Ratings & Reactions: West Brom v Villa

[AVTuco]

7 hours ago, mjmooney said:

Interesting to read back through the match thread, with several comments along the lines of "Jack's having a poor game", "Jack in the middle doesn't work", "May as well take Grealish off" (note my avoidance of a Kenneth there), etc. Come on here and he's MOTM! 

Jack improved as the game went on, and was great in the end. That probably explains some of it.

[villakram]

10yrs of conditioning.. this had 1-0 via a corner written all over it.

Does this mean we are actually seeing some light...

[dounavilla]

19 hours ago, darrenm said:

If that's offside I'm a llama 

 

 

Whats interesting looking at that is it looks as though the black/yellow lines are not correctly aligned when you compare to the white chalk lines ?!

[blandy]

14 minutes ago, dounavilla said:

Whats interesting looking at that is it looks as though the black/yellow lines are not correctly aligned when you compare to the white chalk lines ?!

VAR got it right. @darrenmis a Llama and the reason the lines don't seem correctly aligned to you is because of perspective and the angle the VAR image is from, which is not in line with the players - so the overlaid lines will not appear parallel to the 18 yard box lines.

This photo I took ages ago, just about demonstrates the effect - because it was taken not from the centre of the road, but driving on the left of the road, the right hand-most white line appears to "angle in" more than the left hand-most line. 

[TheStagMan]

2 hours ago, dounavilla said:

Whats interesting looking at that is it looks as though the black/yellow lines are not correctly aligned when you compare to the white chalk lines ?!

More importantly, why is the vertical line level with the end of Ollie's sleeve, and the middle of the defenders sleeve?

[DWG_Pauly]

Great to see the goals going in after all of those empty chances. 2-3 games like that and I feel they'll never score. El Ghazi and Traore stepping up and if Jack doesn't score, it's no biggie.
The whole team looked sharp from the offset this time. Which is nice.

Jack looks to me to be a set-up man? I guess this also depends on what position he's playing that particular match?

Basic Football Newb question...

Once the sides announce their formations, can the coach change it up during the game?

[rjw63]

11 minutes ago, DWG_Pauly said:

Basic Football Newb question...

Once the sides announce their formations, can the coach change it up during the game?

[DWG_Pauly]

1 minute ago, rjw63 said:

I suppose they are required to submit the formation as part of the lineup?

[Wainy316]

6 minutes ago, DWG_Pauly said:

I suppose they are required to submit the formation as part of the lineup?

Nah, they just announce the starting 11 and subs and then the broadcasters will usually guess the formations when displaying the teams pre match.

[DWG_Pauly]

6 minutes ago, Wainy316 said:

Nah, they just announce the starting 11 and subs and then the broadcasters will usually guess the formations when displaying the teams pre match.

Are you serious? Or yanking my American chain? That seems like a tough guess.

[PieFacE]

7 minutes ago, DWG_Pauly said:

Are you serious? Or yanking my American chain? That seems like a tough guess.

Nah that's how it works.  The predicted formations are quite often incorrect.

[ender4]

3 hours ago, DWG_Pauly said:

Are you serious? Or yanking my American chain? That seems like a tough guess.

Well it’ll be similar players and formation to the previous match, so not that hard to guess.  
Teams don’t really do a radical change in formation from one game to the next.

[darrenm]

11 hours ago, DWG_Pauly said:

I suppose they are required to submit the formation as part of the lineup?

If they were required to submit a formation, what do you think the punishment would be for players being out of position and how would it be enforced? What would count as out of position? Is a player not allowed out of a quadrant?

Teams can do whatever they like on the pitch. It used to be 2 defenders, 3 mids and 5 forwards until the Hungarians came to Wembley in the 50s and taught the Brits a lesson. Now all teams just try to keep it as balanced as possible to counter their opponent's strengths while making the most of their own strengths. 

You'll see villa do something which a lot of other teams don't do but we have the players to be able to do it which is completely switch the front line around constantly during the game. You'll see Grealish pop up left, centre, right, deep midfield. You'll see El Ghazi and Traore do the same. Not many other teams do that. Our defence is pretty static though. Too much sometimes.

This is how it used to be (not far off anyway)

 

 

[mjmooney]

11 hours ago, DWG_Pauly said:

Are you serious? Or yanking my American chain? That seems like a tough guess.

"Formations" don't actually exist, except in the very vaguest sense. Read this (seriously, it's a great book): 

[El Zen]

29 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

"Formations" don't actually exist, except in the very vaguest sense. Read this (seriously, it's a great book): 

Essential reading. One can say that formations indicate a team’s defensive structure and positioning, and they do play a role in the overall tactical approach. However, people tend to overemphasize their importance, particularly the old «play two up front, ffs» when your team is struggling for goals. Formations are, at best, a simplified represetation of a set of individual and relational roles in a team, whereas tactics include the overall strategic approach such as when to press, passing lanes, triangles, running patterns, distance between lines etc etc. 

[mjmooney]

In the days before squad numbers, the shirt numbers indicated positions (the right full back was always #2, and so on). I vaguely remember some manager playing a centre forward with a number 3 on his shirt, and the ensuing discussion of how sneaky this was in fooling the opposition! 

[El Zen]

6 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

In the days before squad numbers, the shirt numbers indicated positions (the right full back was always #2, and so on). I vaguely remember some manager playing a centre forward with a number 3 on his shirt, and the ensuing discussion of how sneaky this was in fooling the opposition! 

Also covered in the above mentioned book, I believe. 

[A'Villan]

So glad to see us a cut above teams that are making up the numbers this season, and even more glad, over the moon, that more often than not, we're beating them.

UTV!

[TRO]

19 hours ago, villakram said:

10yrs of conditioning.. this had 1-0 via a corner written all over it.

Does this mean we are actually seeing some light...

we can't under estimate teams in this league.......a long punt down field - a set piece( as we have witinessed to our cost) a ricochet in the box.........is all it takes.

you can dominate possession for the majority of the game, but those moments can undo all the hard work.....and every team in this league has moments in a game.

I think our concentration levels have improved of late, and its great to see......but like all teams, we can concede in a flash too.

We are doing great, but its a long hard season and no room for complacency.

[TRO]

17 minutes ago, A'Villan said:

So glad to see us a cut above teams that are making up the numbers this season, and even more glad, over the moon, that more often than not, we're beating them.

UTV!

its great to see, such eye catching football, allied to the clean sheets........that's a sure sign of a good team.