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I'd rather watch the imperfect football of the Championship than be subjected to this mind-numbing boredom each week. I hope to God this isn't the way that football evolves...
They might need to bring in a time limit to possession. For example, you've got 30 seconds to get a shot away once you regain possession...
Sounds like a night out with Sludge :hehe:Quote:
Originally Posted by Penarth Blues
:hehe: Very good...Quote:
Originally Posted by BLUETIT
Bayern v Besiktas is a great game.
Gary
Medel playing for Besiktas
He's no BambaQuote:
Originally Posted by light up the darkness
Just got kicked in the head by lowendoski ? SpellingQuote:
Originally Posted by life on mars
Didn’t seem to affect him much
To be fair, once Chelsea got into the game they showed how much more interesting a more direct game can be. Willian really unlucky twice...
Got his goal. Class finish. 1 nil ChelseaQuote:
Originally Posted by Penarth Blues
Mess ain't no Ronaldo.
Well the little fella just equalised.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wales-Bales
He made it look like a training exercise
Silly boyQuote:
Originally Posted by Wales-Bales
‘MareQuote:
Originally Posted by Wales-Bales
Oh, he is on the pitch then :biggrin:Quote:
Originally Posted by MacAdder
The pitch at Stamford Bridge looks far narrower than most pitches
They have definitely brought the touch lines in for this game.Quote:
Originally Posted by thehumblegringo
Not a new thing though. Most teams who come up agaimst footballing sides have done similar for decades.
Give that Barca side space and they will murder you.
Gotta fear for Chelski in the Nou Camp.
Especially now barca have an away goalQuote:
Originally Posted by MacAdder
Nothing will beat guardiolas time at barcalona for the most boring football imaginable
People on reddit were saying last night was an amazing game..........I could barely keep my eyes open
Whoops......😂😂😂Quote:
Originally Posted by Wales-Bales
Basketball does this. 24 seconds from the moment the ball is in play to take a shot that either hits the rim or goes in.Quote:
Originally Posted by Penarth Blues
Basketball is a game that creeps up on you. In 2011 when I moved to this side of the pond I hated it, but as I watched more and more of it I started to understand it much more (as you do).Other than the obvious hands vs feet there are similarities to football in terms of skill, passing and attack and defence.
It helps when the team from your adopted city turn into one of the top 5 or 6 teams as well, but there’s nothing like a transformative success story to bring basketball plastics like me into the fold....Gotta start somewhere
Fair enough, and I suppose it would not be marked down as the most entertaining ever. I agree with you though that there is a an obsession with dominating possession and high pressing at the moment. But from a coaching perspective, I actually found it a fascinating encounter. A clash of styles; possession-dominating Barcelona versus defensive-oriented and counter-attacking Chelsea.Quote:
Originally Posted by Penarth Blues
Styles move in cycles, and at the moment the trend is high-press/possession footy at the top end generally. I must admit I prefer a pragmatic and strategic approach as a coach such as Eddie Jones in rugby or Ferguson, Ancelloti, or Mourinho in football, as opposed to a philosopher such as Guardiola, Wenger or Klopp - who always insist on the same style. The philosopher's approach is generally only useful for rich clubs with a deep pool of all the players who can play their style. For most clubs, the system breaks down if they do not have this and so it is a very fragile method. It relies on systemic perfection across the board. The philosopher also rarely has a Plan B, and can come unstuck when an opponent takes a lead and his players are mentally more fragile. The only philosophers that can perform at a lower level are your Warnocks' and Pulis' who build a cheap philosophical system around high physicality, fitness, aggression and build their teams for stability, with a chance of doing well, but will never win a Premier League on it.
But most clubs do not operate at either level. Only a few clubs have the riches for the high technique philosophy. And there are only so many Warnocks and Pulis' around. Most are better served going for a pragmatic approach, identifying the strengths and opposition of their opponents, as well as their own, and then selecting the players from their pool of of various players to exploit it. Ferguson was good at this. With a crap team he would go out and attack. Playing against Barcelona he would sit deep and counter-attack. Ferguson and Mourinho's pragmatism shows there is more than one way to skin a cat in this game.
If anything that is what this Chelsea v Barca game proved. Conte's sit deep / counter attack was equally effective on the night as Valverde's philosophy. There is more than one way to skin a cat. That is the beauty of football.
A couple of points. It's a lot easier to play pragmatic football than it is to be brave enough to dominate possession.Quote:
Originally Posted by Keyser Soze
Valverde's Barcelona are not a patch on Pep's Barcelona when it comes to keeping the ball or dominating possession.
I would argue that Valverde is pragmatic in that it's practical to play to Messi and Iniesta's strengths, however he has been hamstrung (with or without his blessing) of signings such as Paulinho, Gomes, Vidal, D Suarez etc who clearly not at the level to play the football that Cruyff advocated at La Masia.
Ferguson and Mourinho have had great success against Wenger but their success has been very limited when it comes to Guardiola, despite spending far more at Madrid and United than Pep did at Barcelona.
I can see what you are saying and Wenger can be held up as an example of what you are saying but Pep has struggled far more against philosopher's like Klopp than he has done against Mourinho and Ferguson.
Wenger has lost the plot to a certain degree and has failed to acknowledge that a team needs balance but I don't think you can label Pep in the same way.
Despite similarities in ball retention the way Pep has evolved in Munich and Citeh is completely different to how he played at Barca.
He plays to a teams strengths and a nation's strengths or weaknesses. Anybody would be a fool not to build a team around Messi yet when he went to Bayern he saw that his creativity came out wide in Robben and Ribery. At City he uses Silva and De Bruyne as his match Winners.
Again though I can see where you are coming from I do believe a possession based style can be adopted on limited funds if a coach is brave enough and has a clear enough vision set out.
As much as it pains me to say it, Martinez did this in the lower leagues down West and there are plenty of clubs in Spain who will refute your idea that you cant play possession football without huge amounts of money.
There are obviously huge challenges in this country but clubs are definitely trying to produce more technical players but the challenge is having the vision and strategy of bringing these kids through when the money is there to just go and buy a 26 year old ready made from the continent.
The last two paragraphs are great points. Swansea were a successful exponent, and what kept it going was then developing the underlying infrastructure and youth set up to feed a "known system". It was probably something I missed out on my commentary on Barcelona - in that the players coming through can feed the system along with the star players they spend money on. I think what it says is that once you have that infrastructure your manager selection then becomes critical, so that each coach sticks to that style, even if they are slightly finessed in the way you speak about Valverde's take on the Barca style.Quote:
Originally Posted by thehumblegringo
Where Swansea went wrong was the Bradley yankee guy. He seemed to me a mismatch on that entire infrastructure. This new coach seems to be more in tune and as a result they will now probably survive.
Good debate though, this one.
A couple of excellent posts - thank you. I’d just note that I still don’t like the possession style of football as I don’t think it entertaining in the slightest no matter how technically gifted the players. It’s a personal opinion and I understand others will disagree.