2 world wars, 1 world cup Hoop Blah
I think it's probably got to the point where McDermott and his one-dimensional tactics might have reached the end of the road both in reality and in the trust and preception of the players.
Please explain to me what is one dimensional about:
2 world wars, 1 world cup Having the balls to go from Feds to McCarthy, changing the lynchpin of the team overnight
Overnight? He dropped Federici after throwing him into the season totaly under prepared and after Federici had made mistake after mistake in the three opening games.
He wasn't fit and hadn't played anywhere near enough football to be ready for the Premier League and shouldn't have started the season, especially when we had such a talented alternative in McCarthy.
I don't think tactically, changing the keeper or not has any bearing on the set up of the side so I'd say it's largely irrelvant to the discussion of being one dimensional.
2 world wars, 1 world cup Going from championship winning 442 to 451. Then changing style of play again to 442. Then switching dimension again back to to 451.
He's chopped and changed the formation a little bit, but the style of play hasn't really evolved and he never really found a blend in the side that worked. We won a number of games where we managed to stick in the game, despite being overrun in most of them (Sunderland at home being the most obvious exception where we played really well), and then score some late goals. Throughout all those games we've been a side that plays percentage football for most of the time.
We went up by absorbing pressure and putting teams on the back foot with our largely route one football that forced teams into mistakes. During the run in last season we were excellent at converting the relatively few chances we created and went on an amazing run.
However we've set up the team formation wise we've mainly played the same way. That's one dimensional.
It's also arguable that McDermott changed back to 4-4-2 due to the players available to him. He rarely seemed to change the setup specifically for the opposition, just for who he had available.
2 world wars, 1 world cup Putting Jobi in central midfield
It became the only way he'd go after a game. Take a holding midfielder off, move a the winger inside and throw on a forward. It was his only variation on his starting line up and we all knew what was going to happen.
There were very few surprises when we made a substitution. If that's not being one-dimensional then I'm not sure what is.
2 world wars, 1 world cup Using Morrison, dropping championship winnig gorkss
Etc etc etc
Dropping a player, after far too many games I might add, is not evidence that he's not one dimensional. Gorkss was, unfortunately, having a nightmare season. He had to be taken out of the side irrespective of how big a part he'd played the season before.
2 world wars, 1 world cup If anything it can be accused that he kept switching dimensions of play from 442 attacking to 451 and back, switching how he used certain players etc etc and he was at some points likened to Brenda.
As above, his changes were largely dictated to how he'd pidgeon holed players and who was available (ie when Pogrebnyak was suspended he went back to 4-4-2 out of perceived necessity not tactical reasons)
2 world wars, 1 world cup The poor guy struggled with a woefully woefully inadequate squad and as a result had to change paradigms several times.
How he can be called one dimensional is beyond me, except in the final stages when all he was resigned to doing was trying to win by holding on for 70mins then letting Alfie on. Bt it took him several dimension shifts to get to that point.
Why do I feel like watching star trek now?
