I admire your optimisism but unfortunately long ball football will pretty much always happen in this league. They may not plan to play this way but, It invariably starts with centre halfs who tend to panic when nothing is on. How many times did the ball go long Saturday? Our keeper kicked long our centre halfs kicked long, its what happens. I've been watching the Cobblers for over 50 years, mainly in this league. To succed you need a good centre forward who can make his presence felt and win his fair share of ariel duels. Recent succesful teams had Oliver, Bayo and Marc Richards. I would love to see us play like Man City but it ain't happening
No one is arguing that we should 'play like Man City'. I think that 'playing-it-out-from-the-back' for instance is suicide at this level as the Vale keeper proved on Saturday.
However, there's a big difference between the kind of direct but fluent football we used to play under Wilder and the primitive hoofball we played under Curle. The best sides
at this level play a mixture of direct balls forward/into the channels along with some quick passing through the midfield and out onto the wings/through overlapping full backs. Sides that have a bit of variety and multiple 'routes to goal' are less predictable and ultimately more successful.
What I want to see is some evolution of the playing style. When we go up I want to be able to look at the squad and the tactical playing style and think 'yes, we can hold our own in L1'.