Swans To Take Advantage Of New Rules??
Swans To Take Advantage Of New Rules? |
In their Premiership fixture against Leicester last night, Bolton won themselves few fans with their insistence on playing two players in an 'offside' position pending the taking of a free kick. The two players then ran back into the pack of players before seeing the Bolton attackers look for the ball when played into the box. It was a move that paid dividends with the confusion in the defence leading to a series of mistakes, culminating in the biggest of all from Ian Walker when he fumbled the ball into the back of the net to earn Wanderers a point. It was tactics that went down badly with the Leicester fans in the Walkers Stadium but, claimed manager Sam Allardyce, it is just exploiting what he calls a crazy rule introduced by FIFA. And while the rules are there I expect to see more sides following Allardyce's tactic and it may well be that we see one of the sides on Saturday adopting the tactic to try and create enough confusion to get a crucial goal which could see either side head to the quarter finals of the FA Cup. You can imagine a free kick being hit in and Brad Maylett and Leon Britton in 'offside positions' before running back distracting the Tranmere defence enough to let Lee Trundle come through and score the winner with two minutes to go can't you? It is a crazy rule and one that is certainly creating more problems than it is solving. The traditionalists will say that you are either offside or you aren't and there is no in between whilst it also brings out the old football quote that if you aren't interfering with play then what the hell are you doing on the pitch. Aside from that I suspect that the conversation should take place as to whether the Swans will look to adopt this tactic on Saturday and if they do then expect some confusion, some barracking and one hell of a lot of head scratching amongst the supporters. |
Why not check out the latest Vetch Verdict on the BBC site? |