I think to Ricki's credit he's always set his stall out to play the way he thinks we can best get results against good teams. You can't expect someone new to come in and be like Ricki sometimes and other times be totally different.
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I absolutely think that generally he got it right leading up to and at the World Cup. Like I said in the bit this can't be about imposing an ideology - it's actually getting the best out of the group of players we have available but I do think in the last 3 years it's got to the stage where our style of play means we're performing at a level that's less than the sum of our parts.
We're always going to be defensive against teams that are better than us, but we defend so much without any real plan about retaining possession, and invite so much pressure, that we inevitably concede. Against Bahrain we were pretty lucky not to concede over the 180 minutes and if we'd conceded we wouldn't have qualified. In the end it's too late to change things now for the play-off but in the future that has to change because a game based around set pieces doesn't actually suit the players we have now.
[quote=Smithy]
I think to Ricki's credit he's always set his stall out to play the way he thinks we can best get results against good teams. You can't expect someone new to come in and be like Ricki sometimes and other times be totally different.
Isn't that what coaching is about though? Ricki has one way of playing which works to a certain extent in some circumstances but is completely inappropriate in others