Quote Originally Posted by Power_n_Glory View Post
Yes, I agree with you on that. Henry said the arrival of Cesc changed the mentality as well and he's probably right. It's a combination of it all. But the question is how do we sort this problem out? Can we go back to our old way of playing? The thing I noticed more about the start of last season was the focus we had on defending deeper, holding our shape and counter attacking. Remember there was a period where we were happy to let our opponents have the ball or maybe it was the lack of cohesion in the middle that gave that impression. But as we grow more efficient with our passing and try to play in our opponents half, we have no space to work with. It's the tippy tappy crap. What's worse, even in games where there was space in the final third like in the Liverpool game, we're not looking to break on the team and attack the space behind. Maybe that's down to the wrong players being on the pitch but that probing for an opening style we have needs to go.
I certainly prefer watching that more open, counter-attacking game, but I guess the inherent problem with it is that it only really works as long as the other team are actually prepared to attack if you let them have the ball. What happens when the other team turn up with the same gameplan though? Does it still work? I think this is where we tend to get suckered back into that tippy-tappy, probing, passing stuff - when you're charging the fans as much as we are, you simply can't justify letting the game descend into a turgid mexican stand-off, and it's usually us that ends up having to make the first move because of it.

I'm not sure what the answer is, to be honest mate - maybe there isn't one? As you say, pick the right players for the right game, make sure you have some decent variety on the bench if you get it wrong, and then see where the game takes you...