Anyone else buying into Critchley’s style of play yet?

M

Martonmosser

Well-known member
I’m not personally, it bores me senseless but I’m more than happy with the 3 points again.
Thought Exeter were absolutely awful but I suppose you can only beat what’s in front of you.
Hopefully we haven’t left things too late and can carry on making ground on the top 6 as in my opinion not making the playoffs would be a massive failure…… let’s wait and see hey?
 
It was boring, everything about this team is boring unfortunately. It’s ruined the atmosphere and even when we win there’s nothing there. Everything is done at snails pace there’s no passion or pace about any of them. We get a corner and it’s like no one can be arsed to take it, takes them 30 seconds to amble over, same with throw ins. Grimshaw gets the ball he holds it for 30 seconds Every time. They we’re dreadful if we had anything about us we could have won 6 nil but we play with the handbrake on. Apparently we’re even worse away
 
I think Critchley will be happy with the performance as he will have scrutinised the videos and seen they were susceptible from shots outside the box.
But I agree it was boring and we didn't get out of 2nd gear. Exeter were poor and we struggled to break them down.
But glad we got 3 points.
 
I wasn’t bored, I enjoyed today. Yes we could have been more clinical but it was a competent and comfortable home win

Where I don’t buy into the Critchley style of play is away from home where we are just too defensive and passive, we make very poor teams look better than they are by having our wing backs playing way too deep, which invites pressure

Recent away results against poor teams tells us that those tactics just aren’t working and we need more of the home game mentality when we’re away
 
We won very comfortably despite a fair few having an off day. Rhodes just couldn't get into it, Dembele's final ball was terrible, CJ was diffident at best, while we squandered a number of great opportunities.

Other teams are told that's what good teams do. Win when not playing well.

Keep it up.
 
Felt it was a comfortable and well disciplined performance today. Exeter were always going to set up how they did - and many teams will do the same - and the buildup play and passing around (which I agree can seem a bit boring) was necessary to pull the Exeter players out of their positions. It worked well. On another day it could have been 3/4/5.
I do wish the transition from midfield to attack was a little sharper - Norburn slows the game down too much for my liking - as does Connolly but the tactics today were spot on. I was a little confused Dembele didn’t get subbed when Joseph did though, as Kaddy looked goosed whilst Joseph has the engine of the Duracell bunny. The lad runs and runs and runs. Kyle Joseph needs a goal and I think he’ll absolutely blossom
 
I don't mind it. We look a good football team. We could be quicker in tempo sometimes and I also think we need another creative player as we are reliant on Dembele and Morgan but Exeter set up to defend so it was always going to be like this. Considering how Exeter played I thought we played quite well despite a few being a bit off their game. Grimmy needs to quicken up though.
 
If our away form was better nobody would be saying our home form is too slow is boring.

The above poster is correct when he says it's boring away from home as we end up with flat back 5 at times and it's far too easy for the opposition. The tactics go from looking decent at home to awful away from home. He has to come up with something better at Bristol.
 
Martonmosser said:
I’m not personally, it bores me senseless but I’m more than happy with the 3 points again.
Thought Exeter were absolutely awful but I suppose you can only beat what’s in front of you.
Hopefully we haven’t left things too late and can carry on making ground on the top 6 as in my opinion not making the playoffs would be a massive failure…… let’s wait and see hey?
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Me too. There’s is a poor atmosphere in general and the football is so dull. Despite the points I go home feeling totally uninspired.
 
It's functional and looks like he has spent hours on graphs and diagrams. There's no excitement or flair, nothing unexpected and we can all name the subs before the game and near enough when they'll come on. Football is a results business I accept that but it's also entertainment and this isn't entertaining.
 
I honestly don't know what some of our fans want.

We were in control for pretty much the entire match, scoring two cracking goals and could've easily had more.

The long balls over the top were because their CB's were pushing up and on a different day a CJ, Dembele or Joseph would've latched on to one of them and made something of it. What the long balls did though was make their CB's have to sit back a bit, creating room in midfield that Morgan ultimately exploited.

You can see match by match that the team are getting better and better at playing the way that Critchley wants them to and I think we'll have a strong finish. I'm really enjoying this season and can see that like in 20/21 Critchley has us moving in the right direction.

What I don't get is why there seems to be such a pervasive dissatisfaction around. I'm not sure what people want. I think there is this vague notion of wanting more excitement without anyone being able to define what it is they actually want.
 
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Yes it was a bit dull at times, but it’s a results based business and we got just that.

I thought we were really tactically astute yesterday. Once we got 2-0 up it was ‘handbrake on’, keep the ball, slow the game down and turn it into a training session. With the current fixture load, what sense does it make to charge up the pitch and give everything when it most likely won’t impact the result? Physically we are looking in a much better shape than last season because we aren’t over working unnecessarily, players aren’t pulling their hamstring because of this ethos (I’d imagine it is the same for the training methods as well) and I genuinely think it will pay dividends at the end of the season.
 
I'm not bored it's third division football after all.

You have to take away out of your head watching Man City or Liverpool and realise it's always been a bit crap watching the third tier.

Asked a poster recently to name 5 teams they'd seen live and thought wow they where exciting they came up with 2!
One of them we'd beat twice.😃

Today tactically we got it Bob on against a team playing 3 at the back which was basically a 5. Personal opinion if Dale would have been playing instead of Joseph we'd have scored a few more(bar his shite pass to Lavery near the end😂)with some of those balls we played over their defence.
 
We couldn’t have asked for an easier match before the replay against Forest. Didn’t need to get out of second gear. Yes not the most entertaining but you don’t get any more points for how you win. Bit frustrating at times when we get three quarters of the way up the pitch and before you know it the ball is back with Grimmy who always seems to take an age to distribute. One time in the second half Grimmy could have quickly released Joseph on the left wing but he held on to the ball until all the Exeter defenders were back, ive no idea in the logic of that.
 
I thought it was a very good performance
We were in control throughout and created enough chances to score more. We have improved during the season but still have a soft centre IMO.
Problems with this team is that we are prone to make defensive errors, it's the third tier. And if we go behind we haven't got a plan B.
But that was a very comfortable home win
 
This is modern football. It’s what happens when you have 22 fit elite athletes take to a pitch to play sport. Those heady days people hark back to were when players smoked, drank and were not peak fitness. It left more space for attackers to dominate defenders blowing out of their arses.

I thought we dominated yesterday against an aggressive, cynical team and but for a poor game by Rhodes and CJ we could have been 4 up at half time.

Moz I’ve always liked your posts but this season you seem to be blinded by your personal dislike for the manager. I think it’s clouding what you’re seeing? Our playing style isn’t much different to what I’m seeing from Bolton or Posh
 
Chunkylad said:
This is modern football. It’s what happens when you have 22 fit elite athletes take to a pitch to play sport. Those heady days people hark back to were when players smoked, drank and were not peak fitness. It left more space for attackers to dominate defenders blowing out of their arses.

I thought we dominated yesterday against an aggressive, cynical team and but for a poor game by Rhodes and CJ we could have been 4 up at half time.

Moz I’ve always liked your posts but this season you seem to be blinded by your personal dislike for the manager. I think it’s clouding what you’re seeing? Our playing style isn’t much different to what I’m seeing from Bolton or Posh
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Good post Chunky and I agree 100%, especially the dislike of Critch. I’ve said many times that there are a few on here who have an unhealthy dislike of Critch, no doubt fuelled by his departure first time around.
They need let it go because I do understand why, after a win, some posters still want to pick holes in the performance
If we had won 4 -0 yesterday then people would be saying it should have been 6.
Enjoy the wins ffs
He’s back and doing a good job as far as I am concerned and you are spot on about the majority of teams playing possession football.
We are not a Premiership team so we shouldn’t expect to see Premiership football from this squad of players.
 
Glassman said:
It was an efficient display but can anyone honestly say they’ve left Bloomfield Road this season absolutely buzzing about the football from either side ?

Great we got 3 points we were never in trouble, they were poor but it’s lacking something …

God we’re never happy are we ?
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One I came out buzzing from was Wigan after the late Kenny Dougall winner obviously also cos it was against one of our local rivals
 
MeanLeanTangerineMachine said:
Top scores at home in the league
Most points at home in the league
Best goal difference at home in the league

Hardly boring......

It's the horrendous away from that is the issue. Difficult to understand why you can be so good at home and horrendous away, must be a mental thing now.
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And two out of three of your first sentences could have been by a lot more if we had gone for the jugular when ahead…… yesterday and Burton on the first day of the season are two that spring to mind. Wouldn’t it have been better to say we had come out buzzing after putting 6 past these shit teams instead of just 2?
 
LA1 Seasider said:
Felt it was a comfortable and well disciplined performance today. Exeter were always going to set up how they did - and many teams will do the same - and the buildup play and passing around (which I agree can seem a bit boring) was necessary to pull the Exeter players out of their positions. It worked well. On another day it could have been 3/4/5.
I do wish the transition from midfield to attack was a little sharper - Norburn slows the game down too much for my liking - as does Connolly but the tactics today were spot on. I was a little confused Dembele didn’t get subbed when Joseph did though, as Kaddy looked goosed whilst Joseph has the engine of the Duracell bunny. The lad runs and runs and runs. Kyle Joseph needs a goal and I think he’ll absolutely blossom
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You only pull opposition players out of position if you play at pace by moving the ball around quickly. We don't do that. Neither of our goals yesterday were scored by pulling players out of position. We never pulled their players out of position all game. Yes, we got into some good positions where our final ball was poor but that wasn't caused by us pulling the opposition all over the park. It was caused by the fact we are simply a better team than them. Their keeper never really had a save to make whereas if we'd pulled their players out of position we'd have been thru on goal which we never were.

It was a very comfortable win and I'll take any win but the slow patient football was far from exciting. And is a big factor as to why thy the atmosphere is so flat. Why? Because we never put any team under sustained pressure.
 
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Bored shitless yesterday and thank God for the gift that is the king of comedy football CJ I can't trap a bag of cement Hamilton for the comedic interludes.🤦‍♂️🥴🤛
 
TheLuker said:
I honestly don't know what some of our fans want.

We were in control for pretty much the entire match, scoring two cracking goals and could've easily had more.

The long balls over the top were because their CB's were pushing up and on a different day a CJ, Dembele or Joseph would've latched on to one of them and made something of it. What the long balls did though was make their CB's have to sit back a bit, creating room in midfield that Morgan ultimately exploited.

You can see match by match that the team are getting better and better at playing the way that Critchley wants them to and I think we'll have a strong finish. I'm really enjoying this season and can see that like in 20/21 Critchley has us moving in the right direction.

What I don't get is why there seems to be such a pervasive dissatisfaction around. I'm not sure what people want. I think there is this vague notion of wanting more excitement without anyone being able to define what it is they actually want.
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I was as bored as I was at the match reading that Neil and your post-match pressers are great for insomnia also, so 10/10 from us insomniacs🙄
 
Blackpool-rocks said:
We couldn’t have asked for an easier match before the replay against Forest. Didn’t need to get out of second gear. Yes not the most entertaining but you don’t get any more points for how you win. Bit frustrating at times when we get three quarters of the way up the pitch and before you know it the ball is back with Grimmy who always seems to take an age to distribute. One time in the second half Grimmy could have quickly released Joseph on the left wing but he held on to the ball until all the Exeter defenders were back, ive no idea in the logic of that.
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said it on another thread. Yes Grimshaw could have released Joseph with a quick throw out but we were winning 2-0 so no need to take any sort of risk. Hold on to the ball, let your players get back in shape and start again. For me he did the right thing.
 
Wizaard said:
We won very comfortably despite a fair few having an off day. Rhodes just couldn't get into it, Dembele's final ball was terrible, CJ was diffident at best, while we squandered a number of great opportunities.

Other teams are told that's what good teams do. Win when not playing well.

Keep it up.
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Definitely a day for Rob Apter then. 😉
 
I came away with what usually I always think in that we’ve beaten another very poor side without getting into top gear and playing at our best.

I can see how Bolton put 7 past these but we struggled at times to break them down and if they had taken their chances (had 2 real good ones) it could have been so different.

I’m not being negative for one minute but I’ve still not seen anything on the pitch which makes me think we’re good enough for a play-off spot.

Said at the start of the season we would finish just outside the play-offs and it’s looking like that will be the case unless we start picking up away wins starting next Saturday.
 
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A home win, clean sheet, two goals scored, football is all about results not styles of play and we are getting that at home certainly. Away is a different matter and I suggest he needs to get the team on the front foot more and take the game to the opposition.
Left the ground thinking if that was a Billy Ayre team in its pomp we could have seen a 4 or 5 goals but that is down to styles of play end result the same 3 PTS. I enjoy both approaches for different reasons.
 
GEER said:
A home win, clean sheet, two goals scored, football is all about results not styles of play and we are getting that at home certainly. Away is a different matter and I suggest he needs to get the team on the front foot more and take the game to the opposition.
Left the ground thinking if that was a Billy Ayre team in its pomp we could have seen a 4 or 5 goals but that is down to styles of play end result the same 3 PTS. I enjoy both approaches for different reasons.
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............and herein lies the problem for a lot of supporters.
Hypothetically, had it been Billy Ayres team then the majority would have accepted a 2 - 0 home win without the need to pick holes in everything.
 
Glassman said:
It was an efficient display but can anyone honestly say they’ve left Bloomfield Road this season absolutely buzzing about the football from either side ?

Great we got 3 points we were never in trouble, they were poor but it’s lacking something …

God we’re never happy are we ?
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I think the one game I've really enjoyed in person in a kind of 'that really got my heart rate going and I felt something more intense than everyday life' was Fleetwood away.

We seem to either win or lose quite comfortably. There's not been any great drama. Wigan at home I suppose was another.

Obviously, I enjoy winning but it's lacking in that real tension. It's possession football innit. It's not very exciting. It's not just Critchley, it's what football is increasingly. We're quite good at the 'get ball, keep ball, kill game for a while' thing. It would probably be more exciting at home if we weren't.

I don't know why it is we're so crap away so often though.

Blackpool-rocks said:
We couldn’t have asked for an easier match before the replay against Forest. Didn’t need to get out of second gear. Yes not the most entertaining but you don’t get any more points for how you win. Bit frustrating at times when we get three quarters of the way up the pitch and before you know it the ball is back with Grimmy who always seems to take an age to distribute. One time in the second half Grimmy could have quickly released Joseph on the left wing but he held on to the ball until all the Exeter defenders were back, ive no idea in the logic of that.
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We do everything like that slowly. Get throw. Wait for designated throw taker to run 40 yards. Wait another 5 seconds. Throw. It's got to be deliberate. I've almost never seen us take a quick throw this year, bar a few times when chasing a game in last 5 mins. Irc Grimmy took a throw in dying seconds of a game which was exciting.

You have to take your thrills where you can get them I guess.
 
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