Agree with you. I think we are scoring at the right times though which is helping us greatly. Last week West Ham could have turned into a totally frustrating one had Defoe not scored just before half time. Yesterday Sandro scored I think against the run of play and that helped us out. Then you can go further back int he season and look at Manure game us scoring the third soon after their first.
Yesterday was pretty solid without being unspectacular. It was actually an efficient performance. Last year although we won 3-1 it was pretty open and they hurt us a lot.
I'm starting to think that it isn't co-incidence with how we are scoring. I've long thought that his 'methods' would be defined as ultimately the 4-3-3 he will want to implement, but I think there's something else in it too. It's that he wants us to be totally adaptable and be able to carry out varying plans in the middle of a match. So we have to be totally comfortable if we are sitting back looking to come through an expected onslaught (e.g. Man United away) but also comfortable if we must pass the ball on the deck and stop the game becoming a direct battle (West Ham) and also comfortable drawing teams out (Norwich at home).
I think this is one of the reasons we've looked so inconsistent this season but at the same time we now have a share of third place. We can look poor in games but the Liverpool game for example we sat back because we had a 2 goal lead to protect with a slow centre back pairing. So us sitting back was the plan for that match if we were going to win it. Once we score, we have lately become pretty solid in riding out the fightback from the opposing team lately. And then we go again. Matches play out in stages, and players need to be able to adapt to all of them, and make the right decisions in each. There will be stages where you are on top, stages where you are under the cosh, stages where the crowd is frustrated, stages where the game has had the life sucked out of it. There will be times where you want to suck the life out of the game yourself. And I'm staring to think AVB's methods are as much about being able to adapt to every different stage of the game and execute the plan for it, as it is for him to implement a system that we play too every single week. The performance against West Brom for example was striking in that there seemed to be massive gaps all over the pitch, like some players were doing one thing and others another. They didn't all know exactly how this new way of working worked yet. The Norwich game next was better in terms of everyone being on the same page, but the fluency and confidence wasn't there. But we've built it up through the season and are really coming into our own now.
This is what Defoe talks about when he says there is a clear and distinct plan for every single game. He has made that point in a number of interviews, and it seems to go beyond what previous managers of done if he is so surprised about it. More than simply pin pointing weaknesses, I guess they have complete strategies for different stages of games and ways of carrying out each one of them. I would also guess that this is why he has liked to play Gallas. I read somewhere last year that he liked Mata to be his 'tactical leader on the pitch' or something like that. Basically Mata would be able to decide when the play needed to be slowed down, quickened up etc. On Wednesday you could see in a break in play that Gallas was coming over to the midfielders, telling them what needed to be done. You probably need someone with that experience and that confidence, that winning mentality to be able to tell the players what needs to happen, and with the leadership qualities that they will listen and buy into it.
I think eventually we will get to a point where we do have our own distinct style and way of playing and we will incorporate that more with the different strategies in the middle of the game. But right now, while we don't quite have the players for it, to have a share of third place and getting these wins is actually excellent. I think it needs repeating again - the loss of Modric, Rafa, King. The injuries to Kaboul, Assou-Ekotto and Parker. The unavailability of Adebayor. The fact that he has us so high up the league with Jermain Defoe as lone striker and an out of form - until recently - Clint Dempsey supporting him is pretty amazing. I mean, Defoe? That one track minded pure poacher who can't bring others into the game? But no, in spite of people saying AVB is too stubborn and sticks too strictly to his methods, he has adjusted his plans to bring the best out of a player that many (including me) would have gladly sold in the summer and we are being rewarded for it.
