I read that article Yankee while waiting for my meal in the North Gower hotel the other evening, I nearly chocked on my food too, might I add, I'm surprised your advocating his lunacy to be honest, dropping our wingers would be catastrophic, besides Leighton James is not someone that I give much credence to, as most of what he states is a load of tosh, but when I saw the head line, I just had to read how the numpty was going too justify his ridiculous suggestion, in a nutshell, a load of old cobblers! Sorry.................. please log in to view this image PS: I've read all the posts, on this one, and I'd just like to ask a question! Is Dai Leighton James??.............
That is one of the funniest bits of drivel I have ever read. Sweeper system? 4 central midfielders? Dyer hasn't done anything? And can he write in more than one sentence at a time? I would like to think Leighton James says these things to cause a bit of controversy, and get his name banded about it for the benefit of his career, but I think I am giving him way too much credit. He is just a bit twp. P.S. All the clues are fitting in to place now. If he's got time to be a lollipop man, he's got time to come on here and become his alter ego superswan
Has Daiswan and Leighton James ever crossed someone over the road at the same time ??? the plot thickens !! There is an easy way to find out though! Dai whats your formation for the game on saturday ? ( if daiswan drops the wingers and suggests a three man central defence we ve sussed him! )
sweeper only works if your fullbacks have the same nous as the sweeper and listen when to move up, a dying art
I well remember watching the Saint and Greavsie show when they said that the first and only team in the First Division to use a sweeper was the Swans with Ante Rajkovic. What a player he was!!!!!!!! Tough as nails and quality with it. When Tosh selected his best two teams to play a theoretical match against each other, he said that he would make certain that Ante was on his side as he would have dreaded/feared playing against him. Reckon that Ante would have been worth £20 million plus in today's market.
Although if we were to play a 3-5-2, it should look like something like this: Vorm Williams - Moras - Caulker Rangel - Agustien - Britton - Allen - Taylor Lita - Graham Now, playing our possession passing system, this shape could work rather nicely. It's horses for courses and as someone has said the top teams can all adopt different shapes to meet competitive needs - style doesn't change, just player utilization. If any of you watched the Real Madrid - Barca match the weekend, Barca have an interesting overload of players in midfield with the acquisition of Fabregas. They actually morphed into and out of a 3 man defense in this game with Puyols - Busquettes - Pique as the back line (Busquettes traditionally being the holding midfield player) with their full backs Alves and Abidal roving forward down the lines. Missing from the starting line-up were Pedro and David Villa, their more traditional "wingers" (how would any manager not play either of those two). In the middle were Xavi - Iniesta - Fabregas with Messi and Sanchez (the new kid) playing up front - Messi playing the way he and only he does - pretty much whereever he wants. So the Barca style never changed, but they changed their shape and player utilization to put the strongest line-up on the field with the players in-form and available. And, yet again, they drove Real and Mourinho nuts coming back from a sloppy first minute give away goal to win 3-1 - and as usual they executed their passing style to perfection and had comfortable control of possession. So as you can see from this recent example, playing with our wingers is great, love to watch them, very entertaining and when it works it works great, but we shouldn't be so rigid in our line-up that we don't optimize for competitive situations - Barca have that flexibility and used it this past weekend. Changing our shape doesn't mean hoof-ball, it means same-style different tactical effect because of the use of different players. Question remains - are we a one trick pony - or are our players flexibile enough and talented enough to adopt a new shape played with the same style. Perhaps the best we can do is stick to our one shape with two wingers and perfect the heck out of it .... because we'll have to.
Leighton's point is a valid one and you youngsters need to grow up a bit... you think a player of his experiance dont know what he is talking about,..... He is worried about the lack of GOALS being produced by the wingers and he is spot on, the quality of the crosses has been very poor....so grow up kids and try to understand what he is saying as if you do you will learn a lot about what football is all about and not the school/pub football you all talk about...
Wow, now that's bringing it .... I am going to step back from this one, over to the rest of you guys.
its true though yankee. the way some talk on here thinking they know better than people who have been there got the t-shirt dont know what they are talking about. school/pub/lower league football we are not but some on here think we are.......listen to the professionals guys just listen and you may just learn a little bit about the rubbish you talk as you make yourselves look silly...
Is that the same school that Leighton james was in charge of Dai ?? <St josephs 6th form> Are you Leighton in disguise ?? judging by the tone of your post i think you are i can hear LJ saying those words out load on Real radio I dont think Routledge s crossing has been poor, what do you think Leight ?
Im not going to rant as much as i did last time but if he had as much tactical knowledge as he likes to think he has he would be in a management structure somewhere!! Cant wait for his next article 'Vorm - Does he really need to be saving those penalties?"
jackdan why would he be in management..? john charles, bobby charlton and many others have failed in management but they know what they are talking about. so your comment dont make sense...
Given that he think he has the tactical knowledge better than our manager...the one who got the team promoted to THE PREMIERSHIP...then the question you should be asking is why wouldn't he be in management!!! Guessing it pays more than writing for the local paper!! And Bobby Charlton hardly failed, due to his knowledge they put him on the Board of Directors and Manchester United!! Yes i know it's not managing the team but i did say if LJ thinks he knows so much then surely there is a place in the management structure...advisor or some ****!!
And neither do you most of the time Dai, you and LJ are a marriage made in heaven, if any of you read LJ's article, and then read Rodgers, you'll have noticed that Rodgers commented on the numpty, and disagreed with him, just because a player was a pro, and played in a particular position most of his career, doesn't make him a tactician of the game, matter of fact most footballers are thick as a brick, bit like Dai!..............
