost half an hour you would expect more.

The Leicester game we had much more of an attacking threat it seemed and could argue we deserved the 3 points overall.

I would say that the only time this tactic has worked was at Crystal Palace and that was down to several slices of fortune.

It begs the question why do we persist with the deep defensive style away from home when it has been so useless in bringing a points return?
I understand the need not to get turned over but this has happened anyway in a lot of games and I for one wouldn't mind that if we showed at least a bit of intent ourselves.

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Originally Posted by blue lewj

We have 5 points away from home this season.

You could argue the park the bus style has been successful once in all the times we have employed it this season.

Huddersfield away finished 0-0 but with the home team being down to 10 men for almost half an hour you would expect more.

The Leicester game we had much more of an attacking threat it seemed and could argue we deserved the 3 points overall.

I would say that the only time this tactic has worked was at Crystal Palace and that was down to several slices of fortune.

It begs the question why do we persist with the deep defensive style away from home when it has been so useless in bringing a points return?
I understand the need not to get turned over but this has happened anyway in a lot of games and I for one wouldn't mind that if we showed at least a bit of intent ourselves.

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Like I said in another thread , I would rather us lose having a go at the opposition than try and play a containing game in the hope of get a draw , Leicester awY is the only time I’ve seen us do this and we actually won the game
Warnock alwsys said whilst we are here we might as well have a go but it seems he’s not true to his word unfortunately

We didn't park the bus today. We just weren't very good anywhere across the park. Neither were the Toon but we fcuked up the first goal and it was a foregone conclusion from then on.

Our bus seems to have every door & window open and the emergency exit has an open invite.

I agree with your intent though. We've been negative again and are shipping goals & points because it simply isn't working. I'd rather we give it a go and go down in a blaze of glory than bore everyone to death!

We weren't negative, just not very good. We played two up front away from home FFS, had 47% of the play and had 10 corners to their 7.

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Originally Posted by Madassa

We weren't negative,

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Sorry can't agree with that. We hardly crossed the half way line in the first half, didn't start to play until we were 2-0 down. Most of the corners and possession were in the last 20 minutes when it was all too late! (just like Watford & West Ham).

Without reading your actual post - you call that parking the bus??? i dont know what i call the shambles we just chucked on the pitch

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Originally Posted by Madassa

We weren't negative, just not very good. We played two up front away from home FFS, had 47% of the play and had 10 corners to their 7.

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I agree, supporters seem to think we are good enough to go to these places and win all of the time and the only thing that stops us doing so is that we decide to "park the bus" instead. Surely, the truth is that, while almost every side that plays away from home does so with some degree of caution, we are usually forced on to the defensive most of the time because the other team is better, and has better players, than us?

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Originally Posted by the other bob wilson

I agree, supporters seem to think we are good enough to go to these places and win all of the time and the only thing that stops us doing so is that we decide to "park the bus" instead. Surely, the truth is that, while almost every side that plays away from home does so with some degree of caution, we are usually forced on to the defensive most of the time because the other team is better, and has better players, than us?

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It has to be that to some extent but do we not hand the home team the initiative with how we set up.

Our front line are isolated and many times when receiving a ball booted straight from defence have nobody within 20 yards of them when it is received at chest height and usually higher.

As touched on on other threads we are not picking arguably our best attacking winger because he doesn't track back enough. This while picking full backs that rarely come over half way.

I'm not saying go all out attack but even the most blinkered can admit one shot on target against two teams in the bottom three isn't good enough.

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Originally Posted by blue lewj

It has to be that to some extent but do we not hand the home team the initiative with how we set up.

Our front line are isolated and many times when receiving a ball booted straight from defence have nobody within 20 yards of them when it is received at chest height and usually higher.

As touched on on other threads we are not picking arguably our best attacking winger because he doesn't track back enough. This while picking full backs that rarely come over half way.

I'm not saying go all out attack but even the most blinkered can admit one shot on target against two teams in the bottom three isn't good enough.

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We've not played any football in our last two games which would enable us to sustain an attacking approach. While I'm sure it's not the intention to go out and play as desperately as we did against Huddersfield every week, I'm increasingly coming around to the view that the orders that the players get constantly endorse a style of play that makes ball retention a pretty low priority - when a side that tries to play in such manner is off their game, we see the sort of rubbish we did last week and, presumably, yesterday, we could have gone out on to the pitch with the desire to play in a more attacking style, but with us is playing as badly as we are, it'd just not going to happen.

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Originally Posted by the other bob wilson

We've not played any football in our last two games which would enable us to sustain an attacking approach. While I'm sure it's not the intention to go out and play as desperately as we did against Huddersfield every week, I'm increasingly coming around to the view that the orders that the players get constantly endorse a style of play that makes ball retention a pretty low priority - when a side that tries to play in such manner is off their game, we see the sort of rubbish we did last week and, presumably, yesterday, we could have gone out on to the pitch with the desire to play in a more attacking style, but with us is playing as badly as we are, it'd just not going to happen.

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It's 'get the ball wide', they can't hurt you out there-It's all percentages with Warnock.

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Originally Posted by the other bob wilson

We've not played any football in our last two games which would enable us to sustain an attacking approach. While I'm sure it's not the intention to go out and play as desperately as we did against Huddersfield every week, I'm increasingly coming around to the view that the orders that the players get constantly endorse a style of play that makes ball retention a pretty low priority - when a side that tries to play in such manner is off their game, we see the sort of rubbish we did last week and, presumably, yesterday, we could have gone out on to the pitch with the desire to play in a more attacking style, but with us is playing as badly as we are, it'd just not going to happen.

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I touched on the lack of composure recently. Our players cannot wait to get rid of the ball. Given our 'direct' style this usually translates into putting their laces through it and aiming somewhere towards the striker who has little support.
We then lose the ball and it happens again and again.

Huddersfield looked way and above us with regards to composure on the ball and played some alright stuff at times.
We look petrified of making a bad pass so try to lump it in the general direction of somebody more advanced. The sad part is it all ends with us losing the ball.

It all comes back to the directions given to players though. I can't remember who posted it here but the passing game that Harry Artur came to us with seems to have been coached out of him. He is as likely now to give the ball some air rather than bring it down as any of the rest of our midfield, Camarasa aside.
Teams have clicked on to the fact Victor is our only ball playing midfielder and are doubling up and crowding him out at ease lately.