I for one am prepared to cut MB a lot of slack if he gets the team playing what I consider more attractive football, even if it means mid table mediocrity rather than a promotion push. It was nice getting into the Championship, don't get me wrong, but over the course of a season I'd prefer to see less-effective fluid football played with wingers and short passes than I would grinding Ainsworthball which wins matches by attrition and route-one cautiousness. Spectating football is an expensive business and I find it more enjoyable to watch a thing of beauty over 90 minutes with an unagreable final score than I do to be bored for 90 minutes in order to celebrate a win.
My worry is that Matt may already be compromising his desire to play pretty football in order to get results. Against Fleetwood Stryjek was clearly told to play the ball short every time. Then Vokes was injured and the tactic stopped. I was hoping it would be reintroduced now that Vokes is fit again but it hasn't been. I still have my fingers crossed for the final two matches though.
Crikey, @Shev ! Just noticed that I copied your post down but forgot in the meantime to comment. Very much an age thing.
No surprise that I agree with your last paragraph. Freeman and Wing are very much in the same mould. Both have needed regular games to get into cruise mode - Wing last season and Freeman the season before (pre ACL injury).
Based purely on the Lincoln game, I think Wing IS now getting forward more. He had two or three shots on goal, I think, all not too far away from the target.
Was there anything more beautiful than watching Bayo chest down a long ball, spin, and smash it into the top corner?
I didn’t find Ainsworth’s football in any way dull. Dull for me is keeping possession for the sake of possession, passing the ball interminably around between defenders.
While we'd all love beautiful champagne football that wins games, some of these posts are interesting.
Would people genuinely prefer lovely football, but football that leaves you mid to lower table. As opposed to slightly more agricultural football that leaves you pushing for the playoffs?
I refuse to accept we were exactly old school Wimbledon, with players like Wing, Mehmeti, McCleary, Freeman etc anyway.
I think the pitch is 'we consistently overachieve, maintain a good win record, have happy players, develop young loanees and talent, and don't stand in their way for bigger offers'
Spot on. I remember back to the covid season play-off semi finals when we got a lot of flak off Oxford fans for our unattractive so-called 'anti-football' and yet their semi -final games against equally pretty, passing-football Pompey were both deathly dull. Compare and contrast to the mad gung-ho games we had against Fleetwood. I know which I'd rather watch every week.
Some of the timewasting aside, I've had ten years when I enjoyed turning up at AP and watching every week. I don't buy the narrative that we were worse than anyone else at employing the 'dark arts' any more than I believe the usual post match oppositin view that every ref was too weak to deal with us and every decision was given our way. Needs must to win football matches but being a mid-table L1 club is no disgrace. I'll be happy if the let's play football that delights the eye and if we don't win so be it brethren...don't then start moaning about no Plan B and why aren't we buying better League One players and challenging for the playoffs when we get hoofed out of games by people more interested in winning.
Quite right @Wendoverman. The idea that watching your centre backs play meaningless five yard passes with each other is somehow more enjoyable than winning is incredible to me!
I think either style works with the right personnel. With GA, I think the key was that 4/8 area, with the likes of Gape & Thompson and then more recently Scowen. If we could have one of the other two alongside Scowen it would function so well, with Wing in the 10. When players get injured it is not just "a good player is out" but the balance of the team is potentially altered. I feel like we were always most effective under GA when we could have two midfielders who could be everywhere (enabling a third further forward), protecting the defense but moving the ball forward also. Scowen and Gape or Thompson is a three or four man midfield in two bodies. I will also say I loved the GA style when everything was firing. Tenacious, full blooded, and lots of late goals!
MB wants to do something different, and it is again based on personnel. Without round pegs in round holes it can of course go nowhere, which is why we will definitely need some players in midfield and the 10 who can move the ball well (this is why I think he should keep Freeman around, for starters). It all clicked against Fleetwood and we saw what was possible.
I always say that character virtues can also be flaws - passionate people can get angry too quickly, mellow people can be passive when it is time to stand up and be counted, etc. In the same way, GA-ball or MB-ball can look good or bad depending on the available personnel and whether it is clicking in that particular game. Direct style can end up a bit hoof and hope at times, and possession football can go nowhere at times. That goes for pretty much any team at any level, of course. The key is simply the right personnel and consistent coaching that makes the good days more numerous than the bad days.
You can talk about styles of play as much as you want but managers have to play to the strengths of the players they have. If MB has a TOTALLY different style of play in mind then he will need a couple of transfer windows to introduce them, I suspect he doesn't judging from the contract renewals.
Evolution and not revolution. We know are very lacking in attack and we don't have the resources to go and get a proven scorer to play alongside Vokes. GA seemed a bit reluctant to get loanees in and I wonder if this might be different with MB or whether this is a club policy and not a manager one.
It's easy to say " I'd prefer mid table if the football was more attractive" (which is subjective anyway).
But what would happen next season if after 15 games the football is more attractive but we sit bottom of the league?
GA was always very pragmatic about getting a result and that's what really matters.
Personally I'm still excited to see what kind of football MB wants us to play next season. However, noone should be under any doubt that's it's the result that counts in the final analysis. I'm sure MB knows that too.
What happened to the old mantra, "football is a results based business"?
Didn't Rochdale play the wonderful possession game & see where they are now.
Look at Burton Albion under Dino Maamria, they beat our conquerers from Saturday plus one or two top sides including us, playing the football that we have under GA for 10 years!
To quote GA, "possession can do one", or something along those lines. Unless possession/free flowing football is coupled to the right personnel, then I "wouldn't watch that every week" will be a joy to return to RTB on a Monday.
Interesting debate. I have always believed that winning is the most important thing and to illustrate that I ask a simple question: If you drew up a list of managers who encourage so-called ‘attractive football’ but lose more games than they win, and a list of managers who favour so-called ‘ugly’ football but win more games than they lose, which managers do you think are more likely to be sacked? Of course, if you can combine success with a style that’s also pleasing on the eye you really have cracked it, but that requires recruiting top quality players who aren’t cheap or easy to find.
You play with what you have. If you have a team of players who can pass around you do that, if you have a team who are strong and physical you play to that. Anything else is foolhardy.
I recall a mid-week game v Forest Green a few years back. It was when playing out from the back was becoming a thing in the Premier League and they kept on trying it with their keeper. It was terrifying to watch and I am sure their 'keeper has PTSD to this day. Classic example of NOT playing with what you have.
I'd definitely prefer us to play aesthetically pleasing football, and I'll admit I'm something of a snob to that end, but I still ultimately prioritise effective, winning football.
As @eric_plant rightly says, it is in the eye of the beholder. I personally prefer any style of play - including possession football - to be purposeful and direct. For instance, Arsenal this season have generally looked to move the ball forward while retaining possession, with clever passes, flicks around corners, and imaginative reading of the game. On the other end of the spectrum, Leicester's title winning team were low possession and extremely direct - outlet to Mahrez, through ball to Vardy, who would outrace the defence and slot home. Possession football's weakness is the potential to drift into sideways, unadventurous passing, while the weakness of longer passing is the potential to get lost in aimless hoofing.
There have been so many phases of play under GA that were tremendously entertaining and fun to watch (in my opinion), while we all remember games where we did get lost a little in hoofworld too. Two sides of the same coin, just like MB's more possession based game will have.
I was going to say much the same. I have no real understanding of football but that period of watching us under Gorman was probably the era that I equate most with us playing “entertaining” football (far too many draws though from memory).
It would be slightly interesting to know what it was about the way we played then that gave me (and many others) that perception.
I clearly remember the first game at Adams Park after John Gorman took charge. Very soon after kickoff I said (in surprise) “We’re playing football again”. It was beautiful but couldn’t be sustained.
In a game against Aston Villa, not long afterwards (if memory serves) we saw the naïveté of our all out attacking approach not being reined in after we’d gone 3-0 up at half time. I think it finished 4-3 to Villa.
So much for attack being the best form of defence.
Comments
I for one am prepared to cut MB a lot of slack if he gets the team playing what I consider more attractive football, even if it means mid table mediocrity rather than a promotion push. It was nice getting into the Championship, don't get me wrong, but over the course of a season I'd prefer to see less-effective fluid football played with wingers and short passes than I would grinding Ainsworthball which wins matches by attrition and route-one cautiousness. Spectating football is an expensive business and I find it more enjoyable to watch a thing of beauty over 90 minutes with an unagreable final score than I do to be bored for 90 minutes in order to celebrate a win.
My worry is that Matt may already be compromising his desire to play pretty football in order to get results. Against Fleetwood Stryjek was clearly told to play the ball short every time. Then Vokes was injured and the tactic stopped. I was hoping it would be reintroduced now that Vokes is fit again but it hasn't been. I still have my fingers crossed for the final two matches though.
Crikey, @Shev ! Just noticed that I copied your post down but forgot in the meantime to comment. Very much an age thing.
No surprise that I agree with your last paragraph. Freeman and Wing are very much in the same mould. Both have needed regular games to get into cruise mode - Wing last season and Freeman the season before (pre ACL injury).
Based purely on the Lincoln game, I think Wing IS now getting forward more. He had two or three shots on goal, I think, all not too far away from the target.
Was there anything more beautiful than watching Bayo chest down a long ball, spin, and smash it into the top corner?
I didn’t find Ainsworth’s football in any way dull. Dull for me is keeping possession for the sake of possession, passing the ball interminably around between defenders.
While we'd all love beautiful champagne football that wins games, some of these posts are interesting.
Would people genuinely prefer lovely football, but football that leaves you mid to lower table. As opposed to slightly more agricultural football that leaves you pushing for the playoffs?
I refuse to accept we were exactly old school Wimbledon, with players like Wing, Mehmeti, McCleary, Freeman etc anyway.
Definitely second option, second paragraph @Malone .
Nothing more beautiful @Chris . Not in football, anyway.
I think the pitch is 'we consistently overachieve, maintain a good win record, have happy players, develop young loanees and talent, and don't stand in their way for bigger offers'
Spot on. I remember back to the covid season play-off semi finals when we got a lot of flak off Oxford fans for our unattractive so-called 'anti-football' and yet their semi -final games against equally pretty, passing-football Pompey were both deathly dull. Compare and contrast to the mad gung-ho games we had against Fleetwood. I know which I'd rather watch every week.
Some of the timewasting aside, I've had ten years when I enjoyed turning up at AP and watching every week. I don't buy the narrative that we were worse than anyone else at employing the 'dark arts' any more than I believe the usual post match oppositin view that every ref was too weak to deal with us and every decision was given our way. Needs must to win football matches but being a mid-table L1 club is no disgrace. I'll be happy if the let's play football that delights the eye and if we don't win so be it brethren...don't then start moaning about no Plan B and why aren't we buying better League One players and challenging for the playoffs when we get hoofed out of games by people more interested in winning.
Quite right @Wendoverman. The idea that watching your centre backs play meaningless five yard passes with each other is somehow more enjoyable than winning is incredible to me!
I think either style works with the right personnel. With GA, I think the key was that 4/8 area, with the likes of Gape & Thompson and then more recently Scowen. If we could have one of the other two alongside Scowen it would function so well, with Wing in the 10. When players get injured it is not just "a good player is out" but the balance of the team is potentially altered. I feel like we were always most effective under GA when we could have two midfielders who could be everywhere (enabling a third further forward), protecting the defense but moving the ball forward also. Scowen and Gape or Thompson is a three or four man midfield in two bodies. I will also say I loved the GA style when everything was firing. Tenacious, full blooded, and lots of late goals!
MB wants to do something different, and it is again based on personnel. Without round pegs in round holes it can of course go nowhere, which is why we will definitely need some players in midfield and the 10 who can move the ball well (this is why I think he should keep Freeman around, for starters). It all clicked against Fleetwood and we saw what was possible.
I always say that character virtues can also be flaws - passionate people can get angry too quickly, mellow people can be passive when it is time to stand up and be counted, etc. In the same way, GA-ball or MB-ball can look good or bad depending on the available personnel and whether it is clicking in that particular game. Direct style can end up a bit hoof and hope at times, and possession football can go nowhere at times. That goes for pretty much any team at any level, of course. The key is simply the right personnel and consistent coaching that makes the good days more numerous than the bad days.
Brilliant post. I am now having a genuine chuckle imagining MB dressed as GA, complete with long scraggly hair!
You can talk about styles of play as much as you want but managers have to play to the strengths of the players they have. If MB has a TOTALLY different style of play in mind then he will need a couple of transfer windows to introduce them, I suspect he doesn't judging from the contract renewals.
Evolution and not revolution. We know are very lacking in attack and we don't have the resources to go and get a proven scorer to play alongside Vokes. GA seemed a bit reluctant to get loanees in and I wonder if this might be different with MB or whether this is a club policy and not a manager one.
And tonight Lincoln have lost 1-0 at home to Burton Albion.
It's easy to say " I'd prefer mid table if the football was more attractive" (which is subjective anyway).
But what would happen next season if after 15 games the football is more attractive but we sit bottom of the league?
GA was always very pragmatic about getting a result and that's what really matters.
Personally I'm still excited to see what kind of football MB wants us to play next season. However, noone should be under any doubt that's it's the result that counts in the final analysis. I'm sure MB knows that too.
What happened to the old mantra, "football is a results based business"?
Didn't Rochdale play the wonderful possession game & see where they are now.
Look at Burton Albion under Dino Maamria, they beat our conquerers from Saturday plus one or two top sides including us, playing the football that we have under GA for 10 years!
To quote GA, "possession can do one", or something along those lines. Unless possession/free flowing football is coupled to the right personnel, then I "wouldn't watch that every week" will be a joy to return to RTB on a Monday.
Interesting debate. I have always believed that winning is the most important thing and to illustrate that I ask a simple question: If you drew up a list of managers who encourage so-called ‘attractive football’ but lose more games than they win, and a list of managers who favour so-called ‘ugly’ football but win more games than they lose, which managers do you think are more likely to be sacked? Of course, if you can combine success with a style that’s also pleasing on the eye you really have cracked it, but that requires recruiting top quality players who aren’t cheap or easy to find.
I think it's a flawed debate anyway because the criteria are already subjective.
There is no such thing really, as "attractive football" because it means something different to everyone.
I certainly didn't find the football we played under Gareth Ainsworth "ugly". I took exception to our time-wasting but we've all had our say on that
You play with what you have. If you have a team of players who can pass around you do that, if you have a team who are strong and physical you play to that. Anything else is foolhardy.
I recall a mid-week game v Forest Green a few years back. It was when playing out from the back was becoming a thing in the Premier League and they kept on trying it with their keeper. It was terrifying to watch and I am sure their 'keeper has PTSD to this day. Classic example of NOT playing with what you have.
Even the keepers people rate the best in the world make quite a lot of horrible errors.
Allison and Ederson have made numerous woeful mistakes trying to play out from the back.
The benefit of keeping the ball is clearly seen as massively outweighing the downsides.
It does, all about risk vs reward
I'd definitely prefer us to play aesthetically pleasing football, and I'll admit I'm something of a snob to that end, but I still ultimately prioritise effective, winning football.
I think the coffee chat (if it ever materialises!) will be very amicable.
As @eric_plant rightly says, it is in the eye of the beholder. I personally prefer any style of play - including possession football - to be purposeful and direct. For instance, Arsenal this season have generally looked to move the ball forward while retaining possession, with clever passes, flicks around corners, and imaginative reading of the game. On the other end of the spectrum, Leicester's title winning team were low possession and extremely direct - outlet to Mahrez, through ball to Vardy, who would outrace the defence and slot home. Possession football's weakness is the potential to drift into sideways, unadventurous passing, while the weakness of longer passing is the potential to get lost in aimless hoofing.
There have been so many phases of play under GA that were tremendously entertaining and fun to watch (in my opinion), while we all remember games where we did get lost a little in hoofworld too. Two sides of the same coin, just like MB's more possession based game will have.
Happiest watching Gormania with Sergio’s beguiling S American flare and the mid table obscurity it secured.
I was going to say much the same. I have no real understanding of football but that period of watching us under Gorman was probably the era that I equate most with us playing “entertaining” football (far too many draws though from memory).
It would be slightly interesting to know what it was about the way we played then that gave me (and many others) that perception.
I clearly remember the first game at Adams Park after John Gorman took charge. Very soon after kickoff I said (in surprise) “We’re playing football again”. It was beautiful but couldn’t be sustained.
In a game against Aston Villa, not long afterwards (if memory serves) we saw the naïveté of our all out attacking approach not being reined in after we’d gone 3-0 up at half time. I think it finished 4-3 to Villa.
So much for attack being the best form of defence.
That's a long time after ap was built. What happened during the O'Neill years @micra
3-1 at half-time and finished... 8-3 to Villa 😬