Come off it. So what you're saying is Pep should be looking at what other teams that play fast and direct are doing and copy them. You obviously don't realise that every Pep side plays counter intuitive football, passes to players who are being marked, keeping the ball in crowded areas of the pitch, defenders who invite the opposition to come and try and nick the ball. We do high risk football and this is what's made us the eye wateringly successful side that we are. Pep invents new ways of playing footy - it's what he does. He doesn't follow the herd and I for one am glad he doesn't. It's absolutely crazy that we have one overdue bad season in nine years and some of our bottler fans start looking for conspiracy theories. The truth is that a number of factors have conspired against us. The being injury ravaged situation has been brought into sharp focus because the stand-ins aren't currently at Pep's level. Some of our legends are facing the inevitable march of time. Normally, this would in part be mitigated by Phil who is still probably years from his peak. But instead of him leading the charge he's doing a lot of neat and tidy recycling - short sharp passes. However, a fully on it Phil would be surging into the box doing one twos or getting shots away - mostly on target. I'm sure that in due course we'll hear from Phil as to why he hasn't been his usual self all season. We keep ballooning shots like rugby conversions. It is strange, but I have every confidence that next season we'll be hugely better than this one with one or two providing service for Erling!!
