by Snowflake Royal »
07 Aug 2017 17:37
Longhorn1970 Stam made no excuses and said quote, "it looked like we weren't ready for it" which is a concern. He went further and said, "We knew QPR’s intention to press us high up the pitch, not giving us any opportunity to play out and create chances". Slightly more concerning, if he knew this why wasn't there a plan B ? ..
Maneki Neko Part of me thinks the undercooked thing is a poor excuse though, they are young professional footballers, two months without a game shouldn't affect them this much
I think this flies in the face of everything we know about offseasons/preseasons, and proper match fitness
I get the feeling there was a plan and the players simply failed too execute it... a weak preseason after a short break being a factor.
It sounds like they couldn't implement plan A due to vast swathes of the players on the pitch being out of sorts, so why expect them to be able to make a second plan work when they switch to it mid game.
Stam's idea of a change of plan is pretty well established as a change of shape and / or personnel, it's pretty obvious he has no intention of changing philosophy. And I think rightly. When something is going wrong you tweak it, you don't chuck it all out and start over, at least not at any timw other than during pre-season.