Gulf in class??

[removed at members request]

The five subs has definitely helped rather than hindered us. I'd go as far as to say that it's been a key reason why we've won a number of games. Against Birmingham it allowed us to ensure a healthy amount of fresh legs on the pitch minimising the impact of playing with a man down for an extended period of time from a physical perspective. Against Luton, it allowed Richardson to totally rip up our play style midway through the second half and start again, which led to us coming back and winning. He would not have been able to alter things so dramatically with just three subs in the bank.

 

[gazlatic]

The gulf between League One and the Championship. Really?, Three teams promoted, none of which look like they will be in relegation trouble this year. With the gulf in class and none of the three sides significantly investing in the team, are they all not meant to struggle?.

So I have a theory about this. There is a gulf in class but how big it is depends on your style of play.

Teams that play possession based/tika-taka/however you term it football in League One find the gulf is quite big because you get a lot less time on the ball and therefore, because of where attacking play is being built from, leads to more mistakes in the defensive third. Teams that employ direct, wing play or counter attacking tactics still experience the same reduction in time on the ball but because they favour swifter transitions to the attacking and midfield thirds errors and turnovers in possession occur higher up the pitch - giving greater opportunity to rectify the error. The trade off is that their success or failure will often come down to the quality of their attacking players - can they convert enough chances to make up for the fact they'll see much less of the ball? Possession based teams success will be dictated by how effective their midfields and defences are at retaining and using possession wisely.

My theory is that teams that come up with possession styles (e.g. Peterborough, Hull under McCann, Brentford) tend to be found at one end or the other of the table. Teams who get the ball up the field quicker tend to be found in the middle. The same applies to the Prem. The effect of Pep and people like Martinez has been more teams wanting to play possession football because when it is good, it is very good. But with many teams also now employing the high press it means when it doesn't work it can be downright dreadful and stilted negative football as the ball doesn't transition forward with any kind of pace.

It may also explain why we are seeing a return of the target man (Moore, Mitrovic and even at the more extreme end Haaland) where teams are recognising the need to have an outlet when under pressure from the high press.

 

[DRAGNET]

There is much wisdom written on this subject on this thread, but survival is paramount, nothing more nothing less. This league is always tight, and the answer will not be known until the final game is played.

 

[king_dezeeuw06]

So far this season results have been all over the place with 20 of the 24 clubs separated by 6 points.

Even after our good start if we lose on Saturday and results go against us we may end up just 1 point above the bottom 3, so it only takes a couple of bad results to completely change the perspective.

I don't think that there are 3 utterly hopeless teams who will push us out of the drop zone - i think we are definitely going to be in the relegation fight and i think it's going to be tough. I also think a number of teams currently sitting in good positions in the table will be in that same boat.

I hope i'm wrong and we carry on our good form and have a great season - but we've seen enough football to know you cant read too much into the first 10 games of the season for a promoted team as so often that form doesn't carry on (although we obviously hope it does).