Which is why I'm amazed that so many teams start out playing 4-2-3-1 or 3-5-2 or whatever, then - when they need to get a goal - switch to 4-4-2. That's just stupid. If 4-4-2 is going to get you goals, then start with 4-4-2!!!!!
Surely that assumes the sole aim of the game is to score when really it's also as much stop the other lot. If 4-2-3-1 incorporates your strongest XI then by bringing on a striker for a midfielder you're making the team overall weaker but increasing the probability of scoring (but also conceding). However I can't help agree now with those who want to see us give it a go with two of the three supposed strikers. Wzolek and perhaps Freeman wide and play directly which doesn't mean hoofing it.
The sole aim is to score more than your opponent. 4-4-2 isn't any more, or less, defensive or attacking than 4-2-3-1, 4-5-1, 3-5-2 or any other formation. but it's the one that teams ALWAYS turn to.
My point was that Holloway made claim to using different tactics for each game at the end of last season, but gave the team no chance by continually changing the team players - giving them no chance to formulate as a team to the changes. Key Management 101 is to establish a team and they will be able to work to your slight changes - keep changing your team players AND give them tactical changes as well is giving them too much to deal with; you want to give the team the chance to succeed NOT to fail!! That will fail their confidence and confidence in their management - hence we saw our team losing game after game after game putting us in danger of relegation - proving the point that it wasn't working! Results back that up - not management manuals!!
Well, again not really. if you play a team that have proved to be particularly susceptible to Route One, you play 4-2-3-1 with a big striker and lots of quick midfielders. If a team is big defensively and strong in the air, you might play 3-5-2 with smaller, pacier attackers. The thing is, if you're looking at an opposing team and trying to plan their downfall, you pick players and tactics to unpick that side (with subs that allow you to change the formation and approach). It's only when you get to the consistency and skill levels of a Bayern or a Barca that you can maybe disregard the opposition and play your own game, but we've seen that fall apart, especially for Barca recently, when a change of tactics could well have seen them beat Juve and reach the CL final. Being flexible pretty much dictates that you'll make changes to the side, unless you have a team of players who can play all manner of formations. We don't have that, hence the changes in personnel. It shouldn't matter that much though - if a player is good enough to be picked to do a job, they ought to be able to do that job. The fact that - on occasions last season - they couldn't or didn't deliver on the pitch is down to them playing badly, not the logic behind trying to be successful.
WLW, I'm not disagreeing on the ability to have Plans A, B or C. It's great if you have the management and team to apply it. But our manager applied a technique 'without the players good enough to do the job', putting our club in danger of relegation. We had an 8 game run (L W W L W W D W) using a successful plan A that saw us moving up the division; when the manager decided to adopt a strategy that saw us go on an appalling 8 game run (L L L L L L W L). As the classic saying goes, a sign of madness is doing the same thing and expecting a different result; during that run nobody could predict what line up we would have and many fans, and commentators alike, could not work out any semblance of tactics or line-ups from Holloway. This puts great doubt on the ability to apply the variability that Holloway talks about for the coming season. Again, you can talk all the theories - but the above results are fact. If you don't have the players to apply your strategy, then all good managers adopt a strategy to get the best from your players - not the worst from them (and certainly not putting your employers in the position that we were put in, which would have been a complete disaster for the club - it already makes it difficult for us to get good quality players, who will look at our position and have doubts about joining our club; had we continued our run they would see a manager who had a good team and joining a club on the up - not lucky to escape relegation - again, not quite out of the Management 101 handbook!).
Transfer gossip: Speculation over QPR target Yiadom By West London Sport 04/07/2017 Huddersfield are looking to sign QPR target Andy Yiadom, Teamtalk.com reckon. West London Sport recently revealed that Rangers are planning to make an offer for the Barnsley right-back, who is in the final year of his contract. He is currently being touted to Premier League clubs and has duly been linked with Huddersfield and Swansea. Reading are also said to be interested in the 25-year-old former Hayes & Yeading player, who joined Barnsley from Barnet last year. please log in to view this image
Why is it always Reading that are linked to the same players as us? I think it may be lazy journalism?
Point of order. As you say, Olly was changing things up and trying different formations / lineups etc. during our bad patch. That could hardly be described as 'doing the same thing and expecting a different result' - if anything it was the opposite, namely he was trying different things and expecting (or hoping for) a different outcome. I think the root of the problem was experimentation for the 2017/18 season - to assess who was to be retained and what our areas to strengthen should be. In hindsight it destabilised a winning team setup and nearly got us relegated, but I'm not sure anyone could have predicted the run that the teams lower than us went on - perhaps a bit of panic set in which contributed to our collapse - but it really was pretty extraordinary.
Yes, destabilize a winning team to see if the can get us out of the 1st division.. Why not wait till we were safe? He needs to go.
Love all the formation talk and tactics. My opinion is quite simply, the standard/ability of players playing in a certain formation. For instance say we play real Madrid 10 times and they line up 4-4-2 every time. Will it really matter as a result what way we set up? I would hazard a guess they would beat us 10 times. I appreciate that I've picked a world class team as my example but it's relevant at all levels of football. Sometimes the attitude, desire and passion will carry you through a performance as we often see in cup games (not by us). Generally a 4-4-2 against a 4-4-2 will see the better standard of players victorious.
