Boro's goal yesterday

Ok, so I'm an armchair fan, I like playing football more than watching it etc etc.......

Using the golden phrase, 'from the highlights' yesterday, it seemed like Boro's goal came from a long ball from their centre backs who were halfway inside their own half. The ball was pbutted about between them casually with little or no pressure from our forward line.

The centre back had plenty of time to look up, make a cup of tea, read the newspaper and play the pbutt which found their strikers perfectly.

There are 2 schools of thought with regards to our strikers closing their defenders down:-

1) We let them have the ball in their half and pressure them a small amount. They can't score from there, it allows us time to get back into our half, regroup, reorganise and not leave ourselves stretched or overcommit ourselves. Yes, it allows them to play long balls and pick a pbutt more easily, but once they play those balls over, our defence should be ready to react. Once we've sucked them into our half, we should be willing to counter attack. This is in my opinion exactly how we should be playing away from home.

2) We close them down gung-ho style, run at them hard, chase chase chase that ball down and try and force an error. This is exactly the way we've been playing in Europe (Juve at home for example) and teams just don't like it and it forces teams who like traditionally to play the ball along the ground as opposed to in the air often to change their game plan. This is the style we like to see at home, really go at teams and don't allow them to settle.

Going back to my original point, it seems like we were doing neither of these. When I saw the goal, firstly there wasn't a single player in camera shot when their defender played that ball over, which is fine in option 1, but if the defenders aren't marking properly, then we're knackered.

Secondly, it's extremely easy to point the finger at Pellegrino, but I'd say it's not just his fault and Morientes and Baros should have been, as per option 2, at least applying a small amount of pressure on the ball to stop that pbutt looking so easy for their defenders to pick out.

What does everyone think?

G