Good article. I think that Pearson is actually more aligned to your thoughts than you may think.

He has clearly set us up not to concede goals and for width to provide our attacking intent. I would argue we've not quite got this right yet, but it's been effective at home.

However, Pearson change it to go 4-3-3 (4-5-1) in te second half which paid dividends. He tried this formation extensively last year as well.

It wouldn't surprise me if Pearson reverts to a 4-5-1 formation away from home as our form clearly needs to improve.

So, I think that Pearson isn't just "stuck" in his 4-4-2 ways. The problem is, as you pointed out, the Championship doesn't really allow for the continental game. Sousa and Sven tried it and what happened was we got bullied out of midfield and the big burly striker scored the one goal that meant defeat!

I feel Pearson is trying to play "effective" football, and that's my favourite kind. Let's attempt to play the beautiful stuff if we ever get out of this ugly division!

For the record, I do think our style is improving. But we are still hung-up on two wingers and for my money, Dyer is surplus to requirements. I would rather see a more attacking more central mid-fielder (like Danns) replace him and give both "wings" to Marshall.

De Laet and Konchesky need to stay further back.

And I don't think Vardy is ready yet. I would go with Nugent and / or Beckford up-front.

I know I am a dinosaur in these matters, but the football I enjoy most features just those things we are now encouraged to despise: fast wingers, goals scored by leaping centre-forwards, long pinged passes, hard running and crunching tackles. Yes, it costs you possession when it doesn't come off. And yes, possession today seems to be everything. But I find the the Spanish game extraordinarily clever as a feat, and excruciatingly tedious as a spectacle. Like being condemned to watch a 90 minute display by faultless circus acrobats: enough already, now bring on the tigers please.

I wish I had the patience to write an article like this, because it echoes my feelings. For me Pearson is a dinosaur, and even if he will sometimes change the formation belatedly, his go-to formation is 4-4-2.

Malling - I absolutely agree. Say what you like about the quality and technique of Spanish football but it bores me to death. I want goalmouth action, scrambles in the box and a team scoring 3 in the last ten minutes!

There's a reason the premiership is held up as the most exciting and most watched league in the world.

If that makes us dinosaurs, then sobeit. You could argue the crocodile has done pretty well for itself.

prawn - I completely disagree with you about this.

I'm with some of the above who suggest that Spain and Barca's football is dull - it's some of the most boring football I've ever seen. If I want to see beautfiul football, I look back to the best days of Brazil. That's not to say that what Spain are doing isn't effective: Clearly it is, and very unfortunately so. However, there are a few other factors that help them in this:

- They have some of the best players in the world, who have come along at once. Players like Xavi, Iniesta et al are among the best players in the world at present and they happen to play for the same team. Not only that, but the core of the Spain team are players who have been competing together for many years. It's not necessarily that they have mastered /the/ style, but that they have mastered /a/ style that suits them and their abilities. They also have a genuine team ethic that Spanish teams of the past have lacked. (As have English teams.)

- They have mastered this in a Spanish climate. Opposition players cannot chase the ball as much as they can in northern European climates like ours, so possession is even more important over there than it is here.

- Spain and Barcelona have players with the best technique in the world. They are capable of playing the way they do while making very few mistakes. If you try to do this in the English Championship, you can't get enough players with good enough technique to carry it off. You simply have to be more naturally aggressive here or you'll create less 'patient' chances than the opposition will get 'breakaway' chances - certainly quality chances at least.

That isn't to say we shouldn't play with the ball of the floor, and it's nice to see Pearson trying to do that more at the start of this season than we did during his first tenure. But trying to copy Spain isn't the answer in this league. It would actually be better for us to look at what Germany are doing at present because that would be far easier for us to replicate and develop.

One final point: You make the point in the Lee Peltier article about how full backs should just defend in a 4-4-2. For me, that completely goes against the points your making here. As sides have learned to defend hard with 11 men behind the ball, so the attacking sides have had to learn how to get around that - one of the key tactics being to get the full backs forward to stretch the opposition defence. During Pearson's first tenure, the full backs were defenders, first and foremost. These days, he seems to require more attacking from his full backs. All this suggests to me that you might be being more of a dinosaur than Pearson...