We're in trouble and perhaps it's already too late, but playing the way we did under RH and expecting different results is insane and NJ needs to look at what he's doing.
In my opinion, teams in the PL play one of two ways. The better teams will keep the ball, move it around and across the pitch and look for openings to put their strikers in front of goal. Often therefore the final pass is short (15m or so).
The less good teams are more "traditional" in that they seek to exploit areas of space on the wings and then play a decent ball into the box. Passes from the centre of the pitch tend to be into the channels.
(I'm excluding breakaway chances here.)
The first step to recovery is to stop letting goals in. We don't have the strikers to score 2 or 3 goals in one match and therefore we need to stop conceding.
Against the better teams, that should be easier by playing "narrow". A back three with two sat front on them and full backs who are more careful about when to move out to the wing. It's still possible for the great players to find space and a pass but more difficult against effectively 5 to 7 defenders.
Against the less good teams, I am not at all convinced by the ability of our central defenders to deal with a decent cross. Armand BC also seems to be fragile. I think therefore we have to stop the ball coming in as often as we can. That means a back 4 and probably a 4 in front of them. But the 4 midfielders have to protect the space on the wing and that means staying fairly wide themselves and I fear we have nobody who can do that (or nobody who wants to do that).
Both limit the attacking options of course, but trying this in the cup games coming up and perhaps losing both but learning something will not really damage our season. |  |
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