Quote Originally Posted by the other bob wilson View Post
We live in a world where "grey areas" have become unfashionable. In football, this is reflected by a belief among many that you have to play either tippy tippy/tiki taka or the sort of stuff we've seen at City under the likes of Mackay, Slade and Warnock. I would ask these people who, apart from Fulham when they came here this season, plays possession for possession's sake week in, week out?

The best club side in this country, and possibly the world, currently knock long passes into the channels frequently, Liverpool also switch the point of play from one side of the pitch to the other by hitting thirty yard or more passes. The second best side in the country currently are managed by someone who is synomous with tiki/taka and yet one of their attacking moves involves their goalkeeper playing accurate long passes that sometimes lead directly to goals, so Man City play longer passes than anybody!

What this means is every team's footballing "philosophy" is centred in those unfashionable grey areas, even Cardiff City's! What I think I and others are hoping for is a move towards a more measured approach, not the extreme end of the scale that gets called tippy tappy.
In addition, while you mention the use of the long ball, I'm sure we'd all prefer our long balls to have some sort of end product, not the sort where it's lashed forward aimlessly hoping someone might win it or we might pick up a second ball. To that end, Warnock's sides with us were consistently atrocious at playing long balls, simply because they were so much hit and hope.