There are things that the team did consistently during our successful years that I don't or rarely see us doing right now. I don't know if it's an intentional change in the system or if its players executing differently but so many of the things that gave us our identity for a long time are just missing right now. Some examples are:
1. Consistently recycling the ball back to the CBs when we need to reset the offense
2. Playing around confidently at the back with an extended series of passes between our CBs and GK to create space to move forward
3. Extended midfield possession via quick passing triangles to create openings to attack
4. Attackers stretching the field by staying right on the edge of offsides
5. Long cross-field switch passes from Sands when he's playing in a deep pivot
We used to play this high-risk possession-based style that many teams in the league wouldn't dare to attempt and we made teams adapt to us and used it to dictate games. Now it seems like we are still trying to play possession but we are playing it in an ultra-conservative way where the objective is not to make mistakes. Just get the ball upfield, play around with it near the 18 to try to jam it into the box. It takes confidence to take the risks we used to take so I'm sure that's some of it but it also feels like Nick plays a very risk-adverse system and it's hurting us. Even the games when we create a high number of chances it seems like they come from either an exceptional individual effort like a cut-in curler from Fernandez or a mistake in the box by the other team that creates some space. We play conservatively and look for openings as opposed to our old way of dynamically moving the ball all over the field and creating openings.
i think we still do 1 and 2, but maybe more so because we have no ideas vs having a purpose, such as resetting our attacking patterns. we do 5 every once in awhile but definitely not as often as we used to. It used to be like clockwork. now when we do it, it's noticeable as "hey we did it!"
I agree our chances under nick has mainly been more of "oh hey we have a chance" vs "we're gonna tear through this team". I miss when we played the latter style. it was much more fun to watch. At least nick seems to want to press higher now, so that's nice to see. but the lack of attacking patterns and a true creative force on the field with the skill and foresight to play the passes that should be played - it's killing our attack.
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