I wonder what people mean by playing good football? Does that mean attacking football? Playing passing football? Tiki-taka? Is Chelsea parking the bus at Liverpool good football? Further to that debate lets look at some of the players we have. Arsenal I presume play the kind of “good football†people are arguing about. Would Brunt, Ideye Brown, Baird, Wisdom, Dorrans, Morrison, Samaras, Anichebe, Pocognoli, Gardener, Dawson fit neatly into their team. None of them would be able to play for Arsenal NONE. So why do we expect them to play that type of “good football†for us. Which team in the Premiership should we be able to play as well as? Newcastle, Spurs, Everton, Southampton, Liverpool? Good players play good football whatever the style attacking or defensive. We don’t have good players in Premier League terms that’s why we play unattractive football. Nothing to do with Pulis. Does Pulis organize Brunt to pass the ball constantly to the opposition team or Gardener,Wisdom the same. Or Anichebe to be unfit and have little belief in his ability I could go on. The good players we have who can play “good football†are Berahino, Foster, Lescott . With only those three or four players Wenger would struggle to play “good footballâ€. People need to wake up and smell the Bovril about this Barcelona esc football Pulis is depriving us of.
There is no measurement for good football. It is very subjective. What some might class as good football some might consider boring. I guess what all supporters want to see is general entertainment, whether we're pressing the opposition, making full bloodied tackles, running at full backs or getting crosses into the box. Those are facets which have been lacking from our play for a very long time.
I don't think fans want tikka-takka they just want to see a healthy combination between attacking and defending. Pulis has a CV which suggests his teams are very hard to beat, are often boring and show little chance of evolving. I don't buy the argument that we as a club or incapable of playing "entertaining" or expansive football. Swansea are a good measurement that having plans in place and recruiting well has its benefits. They have a good group of players, they play to a system and are entertaining to watch, they score goals and they defend well and they're not a club which are being bankrolled by wealthy owners.
What our problem has been is that we have had no semblance of style or direction ever since Hodgson left. We've been a totally mis-match and our recruitment has reflected that often signing players who are polar opposites. With Pulis, we know what we're going to get but despite the deficiencies in this squad they are far more capable of getting points rather than resorting to some out-dated, ancient methods of throwing 11 men behind the ball and offering nothing in any attacking sense as we saw recently at Goodison.