Reply With QuoteIt's already too late for the Swansea/Bournemouth etc way. They were playing that style of football in the third division.
We're going to have to do the Stoke way I think.
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I believe that we will get promoted. That is my forecast and has been since the start of the season. But I shall caveat that by stating that I am far too old in the tooth to start counting my chickens before they hatch. It is only a forecast. Not a guarantee. An interesting question develops in the event that we do get promoted. Do we keep the manager? Do we keep the style? Or alter one or the other. It is interesting to think about and ineveitably it may be a question the club will have to face, even if at this point just a hypothetical exercise.
The Burnley Way
In the one camp I can see that several fans are saying the Burnley model is the way to go. That is, we get promoted, we keep the style, keep the manager and give it a go. We know that long ball and a physical model can at least make us competitive. It is not possible to out-Arsenal Arsenal. But it possible to give them a good kicking, intimidate them, pile a load of six footers into the box and nick a corner to make it 1-0. Ugly, but effective. But not a style that can take us into the top four. To most fans they will not care, so as long as we survive relegation. But the added bonus of this approach is that you can build on what you’ve got rather than have a large, expensive, and time-consuming squad tear up in the summer as you scramble to alter both style and players. Stability versus instability. It certainly did work for Burnley. But equally one may argue that it has not worked for others.
The Swansea Way
Option two is to try and do what Swansea and Huddersfield have done. Play a better standard of technical football. Be prepared to change the manager, and build a style that is easier on the eye in the Premier League. With a better brand of football you are more likely to get more fans on board, and not give as many an excuse to walk away due the brand of poor football. Or so many think. The reasons I would advise against this move is that to change our brand of football we would need a change of manager, a massive squad overhaul, with board members and the manager spending their time signing players rather than preparing for the season ahead on the training pitch. If you are to play this way then you need to mould this style prior to promotion to the Premier League. Swansea had ingrained their style for a few seasons before promotion. So had Southampton, Bournemouth and Huddersfield with David Wagner.
The Third Way - Stoke model
Ther is another way perhaps. A third way. The slow metamorphosis. One example of a club that did well and has survived many seasons is against the odds, dare I say it, is our old enemy Stoke City. Like Burnley they have done very well, and it was Pulis that got them into the top ten and kept them going. Warnock is aging, and he may only want two seasons left in the game. But if he got us promotion then to me it would be right to reward Warnock for his efforts and to use his experience. Once he decides to leave, it wouldn’t take much of an effort to attract Tony Pulis here who could build on Warnock’s tough team legacy, until we get to a point where we can start using the money bank to buy better players and then morph the style slowly to better football - as Mark Hughes tried to do. I know Hughes got sacked, but the point I am making is that Stoke did it a clever way over time. Accept what you have built as a physical side, consolidate with it and only then slowly tinker the team into a better quality footballing one. You never know, by then someone up-and-coming with a loyalty to home, like, Craig Bellamy, maybe ready to take us to the next level. This is the approach that I would take.
What's your view?
It's already too late for the Swansea/Bournemouth etc way. They were playing that style of football in the third division.
We're going to have to do the Stoke way I think.
Burnley - although I think the way you describe their set up and play is too dismissive.
I agree that to significantly change our style of play we would need to do that in the Championship over a number of years, and probably with a different manager (but don't lets lower ourselves to Jursset-type caricatures - the Warnock way at the start of the season was very good to watch: power, pace, efficiency and skill).
Isn't the Stoke example just Burnley Part 2? Give Burnley and Dyche a few more seasons in the Premier League and I'm sure they will evolve.
The Leicester way
The Burnley way is the Stoke way - just earlier in the cycle. There is a 4th way - The Man City or Chelsea way - get a multi-billionaire owner who’s ego wants the success and doesn’t mind how much money he risks getting there. I’d prefer the Arsenal way but that’ll take too long to achieve and i’ll be dead before I see it.
If we can’t take the money route then we’ve got to hope we survive for at least 2 seasons doing it the Burnley way (unfortunately that doesn’t feel like a long term -20 years or more - approach)
Fair point. That was so miraculous though that there’s probably more chance of us buying our way to successOriginally Posted by life on mars
the burnley way as you described it
lets get promoted and give them a kicking, lets see Pep moaning about us again
Nothing pretty, nothing nice, just give them a scare, we might well come back down, but it would sure as hell be fun doing it that way
We cant just change our style. We need to be in teams faces like now.
Surely you can try to do the Wolves route ;)
What - stay in the championship?
Yep I guess we could do that
Give a few teams a kicking, get berated in the press and have a laugh. Feck it.
?
Counting chickens before they hatch springs to mind here.
The Man City way please 😆
But seriously, let's get up there, be physical, get in and amongst them and attempt to force our game onto our opposition. We just need to get a few higher end cloggers and hackers and we will be fine.
or even springing ones chickens whilst their hatching
If we went up, with this group of players we would have to stick to this playing style and bring in players to maximize the style to have any chance of staying up.
Agree entirely; stay away from such planning, however whimsical, until the maths cannot be changed
Also known as the Man City or Chelski.
So cheat to get promoted ( years later agreeing to pay a minor "penalty" which was far less that the cynical overspend ) and fire racist youth players but not the racist star striker who has only been surpassed in the diving stakes by Dele Alli.
Rhis
This one, surely Vincent moves in these billionaire circles, they will be queuing up to buy into us.....maybe? A little bit?
I don't see much harm in speculating on something like this given that our manager has referenced Burnley a few times already. For what it's worth, I'd say there's no way we would try to become a "footballing" side like Bournemouth are and Swansea once were under this manager - I think we are likely to look to play the same way while trying to bring in good Championship players who are getting near the end of their contracts, so I suppose that would be the Burnley way.
Some good points made in the OP, but I must take issue with the line "It is not possible to out-Arsenal Arsenal" - plenty of sides do that these days, but things would be getting pretty desperate for Wenger if the worst passers of the ball in this season's Championship were to do it.
The Arsenal way being spend 100 years in the top division without relegation. Yeah, that might take a while.
The Cardiff way
Meltdown city
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