Re: “Let’s face it, we are horrible to play against,” Will Vaulks
What an outstanding interview.
The most thoughtful and insightful interview from a player that I’ve seen in ages.
I’m really pleased that he is stepping up and has been improving.
He has the materials to be a quality combative midfielder and he obviously has a goal or two in him.
👏 👏
Re: “Let’s face it, we are horrible to play against,” Will Vaulks
I've been impressed by Will Vaulks before in interviews and he's very good again in this one. However, I'm going to try and put an alternative point of view which I would say most would have agreed with on here about six weeks ago.
There's no doubt that City are playing much better than they have done at any time this season in recent matches. For example, we beat Luton 4-0 in late November, but Saturday's performance was a much more complete one than that.
Going back to the start of the season, I felt that, with the introduction of Moore and Wilson to our attacking play (Ojo has been a better player than I was expecting as well), our squad was stronger than last season's and I felt the same way through the first half of the season despite the loss of Lee Tomlin, but results were, clearly, saying that we weren't.
As to why this should be, it seemed to me that Moore was too often isolated, Wilson and Ojo were barely getting a kick in the early stages of matches (this was one of the reasons why we kept on conceding the first goal so often) and the fact that both of them spent most of their time stuck out on the wings didn't help. However, at the root of it was that we were unable or unwilling to pass the ball to the players who could be called our match winners.
In his interview, Will Vaulks says that Mick McCarthy made a joke about how it was a good job that he was so good about getting the ball back given the number of times he gives it away, but the truth is that Vaulks and his midfield colleagues were giving the ball away far too often in the first half of the season.
Perhaps it's the fact that Wilson, Ojo and a rejuvenated Josh Murphy are playing more centrally now that our counter productive obsession with playing two wingers has ended, that has enabled Vaulks and his colleagues to bring them into the game more often, but, whatever it is, it's working.
Even Warnockball at it's most basic can be enjoyable if it's your side that is doing the winning, but I've always said that it's got nothing to recommend it when you're not and, although Neil Harris tried to get us to play a more modern way, that still applied to the team when he was in charge. Things are going well for now and the team can hardly be blamed for the fact that we've not yet played the sort of team that was outplaying us easily during Neil Harris' latter days at the club, but the question has to be asked, can out improved be maintained when we start playing the Swanseas and Brentfords again - our win at Watford stands out like a beacon at the moment, because, apart from a home draw with Bournemouth, it's the only points we've taken off the current top six in seven attempts.
I've always said about our four central midfielders that, individually they're all decent to good Championship players, but, as a unit, they're too samey - the last few games suggest that is an unfair verdict, but I certainly don't believe it has been disproven yet.
Finally, City have played in the way that currently identifies us for nearly ten years and for most of that time, we've not had the sort of quality in the team that Will Vaulks talks of, so we've had to watch a fair bit of dross in the last decade to go with the joy of the two promotions (which were both followed by an instant relegation) - it's no wonder people were calling for a different way of playing a few short weeks ago.
Re: “Let’s face it, we are horrible to play against,” Will Vaulks
What style of football is enjoyable to watch when your team isn't winning?
Re: “Let’s face it, we are horrible to play against,” Will Vaulks
I never would have thought that playing three centre-backs would be the way to get the best out of our squad, especially when it involves both Flint and Morrison. Fair play to MM and TC for recognising this.
Re: “Let’s face it, we are horrible to play against,” Will Vaulks
Quote:
Originally Posted by
LeningradCowboy
What style of football is enjoyable to watch when your team isn't winning?
This season,
Cardiff 1 Bournemouth 1
Cardiff 2 Brentford 3 wasn't bad.
Last season
Charlton 2 Cardiff 2
Leeds 3 Cardiff 3
Cardiff 2 Brentford 2
Cardiff 2 Blackburn 3
18/19
Cardiff 2 Arsenal 3
Cardiff 1 Burnley 2
Cardiff 1 Chelsea 2
I could go on when it comes to individual results, but as for style of football, I always prefer watching the type of football the under 23s and under 18s play over what we get from the first team.
Re: “Let’s face it, we are horrible to play against,” Will Vaulks
Quote:
Originally Posted by
LeningradCowboy
What style of football is enjoyable to watch when your team isn't winning?
None, the result is all that matters
Re: “Let’s face it, we are horrible to play against,” Will Vaulks
Quote:
Originally Posted by
UNDERHILL1927
None, the result is all that matters
So what you're saying then is that Will Vaulks is wrong and the way we play will be crap, like everyone was saying it was six weeks ago, again when and if we start losing?
Re: “Let’s face it, we are horrible to play against,” Will Vaulks
Quote:
Originally Posted by
the other bob wilson
So what you're saying then is that Will Vaulks is wrong and the way we play will be crap, like everyone was saying it was six weeks ago, again when and if we start losing?
Our style of play hasn't changed a great deal since six weeks ago, but the quality of the performances has significantly improved.
Personally, I'd rather watch the team that I support play high-quality direct football than low-quality tiki-taka.
Re: “Let’s face it, we are horrible to play against,” Will Vaulks
an interesting feature of our recent improvement is that it doesn't seem to be borne out in basic xG.
even while we were losing under Harris our xG was often decent, and on our recent winning run under McCarthy the xg suggests a lot of the games have been closer than the final results suggest.
this could mean that we've just been luckier under McCarthy than we ended up under Harris, but before I launch into the famous Napoleon quote about lucky generals - that doesn't seem to pass the eye-test in that we have definitely looked better to anyone watching the matches.
I think a lot of this is down to game-states. so often under Harris we conceded a soft goal early on and spent the rest of the game chasing. this obviously completely changes the pattern of the game. when we had good runs under Harris we also looked like a decent team. we've been a lot better at 0-0 under McCarthy, with so far those soft openers cut out.
the tactical change seems to have facilitated that, without significantly effecting our style of play going forward.
it just remains to be seen though if the tactical change has made us genuinely better at 0-0, or if we just happen to be on a good streak, just like we did at times under Harris - it feels like the former somehow, but it is difficult to say that with any real conviction.
I do think that Harris was perhaps a little unfortunate in that the run of 5 league games we lost, 3 of them were against Norwich and Brentford, but nobody is going to argue with the impact the change has made.
Re: “Let’s face it, we are horrible to play against,” Will Vaulks
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Rjk
an interesting feature of our recent improvement is that it doesn't seem to be borne out in basic xG.
even while we were losing under Harris our xG was often decent, and on our recent winning run under McCarthy the xg suggests a lot of the games have been closer than the final results suggest.
this could mean that we've just been luckier under McCarthy than we ended up under Harris, but before I launch into the famous Napoleon quote about lucky generals - that doesn't seem to pass the eye-test in that we have definitely looked better to anyone watching the matches.
I think a lot of this is down to game-states. so often under Harris we conceded a soft goal early on and spent the rest of the game chasing. this obviously completely changes the pattern of the game. when we had good runs under Harris we also looked like a decent team. we've been a lot better at 0-0 under McCarthy, with so far those soft openers cut out.
the tactical change seems to have facilitated that, without significantly effecting our style of play going forward.
it just remains to be seen though if the tactical change has made us genuinely better at 0-0, or if we just happen to be on a good streak, just like we did at times under Harris - it feels like the former somehow, but it is difficult to say that with any real conviction.
I do think that Harris was perhaps a little unfortunate in that the run of 5 league games we lost, 3 of them were against Norwich and Brentford, but nobody is going to argue with the impact the change has made.
And Swansea, frankly, took the piss out of us two games before we played Norwich, so we faced three of the best four sides in the league in four games (four in six if you include the win at Watford). I think you’re point about conceding first is a good one though and goes a long towards explaining the anomaly you talk of.
