To my mind, the best "system" is one that attacks the perceived weaknesses of your opposition. If they are deemed to be vulnerable on the flanks, by all means use wingers to attack them there.
You are making a big assumption, admittedly shared by almost everyone on here other than me, that you are actually able to identify the weaknesses of the opposition, make some sort of a plan to overcome them, communicate that effectively to the team and then execute it. Personally I think you've got almost no chance of doing this and it is a much better plan to play in a set way that your players understand that gives the best chance of overall success and keep working on that until you can execute it perfectly. I would use different players against different opponents if they had clear weaknesses (eg Chadli and Lamela instead of Lennon and Townsend if the opponents were below average height and the latter pair if the opponents were slow). That's what I think Barcelona do: they have half the squad as home grown players, teach them one way to play and play exactly the same way whoever they are up against. It's much more likely that they have identified superior tactics and/or got the advantage from consistent implementation than they have a much better access to talent than everyone else. But everyone else worries about the lack of a plan B....why do you need one if plan A is right!
This^. We've got no width most of the time, nobody in the middle creating anything and nobody up front to put them in the net, while the defence pisses about and costs us silly goals. A young player whose had a while out injured not setting the world on fire is the least of our problems, especially when he's not being used correctly. He actually played a few decent balls into space for Walker yesterday when I was expecting him to shoot, which shows he's capable of it when on the right and there's someone overlapping. Our recent problems at right-back have resulted in various more defensive minded players filling the role and restricting the options in attacks. Our use of two inverted wingers compresses the play and denies space for everyone and we've got nobody with the ability to pick a really tricky pass from deep, so it all falls apart.
L The point is to adapt your plan A to attack the perceived weaknesses of your opposition. We are not Barcelona, and we do not have magicians of the calibre of Messi to win games single handedly for us, nor world class midfielders such as Iniesta & Xavi, We have a far inferior squad. If, as a coach, you cannot identify your opponents weak spots, I suggest that you're in the wrong job! Ours ar far too plain for everybody to see, which is why we have lost so many home games, for instance
Messi is a one-off who would strengthen any team playing any system. But I see Iniesta and Xavi as becoming world class more BECAUSE of the Barcelona system rather than any innate ability. I think fans and coaches think they can identify weak spots but i can't see how it can work in practice. There is no doubt that we have worse players than Barcelona but that is no reason to also saddle ourselves with inferior tactics and formations based on no evidence that they are better. It is even less reason to swap our players at vast costs for another group who are probably little different in practice. If our weaknesses are so plain why don't opposing coaches exploit them in away games too?
Because playing for a point away from home is sensible and acceptable to fans, whereas doing it at home often results in bored, frustrated supporters and diminished attendances. Teams often set up to frustrate us, shut us out and get our crowd on their side, moaning and groaning at failed moves and ineffective choices. The same tactics would provoke similar reactions at their own grounds, which is counter-productive.
Firstly, Iniesta & Xavi are world class players, in any team! They were the engine behind the Spanish national Side also. Our weaknesses are more apparent at home as the onus is on us, as the home side, to come forward. As we are toothless up front, and careless at the back, opposing teams will know this and are content to sit back and then whack our leaky defence on the break.
If I were a coach the first thing I would do is train them how to ignore the crowd. There is no reason in the world why there should be such a disparity between home and away form for highly trained professional sportsmen.
have you ever watched a game and thought to yourself or ranted to someone next to you as to why Spurs aren't doing this or that? to me that is identifying a weakness....now if you can penetrate that weakness is a different ask. However identifying it is going a long way in overcoming it.
It was interesting. My opinion was based on grand slam tournaments which are the only ones I watch and I've only seen one home winner amongst the men. But there is little doubt that there is home field advantage in most sports so its not surprising that it applies to tennis I suppose. My point was more that at the highest level if you could coach the players to be less affected by an adverse crowd then that would give you an edge, yet I've seen no-one even suggesting that would be a way to improve results.
Yes a lot. But that doesn't mean I am right and the more I think about it the less likely it seems to be correct. Look at it this way. The average length of time one side keeps possession in a football match is a lot less than a minute so there will be about 250 possessions in each match. Every time you get the ball you will try to move it upfield to score a goal. Since the average number of goals in a match is around 2.5 this means that on average only one in 100 possessions results in a goal. So every match I have to watch 99 failures for every success. Now clearly lots of things affect the odds of scoring, the relative skills of the players, the pitch, which team is at home, the tactics, the formation etc. What could I possibly see in watching the match that told me if the coach's team selection/tactics/formation had increased the probability of scoring to one in 90 or reduced it to 1 in 110. In either case there would be a lot of moves that failed and to tell the difference I have to watch 30 or 40 matches, not one. If you add in further systematic effects (eg it might be that it takes 10 matches for the team to learn a new system so they will get worse at first and the better) it reduces the chance of observing anything interesting still further. Another complication is that addressing any single weakness will probably cause another one to be amplified: eg if you play with more width that creates more space for the opposition as well as you so even if it is 'obvious' that we will score more goals if we have wingers on the proper side, that doesn't mean we will win more matches. It's obviously fun trying to work out what is working and what isn't but thinking through the above I've convinced myself that drawing conclusions from a small number of matches is pointless.
I don't believe it's that easy. People are all different - their concentration levels vary greatly. Some can shut out what's going on around them and concentrate solely on the job in hand. Some find that far more difficult. I suppose as a player progresses through his career he becomes more accustomed, more hardened to the abuse from away team supporters. Nevertheless, some will handle it far better than others.
I agree with that. I suspect confidence and concentration may be more important in a player than skill. And I think all these things can be coached. That's the main reason I want our coach to concentrate on improving the players he has got rather than spending his time looking for new ones.
To my mind, it's far more complicated than that. As I have posted on another thread, it seems that MP is trying to make players fit a system, rather than playing to the strengths of those players he has. I doubt that he's an all round skills coach, so it may be difficult for him to offer relevant advice to all. As for concentration, yes it can be taught - but only to an extent. People are all different mentally, as well as physically. The ultimate confidence comes from playing well together as a unit, and winning, obviously.
To the extent that players have different combinations of skills surely the ideal squad should have a bit of a mix. I think ours has. I don't understand in what way our squad doesn't fit with any system the manager cares to try. We've got a lot of flexible players as far as I can see. eg three different type of striker, four different wide players. two or three 'No 10s', different sorts of midfielders and defenders. If there is a 'best' system we should be able to play it.
