Originally Posted by
Tuerto
We've never been creative under Warnock, unless people have a different view on what 'Creative' means. When Warnock came in you could see that he was trying to get the team to play a quicker kind of football, a game that consisted of getting the ball out wide as quickly as possible and delivering a ball into the box with a midfield player supporting. That style was under construction during his first season and then ramped up for the first three months of the promotion season that saw us play an aggressive (not dirty)high tempo, high fitness expansive long ball game, there was method to it. I commented at the time that it was like watching an action movie. The plot wasn't great, the script was emotive and basic and deep down it sort of betrayed your senses and like most action movies you sort of disapproved of the main protagonist and his motives although by the end of it you're cheering him on and getting caught up in the emotion and vulgarity. That's how it felt to me.
Something changed after we absolutely smashed Leeds at home. I think that Warnock had surprised himself, but maybe an element of doubt had crept in. There was no way NML was going to keep performing in the way he had, same for Hoilett and Bamba and our free transfer from Walsall (Etheridge) i really think that Warnock doubted the longevity of what we had witnessed up to that point and decided on becomimg more conservative, sitting deeper, giving up possession and relying on pace on the counter in order to get us up.
The debate on Warnocks style will go on for as long as he's at the club. Some people quote 'tippy tappy football' in defence of Warnock but rarely give any opinion on what they've witnessed, even when one of our players doesn't even have the option of passing the ball to a team mate (it happens to murphy constantly) It's an odd defence to make as we've never really been a 'footballing' team, most people who watch the City know that. I reckon that somewhere in the middle of what Warnock likes and a bit of football would suit those who or critical or even that all action fast paced style that we saw initially, nobody is asking for twenty pass passages of play.