Having a Plan B is always massively beneficial. Though it'd be nice to just have a Plan A this season...
To take your example of man marking v zonal marking. I can see that which of those you choose will be dependent on the skill set of your players. But what I would object to is changing from one to the other mid game. Because to make that in anyway sensible you would have had to practice both of them which would mean neither would be optimised. I think that is true of most tactical changes. It's very odd that the driver for this discussion is a match where we played a different formation and lost badly.
City needed to change their plan against us and they didn't. They lost twice. They needed a Plan B and now they've signed one. Haaland gives them a new approach. We can't tell if Plan A or Plan B is better in any given situation, as you can't replay things. We can see when Plan A has failed, though. A hammer is not the ideal tool for every situation, even if it works a lot of the time. That's why people have toolboxes.
That's because we didn't have a proper Plan B and were forced to use it anyway. Players didn't know what they were supposed to be doing and some weren't suited for it. That's why you have backup plans and don't just hope that things work out.
Is the demonstration not evident in the Chelsea and Everton games? Both times changes in formation and personnel meant we got results when our initial plan wasn’t working. Sure there’s no way of 100% knowing what the game would have looked like if we hadn’t changed formation each time but football isn’t a game where you can 100% predict outcomes.
Yes I agree you would not want to make such changes unless the players were familiar with both. I was really illustrating the different options available that do not depend on starting positions. Our discussions are always more interesting when we lose. I think we were suprised that Conte did not react to what was happening on the field. I always refer back to Terry Venables who did change things very effectively when things were not going to plan and he often did it at half time. To be fair to Conte we have seen a number of games where we came out for the second half with a very different mindset. You could see an effort by Spurs to attack more at the beginning of the second half but Fred scored and that knocked the stuffing out of us, it should have made us more determined but it never happened.
Interesting analogy. We already have a toolbox....it's called the squad. I think Conte's approach is to make specific roles for each player and make them a better sum than the parts. You train to use specific tools for the right jobs. If it doesn't work well you try to see why. You don't try to drive the screws in with a hammer or hit the nails with the screwdriver handle. I would say Conte has done a lot of analysis on what works in football and why and he has devised a plan of playing that will optimise results. He spends close to 100% of the time coaching the players to execute it well. What people seem to want him today is spend some of that time coaching a plan he actually thinks is inferior and introduce it whenever we play badly for half a match.
It was clear that whatever we were attempting to do wasn't working after an hour, though. Even if that was the best plan, something needed to change. Introducing new personnel was the minimum that needed to happen. If the screwdriver you're using isn't working, maybe try a different screwdriver?
The thing with 352 is it is either the backup plan, or (and this is a hunch) the longterm plan which Conte intends for us to transition to post-WC - but lining up in a 352 on Wednesday night meant we were either going with the backup plan right out of the gate, or the longterm plan ahead of schedule And this puts us in a bind if things aren't working, because if we were losing midfield in 352 then we wouldn't win it back by reverting to 343
We might not win the midfield but we’ll do better in transitions with more players around Kane. Which we either get from midfielders who aren’t knackered in 352, or from the additional forwards in 343. If we’re losing the midfield anyway then we might as well make the change to be better at bypassing it altogether.
Changing a generally successful plan when it is not working at times is vital. A plan may work brilliantly in one situation but not in another. During covid we saved loads of money and we bought things we could only dream of previously due to my partner not paying huge transport costs and having no where to go socially. We were able to to buy much better quality clothing and we put some money away to help set up our youngest at uni (housing deposits, furniture, new laptop etc) and did some much needed repairs on the house that we couldn't previously afford. Now we are support our uni kid financially so the plan to save and buy better quality things and do the house up stopped. Plan A and Plan B. Football wise successful teams have plan A and Plan B depending on the opposition and the game situation. Only the absolute richest don't do this due to the number of top quality players they have.
It's always worth remembering that, for a long time, Poch's Plan B was also his Plan A, where we'd be able to play Plan A at full intensity for the full 90 minutes while the opponents ran out of steam after 70-80 minutes There is an element to that with Conte, as we're able to spring a trap and pick off an opponent on the counter in the 1st or 90th minute with the same intensity - but we lack the press resistance that we had under Poch, as demonstrated the other night where Bentancur was getting hassled and not getting the ball through the middle as a result...which could have been averted if we rearranged our midfield and had Hojbjerg & Bissouma as a screen for Bentancur, but we didn't do that
An oft quoted adage in military circles : No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy. So agile adaptation is the requirement when the above happens.
