Martinez fan club

He wasn’t playing left-back.
Martinez went 3-5-2. Cleverley and Stam playing as wing-backs with, wait for it – shock, horror – two up front.

Phil, sorry by youre wrong. I wasn’t going to respond to this for fear of being accused of, oh christ knows what, but Sammy is exactly right. Hard to tell with Stam sometimes, but that was my reading of it.

So, the masses didn’t quite get their 442 but they did get 352 and guess what? That didn’t make much difference either, sticking 2 up front. Who’d a thowt? ;)

That said, Boselli looked more comfortable like that so maybe it’s worth trying again, particularly with N’Zogbia out.

Precisely, stick to fishing John ;)

Chucking my hat into the ring…….

I was going to post this as a new thread, but I think it will go well here and add to the debate.

A question: Why do we have to play a ‘set’ style?

Is that a fair question? I think it is. Surely you should go out and adapt your style to whoever you are playing against? You’ll get some teams who will absolutely kill you if you try and play football against them, whilst you will also get some teams who play a direct game, such as Blackburn. Then you have the ‘high tempo’ sides, such as the likes of Blackpool and Newcastle. Now, the worrying thing is, we have been beaten and outplayed by ALL these different styles of opposition. For me, if I was manager, I’d have already learned that the style we are trying to implement, is NOT working. We are no better than last season, in the fact that the odd surprise win is followed by a load of mediocrity. We’ve never put a run together and I doubt we ever will.

You are a goal down with 10 minutes left at home. Most managers would throw caution to the wind and change their style, going direct if necessary, and sticking a centre half in the opponents box. We don’t do that. We try and chase the game by playing, dare I say it ‘tippy tappy’ football.
This set style we play, is all about keeping possession well, which we don’t. It’s also about having a strong back four, as it encourages the opposition to come at us, which again, we don’t have.

It’s also no coincidence that we are the lowest scorers in the English leagues. People keep saying how the crowds have dropped off despite cheap tickets. Yes, you get what you pay for.

All this ‘playing a set style’ gets on my nerves. If Martinez really is a good manager, or at least one in the making, he’d realise the need for adaptation to different game scenario’s and situations. To be honest, I don’t think his strength is team management. Perhaps he is better at player recruitment or something?

I don’t think he is the man to take us on, but then again i’m not going to slate him and call him not fit to burn. I’ve never booed at the game, and I was a bit disgusted by the half-time booing yesterday, to be honest. And the jeering of Gomez. It helps nobody.