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I LOVE Farkeball. But it relies on moments of magic. Namely combinations of fantastic movement and passing. Despite being top, here’s why I think we can all feel that it’s not quite clicking this year (1/10) #otbc #ncfc #NORSHW
We have a number of problems with this approach now that we didn’t have 2 years ago. First, opponents see it coming and play with a back 5 or 6 and 2 central DMs between the lines. #otbc #ncfc #NORSHW (2/10)
Second, teams worked out that Stepi’s talent is linked the the amount of space you give him... #otbc #ncfc #NORSHW (3/10)
Third, right now we don’t have a left sided left back, and Quintilla is never going to hit the byline. So there’s less width high up the pitch, which in turn means... (4/10)
...the middle gets very congested and the ‘moment of magic’ required to unlock the 8-man defences we’re playing against now has to be far more, well, magical. (5/10)
And we’ve got less magicians now. Lewis, Cantwell, Hernandez provided huge movement, but Sorensen, Stepi and Placheta don’t run off teammates well. Placheta’s movement is improving but it’s not as instinctively good as the list above or, for that matter, Josh Martin (6/10)
So we can’t shout at Hanley or Gibson for not moving the ball forward quickly enough if they haven’t got 6 players in front of them making life a nightmare for defences with their movement. (7/10)
One fix is, when more are fit, to resurrect the attempted transition into Farkeball 2.0 which was a slightly half-hearted plan to put balls into the box. But, sort of, meh, no thanks... (8/10)
I’d much rather we refine Farkeball 1.0, so widen the pitch with TWO attacking full backs, make markers’ lives a misery with constant movement, and incrementally improving the team through training/acquisitions/youth (eg more Cantwell, Martin, Soto etc less Stepi). (9/10)
