So if they would have thrown men forward at will, had a handful of speculative shots and got Twatted 6-0 they'd get less criticism? Not sure their own fans would see it that way and certainly the powers above wouldn't, that's how you quickly find yourself without a job as a manager, may as well forfeit the game if a team at the level of b
Fans paying their money to see the game has nothing to do with it, they have no obligation to entertain and fans aren't entitled to see beautiful attacking football. as fans you pay your money to support your team, the quality and style of football comes as a bonus. That whole mentality lends itself to the entitled brigade, similar to what we seen from chelsea when they were demanding their money back after we smashed 6 past them. Would the same fans that pay their hard earned money come away any happier with an absolute drubbing days after a spanking from arsenal? I can't speak for them but I doubt it.
Let's say everton do the same tomorrow against Liverpool, similar levels of possession, control, shots etc the only difference being everton get a free kick in the last minute on the halfway line, it's pumped into the box and they get a scrappy goal which gets them a draw. Will we all be criticising their performance and calling it pathetic or will they be celebrated for a tactical plan brilliantly executed despite it being the same as Bournemouths but for one instance?
Or if you want to look at something that isn't hypothetical, Newcastle last month, their plan wasn't entirely dissimilar, only difference being they got a lucky bounce which lead to a chance for their equaliser and then a poor bit of play from usgifted them a winner, do they deserve criticism for winning a game they had no right winning on the balance of play or did they just work with what they had given the huge discrepancy in quality?
They came up with a game plan that they thought provided them their best opportunity of gaining points, it was one moment away from paying off for them. They wanted to play for counter attacks, they had a few chances to execute that but a combination of great defensive play from us and when needed at times tactical fouling stopped them. How about we give our defensive display some credit for once for completely shutting them out and not allowing them a shot on target rather than simply criticism them for not being able to get passed us to muster a shot. We were excellent as a defensive unit and we was against west ham too and slagging them off downplays just how good of a defensive performance we put in.
Regardless of how much they've spent, it's nowhere near us and the quality we have. They did up the anti in the last 10 minutes and we nearly caught them out 2/3 times for doing so. By then we had run them into the ground with our domination they were on their knees through exhaustion and we defended and control the game superbly to not even allow them the chance to have a go. As I said above, Bournemouth didn't simply refuse to have a go, we didn't allow them to have a go and criticising them for it is doing a disservice to our defence.
