davek
Player Valuation: £150m
Completely agree on the style issue. Going for Bielsa at this point would have killed us.I’d take Holgate or Coady at right back if Patterson isn’t fit or is making too many errors. We just need to keep the door shut and Coleman makes too many errors.
Flying fullbacks only work at the very best teams in Europe, they’re a liability everywhere else and can’t be indulged in a relegation scrap.
Our survival will be based on defending set pieces, scoring set pieces, and limiting our mistakes in open play. Ancelotti knew that and no one was complaining about the solid defence and counter attacks that took us to second in the league under him.
The fans needs to realise that as a bottom half PL side we cannot, should not, and won’t be, playing football that resembles anything like Barcelona Arsenal or Man City. Lampard was stupid for trying to do it last season and fell into the trap this season as well. Let Leeds get relegated trying to play that way whilst we grind our way to safety.
A few seasons of building solid foundations and getting players of top half quality then we can talk about style once again but some on here really do need to stop going on about the style of football it’s absolutely killing us every time we try to make poor players play a style they’re not able to.
We need to do all those things you say on the defensive side. The ball turnover to the opposition is the key to all this. We have to fight for every ball and when we get it make sure we do something positive with it...which all sounds very simplistic but is exactly what we've not been doing. Win enough individual battles all over the pitch and we'll at least be in games to get points. Just back to the basics really.