Anthony Hudson (FAT Technical Director | Thailand)

Where was the counterattacking, where was the composure, where was the professionalism?  If we saw a bit more of that I would be much more forgiving...

A couple passed back to the keeper to hoof it up field and we have a solid 12 completed passes.

To be fair, he won one game 5-0, and another 3-1 with only a penno.

Over the tournament, we had 3 decent halves of football. The first three. We weren't too bad vs. Solomans, but the fact is the AWs are a team who are not very good at hoofball.

Also, to be fair, Vanuatu gave them most of that 5 and Fiji were disappointingly rubbish.

We were outplayed in the other 3 games.

If we manage to get a head on to a long throw, would that count as a completed pass?

Pass

Given all the controversy over AWs playing style in PNG, I thought below article was an interesting read.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/world-game/8...

The Northern Irish acknowledge they have a squad of limited talent (though they do have 5 EPL players to our 1!) . As their gaffer Michael O'Neill states

"We are going to have to be horrible to play against," he said recently.

"We are going to be really good without the ball, run further than any other team, drill all the statistics back in their face. Sixty-five per cent possession? We don't expect to have that."

Lets be very realistic, on a world scale the AWs have a tiny pool of players to pick from. A bit of the above attitude won't go amiss, next year in Russia and playoffs v 5th placed South American side.

We have been doing that forever and guess what it really hasnt moved us forward. So how about just for sharks and giggles we try something different. It cant be any worse than whats gone before. Just for fun lets try and get the players to play the  type of football they were learning as kids and youth players?

Why keep repeating the same mentality and approach when its not progressing us?

Lets have a go for a few years, you never know we might surprise ourselves but if it still fails at least we will have tried something different from the usual.

Difference being that was a superb pass that didn't get far off the ground, not some hoof 100 yards into the sky.

A long pass does not = long ball football and is a VERY long way from what we were trying to do. 

http://bundesligafanatic.com/impect-packing-the-fu...

A couple of DMs have created a new measurement tool - annoyed at a couple of things, stats like possession/shots etc. don't always reflect the game and players in their position are not given enough credit based on stats people use.

Basically it looks at how many opposition players are beaten by a forward pass or dribble, for a pass both the player making the pass and the player receiving the pass get positive ratings and beating opposition defenders by pass or dribble is weighted more than opposition players in more attacking positions. So, quite often completed passes are shown as a stat but that doesn't differentiate between passes between your CBs or an excellent through ball that takes out 4 or 5 players - this stat will show that through ball.

Not the best written article but I think it is a good tool to add to the current stats used.

I think Brad is the one missing the point

http://www.newshub.co.nz/sport/brad-lewis-hudson-c...

I mentioned this elsewhere earlier. I watched Italy beat Scotland a couple of weeks ago and Italy use the long ball with a little bit more intelligence than we do.

Generally they will launch it long only once they reach the halfway line. They still try and build from the back. We launch it from deep inside our own half.

It means for italy they dont end up with attacking players horribly isolated from their support. When they do go forward the whole team moves. Add to this that their players are technically better than ours so it helps a possession risky tactic less of a risk.

"But he implemented winning tactics, not dissimilar to how Leicester City closed out the last two months of the EPL or, dare I say, the style with which Jose Mourinho has made a living."

They created that tool just to proove how good Tony Kroos is.

I just can't even....

How you can watch what we just watched, and compare that to how Chelsea or Leicester play (and i'm talking set up, formation and tactics here, not excecution) ... I just have no idea.

Actually I think he is right - the point of playing football is to win. We won. That most people want to overlook this and complain about the style of play suggests that all these people are missing the point. 

Yes the football was boring. I had recorded the final as I was traveling and could only watch the first 50 minutes before turning it off and checking the result online. But we won. Hudson has kept up his part of the bargain for NZF, now hopefully NZF will do their bit and give the coach and the team some meaningful games in the next few international windows.

a) We didn't win.  We went to penalties against PNG.  We scored one goal in 210 minutes of semi-final, and final football, and that was from the world's gentlest free kick that the goal keeper biffed into the net.  We barely looked like scoring a goal.

b) The style of play is being criticised especially because it wasn't even done well!

We won in spite of how we played. Not because of it. We should have been knocked out in the semis.

I'm not an expert but I am a fan...yeah, nah

Even if you accept that Mourihno is defensive which I am not sure he even is, those teams play with a rapid and ruthless counterattack which was completely missing from our game plan 

No, the point that many of us are making is that firstly he is asking our players to try and implement a style which they werent taught how to play. For over a decade now the junior and youth coaches in NZ have been trying to teach the kids how to play with the ball on the deck. Most of our current AW squad were not brought up playing aerial ping pong.

Secondly, I have absolutely no doubt that if we had played to our players strengths then we would have won all of those games by 3 or more goals.

Thirdly. Its not a case of boring or attractive football. Its about playing intelligently and our players are better man for man than the PNG players for example and perfectly capable of playing pass and move. PNG were frankly the better team and simply couldnt score. If we had played pass and move with the players we had available we would have battered them. 

Brad is absolutely missing the point, as is Hudson. 

Interestingly, its been very quiet from the more critical ex AWs since Rory and Stefan got picked..... Is Danny Hay or Malcolmson going to speak out? Where is Billy Harris? He must be due for an article that has some coherence about it.

I'm surprised to read that someone would actually spout that opinion in public let along a mass media publication.

Billy retired. Malcolmson was axed by NZME. Hay is employed by NZF.

I looked at it as PNG lost the Final, rather than the AWs won it.

No-one lost the final - the game was a draw. The winner of the tournament was decided through a tie-breaking system technically known as kicks from the penalty mark.

#pedantmodeon

Actually known as 'Kicks From the Penalty Mark' in the LOTG  #evenbiggerpedant

Yeah! I saw it!

I knew you would, which is why I changed it - I was writing from memory, and then remembered when I actually looked it up to get ready to keep banging on about this...

Crap hit "this" instead of quote.

Look, if we keep playing like this and somehow get through the confeds cup and make it to the WC then everyone here will happily eat their words, I know I will.

The problem is we haven't shown football that looks like we have any chance of getting to the WC and that's why people are criticizing.  If we were comfortably playing well and smashed the final 6-0 then it may be a different kettle of fish, but as a sudden spike in quality of opposition happens, we will likely get slaughtered.

In that final we couldn't score in regular time.  Against a team with a good striker, we cant not be scoring unless we have just exceptional defense, and we will likely be facing better defense than against the team we couldn't score against.

As I say Ill happily eat my words if we go to the WC, but people are right to be skeptical right now as we are only just the best in Oceania right now based on that final.

"implemented winning tactics"

Are you arguing that Hudson doesn't know our players' strengths or that he can't coach to them? I'm trying to get a handle on why we think Hudson played like he did.

I would like to hear Daddy Fallon rant commentary on the 'winning tactics'.

From Kevin's Blog on the Manukau City website

In PNG the All Whites faced a team who put their bodies on the line with great home support and possessing the odd player with flair. Chris Woods was a loss not that he was playing well but he was a presence. For me no one had a outstanding tournament apart from goalkeeper Stefan Marinovic. But who cares now we have qualified we pick up some much needed prize money and are guaranteed some cost free, top end, international games.

These people who are praising Hudson for being a "winner" obviously didn't see our games against Uzbekistan, Thailand and Myanmar. People would be more accepting of Hudson's "style" if he actually said that this was how he wanted to play.

My take on it is that I dont think he trusts in their ability and doesnt believe they can play simple pass and move football. I think he looked at the probable conditions and felt it would be the way to go. I think he also felt that our height advantage would be something to exploit. 

I am sure he can coach them but Im not sure he believes what he has is good enough. I think he has gone for a safety first tactic in terms of thinking it would be safer to use our physical advantages as the direction of his tactics.

I just think he has got that completely wrong.