A Few Questions on Style

We've had the most impressive defence in Europe for last decade. Bold statement, but hear me out. We might not have the best individuals in their positions. If you were to pick a World XI each year for the past ten, I doubt we'd have too many representatives. However, given our style of play, we have more experience defending against the world's best than any other team, and we're usually pretty damn good at it.

Going forward, it's been a mixed bag over the years, largely thanks to a plethora of misfiring strikers. Recently under Jose, we've been a bit more cautious in our attacking play, reacting to the opposition rather than imposing our own philosophy. Very rarely do we over commit, and when a game reaches a stage where we need to we're beginning to look fairly inept at going 'all out'. This season we've relied very heavily on getting in front, and staying in front. We don't look comfortable chasing a lead.

Yet we're top of the league. We've been winning the majority of league games with this style. Admittedly we've struggled in some of the bigger games, but very rarely do we actually lose them. Yes we're arguably playing too cautiously at present, there's a lot to lose from our current position, but this style of play has been effective (so far).

A fairly common post on these forums is that we should "go at" teams, force them to adjust to our attacks, use the wings, take players on, play with an element of risk. While I've no doubt we'd be a fair bit more entertaining to watch if we did so, would we be at the top of the league if we did? 

Is our current style of play a problem? 

What could we do differently? And would it be as effective?

And in a league that demands athletic & powerful players, can a successful English team also compete in Europe?