Quote Originally Posted by Eric the Half a Bee View Post
Last night (more noticeably than the other two games) saw us launch everything up in the air. From defence, everything was blasted forward. From midfield, high balls were hit into channels or up to Zohore. There was so little passed along the deck it was dreadful. This is old news, of course.

Now, the question has to be why were the team constantly doing this? For defenders and goalkeeper to continually hit it long everytime they must have been under instruction to do so, surely? I can only presume a lack of faith in Ralls and Damour being able to keep hold of possession as a reason for doing so, but the constant long ball bombardment must have been ordered from above.

I made a comment last night that it reminded me of those spells under Dave Jones' management where we didn't have a clue what we were doing and just lumped everything long in hope that something would happen. This has to provide a problem for us. Unless Warnock is going to instruct his team to start passing the ball on the deck as they were earlier in the season then we're likely to be stuck with the hopeful long ball bollocks we've seen recently. Warnock has to find a way to stop us playing like that. Jones didn't know how to rectify this problem and we could go for several weeks looking absolutely clueless. Jones' failure to find a solution ultimately cost us promotion on a few occasions and unless Warnock can stop this awful football that we're playing, this season will go the same way.
This post illustrates just how unknowledgable about the game you are.

Warnock will not be saying to players "hit it long" one week and "play it on the deck" the next. Players start hitting long balls when opposition players stifle play and pressure defenders into making quick passes. It's unlikely, at this level, that you will have a back four that can play good football under pressure, or whilst team mates are suffocated of space. Therefore, it is the opposition manager who dictates if you will be forced to hit long hopeful balls.