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Post by Paul Spencer on Dec 26, 2008 17:30:45 GMT
Following Pulis' barmy starting eleven at Ewood Park last week, there was of course scores of posts on this board from Oatcake regulars offering their suggestions for who, they thought, should start (and in what formation) today.
Pulis was roundly criticised for bashing round pegs into square holes.
This criticism, ironically, did not stop people forwarding the most popular starting line up suggestion of 4-5-1, which would have meant that several players, specifically ... Tonge and Soares - who are NOT wingers, having to start out of position.
Unless somebody wants to provide a link to prove me wrong, I'm pretty certain that not one single person on this message board suggested the starting line up today.
A line up, that for me, was ABSOLUTELY SPOT ON!
Yep we didn't win, but result aside, I thought it was one of our most encouraging performances this season.
On the whole there wasn't any square pegs being forced into round holes, and in the main, I was delighted by how much football we played on the deck.
I'm sure the majority of our transfer targets for January who recorded todays' game will watch it back tonight or tomorrow and think to themselves ... yep, I'd be more than happy to go to Stoke.
Credit where it's due, I thought Tone got that starting eleven absolutely right this afternoon.
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Post by bayernoatcake on Dec 26, 2008 17:34:02 GMT
Nobody expected Pugh to play but that's TP. No fooker can predict the bloke. One week he picks a spot on team, next week he could have a dream in which Simmo scores an overhead kick and then he'll stick him up front. And everyone will be wondering what the fook he's doing.
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Post by stonestokie! on Dec 26, 2008 17:37:45 GMT
thought he put out a reasonablly good side out today! ;D
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Post by serpico on Dec 26, 2008 17:41:56 GMT
tonge and soares are not wingers, but they're the closest thing we have to wingers, thats why I suggested them in a 451, i don't think it would have made much difference today even if we did go with 5 in midfield.
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Post by Paul Spencer on Dec 26, 2008 17:42:59 GMT
Absolutely Bayern.  However if we'd managed to get the (imo deserved) draw this afternoon, I might have been tempted to to put ... 'A Trimuph For Plan B' in the title box of my post. It really was refreshing to see us playing a tactical game that didn't rely on us hoofing it up the pitch at every opportunity, maybe, just maybe Pulis is indeed prepared to play it another way.  |
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Post by bayernoatcake on Dec 26, 2008 17:48:28 GMT
It was good. What helped though is when we did hoof it Cressy won a few. Whereas before he, Fuller and Vince couldn't win a header to save their lives.
Having Delaps missiles back also helped too.
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Post by Paul Spencer on Dec 26, 2008 17:51:07 GMT
I wasn't criticising the 4-5-1 suggestion Serps, but to be fair, reading back through my original post it might seem like that I actually was.
Ratther I just wanted to acknowledge that for the very many suggestions that were made, not one of us actually suggested the line up that Pulis (successfully?) fielded.
I was just hoping that people would be as quick to applaud his starting line up as they were to criticise it previously.
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Post by FullerMagic on Dec 26, 2008 17:55:44 GMT
A proper RB, our best 2 CBs in the middle (if you don't count our left-back) , a left-footer on the left wing and a striker not answering to the name ' Vincent de Paul Pericard' alongside Fuller are normally a better way of going about things than his muddled Ewood Park effort.
Can't really fault how anyone went about it today.
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