That’s a good point and it’s always hard to compare teams, but in recent years with Leeds, Wolves, Brentford and Bournemouth it does feel as if the teams who blow the Championship away with goals tend to have a better chance of surviving in the PL than the ones who are built on a watertight defence like Karanka’s, though that might just be a feeling. Be interested to see some stats on how attacking a team was in the Champo, and how they fared the season after in the Prem. Norwich and Fulham it doesn’t really work for, they’re far too open for the PL. Huddersfield were ultra defensive and they got battered in the PL, couldn’t buy a goal. Sheff United, brilliant defensively, made the PL look easy for a season. Burnley of course.
Attacking football is more fun to watch than defensive, counter attacking football of course.
I still loved watching that Karanka team though, I felt we’d give absolutely anyone a game because we were so hard to score against. I loved the commitment and organisation and spirit, in a way that front-foot defending was as good to watch as front-foot attacking.
To go back to the point, if I had to pick a manager to win a one-off game… Depends on the squad! If I had to do a Basel and come back from 3 goals down, Eddie Howe for sure, though we might end up losing 7-3. If I was playing Liverpool away? Karanka, it would be 1-0 either way, but it would be a proper dogfight.