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Were we just a big team who played long ball?


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When speaking to a lifelong blade this morning, I was surprised to hear that for him we had only "long throws and hoofs into the box to use our height". Now, in the past we have had lots of banter and I always felt he had objectivity when it came to football but even though I look at the football world through "blue & white" coloured specs, I thought we were much more than that and whilst we got the ball forward quickly there was far more to our game than this myopic view?

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Guest search and destroy

To be fair thats exactly what you are, long ball percentage football, big guys in the box, but hey it took cambridge took the upper levels of division one in the 90s.

Its embarrassing to try to defend the tactics though.

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You do what's necessary to try and win football matches.

The fact that ANY criticism of long ball or bully tactics comes from Sheffield United though is absolutely hilarious. What with the Blades being the bastions of free flowing attacking passing football over the years.

United should stop spitting their dummies out because we played a style they didn't like watching. Get over it for crying out loud.

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To be fair thats exactly what you are, long ball percentage football, big guys in the box, but hey it took cambridge took the upper levels of division one in the 90s.

Its embarrassing to try to defend the tactics though.

I know, we saw you try.

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Personally I dont care how we play as long as we win. I'm sure we would all love to be in Stoke City's shoes right now. I remember their last season in the Championship when we gave them a footballing lesson at their place and beat them 4-2, but look where we are now. I know a lot of Stoke fans and they are delighted to be rubbing shoulders with Utd, Chelsea and Arsenal, while we are playing Yeovil and Bournemouth, regardless of the style of football they see.

Im more glad we can mix it now, makes a change from being over-run with the likes of Potter in central midfield.

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Posted on the other thread.. but relevant to this..

We knew what Megson would bring us (or some of us did say this when he was appointed)

Fast / powerful and direct play.. Thankfully we can mix it up, Much like under the successful Wilco era. We have players who

can hold the ball and play, all our midfield are capable of this.. we have wingers who attack the by line and can get a good cross in.

We have big centre halfs who can put it about in both boxes, and strikers who arn't afraid to have a pop and also put it about.

Its refreshing to see a team who don't get hassled off the ball / bullied around.. the rements of the previous regime JOC is a classic

example of this, the last two matches he has suprisingly look lost and been poor.

This team has been created to get us out of league 1. That is the first priority.. we will need a few better players in the Championship

and several better players when we reach the Prem.

This style will win us games.. that is what we want at the moment after years of trying tip tappy football and playing like *******..

Let the "football" come as we rise up the leagues

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Guest TonyOwl88

People can kid themselves if they like.... We got it down and played it in the derby, and other games this season. We also DO play long balls. In the case of yesterday's 2-2 massacre, we played some fantastic long balls out wide, that we kept, and played on from.

We are not a 1 trick poney... unlike the blunts who try (and fail) to play nice pretty football, but end up playing much of nothing. (A little bit like we did in the season we got relegated from the Championship).

Most of their attacking play was on the break.... And let's face it, they had few shots.

I'll take our style of play thanks. At least we are good at it.

On Sunday's performance, they best prepare for a long season of medeocrity, because nobody will be scared of THAT. It was the softest blunts side I've ever seen... at least they usually give it a good scrap. Yesterday they just looked scared... especially once we got the first goal back.... but you could always see it coming. Its just a shame it didn't happen sooner... or we could have had a good 4 or so imo.

If that kind of football is what Cackwell got sacked for, then no wonder they went down.... they didn't know how good they'd got it.

I know it wasn't though for the most part.... because they were going on the radio crying about only having 1 shot on target in a game, and we had 10.

To conceed 6 shots on target was a bad day at the office for us, since Bywater could usually go and sit in the stands. I wonder if they can say the same about our 10 on target, and of course the additional 8 off target, (which may include the couple of times we hit the bar depending on how the stats work).

Stats don't lie.... they were under a lot of pressure throughout that game, and were lucky to get a point.

If they had gone behind first, they would admit it. They are just too stupid to understand they went 2-0 up against the run of play, not deservedly.

I shouldn't worry though. The fact that they're crawling around on here no doubt means they are embarassed and desperate to save face. Otherwise why would our "style of play" be what they are talking about?

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Win your home games, pick up points away.

We play a different brand of football at home, with a nice variety of play. Maybe we do use the strength and height more when away, but it's starting to pay dividends. Obviously the away fans don't see us every week so they can only base their opinion on what they see in their own back yard. I can understand why some fans have that opinion, but like most on here, I couldn't give a monkeys.

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I'd agree that we don't play like Barcelona but how many other teams in LEAGUE ONE 2-0 down with 10 minutes to go against their bitter rivals wouldn't have lumped it in the box??

People who say we are 'just a long ball team' know nothing about football or (more likely) don't watch enough of us.

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The last time I checked, it wasn't illegal to play some long balls in a football match. Even when Man United are a goal or two down in the last ten minutes they play long ball. We didn't play long ball for the whole match at all, we played some good stuff. Besides, when a team are as weak defending high balls as they are, you're hardly going to avoid doing them because a few pigs might think it's the worst football in history.

Sour grapes

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I think we play to our strengths, though I think yesterday we could have mixed it up a little more. We need to retain the ball better so we can get some control over a game. The selection of The sadly out of touch JOC rather surrendered the initiative to them yesterday. Lines too was ineffective, he is the one who should give us some control but too often goes missing in games. Yesterday was a game we should have won at a canter, but could quite easily have lost. With better substitutions they could have closed the game down and held out for three points.

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tell you what, why don't we pass it around and try to walk it into the net and get nowhere

there's a very good mix of wing play with balls from deep and from the by-line

i'm more than happy with our style

it's a winning style

Edited by happy bunny
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