A Case for the Offense

[Widdow]

Leeds & West Brom have two of the best squads in the league. Leeds have spent millions to get one of the best coaches in the world and play a different style to everyone else as a result. We don’t have the budget to bring in better players than everyone else. Brentford have a clear plan which they have followed diligently for years regardless of change of coach (what we should do...)

In the Premier League Klopp focussed on making Liverpool defensively strong and adept at counterattacking first of all before adding players to make them play a more expansive game. Even now when they score they immediately sit deep in that well organised shape and invite the other team on to hit them on the counter.

A balance between strong defence and incisive attack is obviously best, but I prefer to see a coach focus on making the defence tight first of all. It means we’re always in games. There have only been a couple of times this season where we have been well beaten. We do attack when needed in games, but overall Lamouchi has the right approach.

Fair points, and again as i said in my post, we have spent the season developing the defense and a style of play that Sabri thinks gets the best out of the squad.

Now the next steps are to perhaps take the breaks off in games against certain team, most recently against Barnsley, go for it rather than play for the point. End of day we ended up with zero points.

And of course Sabri needs to learn from this season as Bielsa did, as Klopp did, and now he has a defensive style, make sure the players he brings in can play it, and also bring in quality players who can give him options in attack, and give him the confidence to play.

I have bigged up the Brentford method for years, we havent gone down that route, and reason we have continual problems.

Also, look at Norwich last year, didnt spend big but attacking football got them to the Premier League, and Sheff Utd, developed a style of play which was both defensive with 3 central defenders but attacking, and that is doing well in the Premier League. (wilder a manager i suggested for Forest when he was at Northampton).

The football at moment is sterile, and lacklustre, and late goals derail all that hard defensive work. The only plan b i have seen was on Sunday against Barnsley to play 5 at the back and make it more defensive, it simply didnt work. He has players to attack, but for whatever reason doesnt trust them, so next season, needs to rectify that.

Sabri now has an extended deal, has had his eyes opened by the Championship, and i hope will be all the more stronger for it next season (albeit a very short pre season to change much for next season) but he has just got to attack teams and stop worrying about them, they're not that many of the ilk of Leeds, West Brom, Fulham and Brentford in the league, and with Leeds going up i can see 2 of that group joining leeds in the EPL.