SHA Small Heath Alliance

It was pretty similar to what we did under Eustace at the start of the season really

4231

Mostly short passes but went long when there was nothing on, played some tidy stuff but had a decent balance between risk and reward.

Didn't commit loads of men forward but had a nice enough balance with a strong midfield anchor in Bielik

The difference being we had a significant upgrade on Sunjic in the form of Paik, and Laird probably didn't get forward quite as often.

This squad is perfectly capable when set up in the correct way, it was absolutely fine for the most part under the two competent managers we've had this season, it's only the spells under he who cannot be named, and a poor bloke who didn't want the job or the pressure, that have landed us in this situation.

Assuming Eustace had picked the same team on Saturday

1.. we would have pushed ONE full back forward (at a time) with the opposite full back staying deep and shifting over to leave a back 3 screened by two midfielders when we were attacking .....
2 .. also he would have played Miyoshi centrally to move across to be the "in ball" from the advancing full back when that was the chosen route
3.. that would allow the winger on that side to come inside ... as Dembele used to do under Eustace

those differences would have give Stansfield more support, resulted in more crosses and less need for Stansfield to charge around and could have concentrated more on what he should have been doing - taking up goalscoring positions


But ... plenty of ways to skin a cat - and although i know which one i would prefer, and which i think gives us a better chance of scoring - 3 points was the aim and 3 points was gained


The reason we had the leagues second best defensive record under Eustace wasn't rocket science .... having 3 left deep with a shield of two, when we attacked, gave a great platform for 5 flair players ahead of them. It took a while for him to get right, and he was heavily hit by injuries early on (therefore having to play Burke) but we got there in his last two games - that was when we saw true "Eustace-ball"


Would have loved to see the Eustace team with Paik and Dozzell ... then again would we have signed them if Eustace stayed ? Who knows.

Up the Tony Mowbray !!

I said to the guy next to me that this was the most possession from a Gary Rowett team that I could remember. I thought it was a very good performance, solid defensively, tenacious in midfield and always striving up front.

To be fair he's got much better footballers in midfield now.

In 2015/16 we had Gleeson, Spector, Davis and Dutch Mike.
Only really Gleeson who was comfortable in possession.

Gleeson, Spector, Davis and Dutch Mike.

Fockinell

😂

Dutch Mike's long distance 'counter' against PNE lives long in the memory though.

I don't believe Eustace is a negative manager. I think he plays with what he's got.

If he'd had Paik, Dozzell and Pritchard I think we'd have been a more possession based side.

I might be in the minority here, but I don’t think eustaces style at the start of this season was proper negative hoofball that most claimed. (Second half of last season was)

We actually played out from the back a bit under Eustace, and played some good stuff at times. Preston first half was really good from memory. Obviously there was some dross as well, like the Norwich game.

Not that any of that matters now though 😂

Yeah this season was way better than post world cup.
I didn’t go to one game in March and my nipper was close to not renewing his ST for a day or so. It was dire