Quite honestly, style is not a requirement in modern football. That said, a team with players of a fine understanding of one another's strengths and weaknesses, coached by someone who understands how to pick the team and tactics that best enhance the strengths while covering the weaknesses, will play attractive or at the very least effective football. When your side just clicks together it really doesn't matter to the fans whether you're playing route 1 ball or have copied Barcelona; supporting a winning side is easy. Quality remains quality, even if it isn't always pretty.
Some of the issues with our tactics right now (and prior to this season, though in a different way) is that we've stuck with the same plan despite the fact that the weaknesses in the side undermine the strengths to too large a degree, rather than finding a more suitable tactic, line-up, and/or formation. Last season we were trying to play exactly the same attacking game as the season before, but were relying on Mascherano and Lucas as the midfield brains trust. But they simply failed as a partnership every time they were on the pitch together because they have as much creativity between them as a tree, and NO ONE WAS COMPENSATING for that.
This season Roy decided the solution was to become a defensive unit using an attacking team in an attacking formation, while combining Paulsen (who is worse than Mascherano in every possible way) and Lucas (who is not the best defensive player out there). The link between our defenders and forwards has been irrevocably broken, and frankly unless Gerrard or Meireles were tasked with the linking role from day one there was never much hope of success, unless we changed everything and played 4-4-2 and stuck with it until we got it right.
To be honest, when Roy said it would take time to get used to his methods, I expected him to move us completely away from Rafa's tactics and setup - throw everything out the window and start fresh. Maybe we would still be in the same league position as we are now, but 3 months of playing to a pattern that gradually improves as the players become accustomed to it and to each other will yield long term results. It would have mollified fans like myself who care more that we look like we know what we're doing on the pitch than the result; in this scenario it's much easier to agree that LFC never fires a manager.
I know hindsight is perfect, but maybe Roy should have looked at the terrible fixture list and said 'I don't care if we lose 6 in a row, let's get this bunch playing as a team again'. But instead Roy just tried to mash his ideas and Rafa's together, and I just don't get the feeling that we've made any real progress despite winning last time out. All that happened was we won on the strength of having 11 superior players on the pitch; that's not going to be enough every week. We're a shadow of the side we were, and that horrifies me.
