Team shape, tactics and personnel

[allani]

2 minutes ago, nick76 said:

All agreed but I think you’re missing a major factor in that whatever is being coached at BMH is either not translating to the game day pitch or is rubbish.  We don’t look like a well coached team and it’s not just this game. So we will get bullied because of the points you make but there are large portions of that game when we weren’t being bullied and we didn’t know what to do, that’s down to SG and his teams coaching.

Or maybe it is down to the players not being good enough / able / willing to implement what is being drilled into them?  I am sure that McGinn is quite good at controlling the ball in training sessions and yet when he steps over the white line on match day he seems to be intent on playing his ridiculous floaty cross-field balls that work once every 60 times and the other 59 times result in the opposition getting the ball back.  If that is part of what the coaching team want us to do - then they need to go.

[allani]

1 hour ago, momo said:

Do you want to buy a 9 more players, Steven?

I don't think anyone thinks we need to buy 9 more players.  The most that I have seen anyone mention in two.  We haven't fully addressed the issue with the balance in our midfield and (possibly) we haven't found a striker that fits with the way we want to play.  Most people agree that we have a good squad - we just don't have a balanced squad and we are lacking a real leader on the pitch.  I mean just look at Liverpool - Jordan Henderson as a player has seen better days - but his captaincy and leadership are superb.  He gets players fired up, he gets people to stand up and be counted when Liverpool are struggling and he encourages players who are struggling to keep trying and battle through.  We haven't got anyone like that.

[TRO]

5 minutes ago, allani said:

Or maybe it is down to the players not being good enough / able / willing to implement what is being drilled into them?  I am sure that McGinn is quite good at controlling the ball in training sessions and yet when he steps over the white line on match day he seems to be intent on playing his ridiculous floaty cross-field balls that work once every 60 times and the other 59 times result in the opposition getting the ball back.  If that is part of what the coaching team want us to do - then they need to go.

I think you are right......if things are not being done properly, we assume its down to the coaching, sometimes it is, but sometimes its the player themselves.....they are not robots, they can think.....I am just offering other thoughts, not saying folk are wrong in their thinking.

Pep replied the week end when asked what can he bring to Haalands game.....the kid is 22, so its more than a reasonable question.

Pep made an ironic laugh and said " what can I teach him about scoring"......Pep was an honest man, what can he?

I am not challenging coaching per se......but some times folk turn to it too quickly and the answer to all the ills.

 

[TRO]

28 minutes ago, eholm said:

There are a good number of posters on here that 100% share your views on the midfield 2. This hasn’t been addressed for a couple of years now. 
 

What absolutely staggers me is that one if the best CMs in a generation can’t see this - I mean he paired JJ and JM on Sat FFS!! He says he’s looking to strengthen but hasn’t. How can he watch JJ and JM play as 8s together and genuinely believe that it works?? It hasn’t for bloody months. What does he see that a lot of us don’t? It is disgraceful that he has been here 10 months and still hasn’t sorted the area of the pitch that he so wonderfully controlled as a player. 

fair critique IMO.

[nick76]

1 minute ago, TRO said:

I think you are right......if things are not being done properly, we assume its down to the coaching, sometimes it is, but sometimes its the player themselves.....they are not robots, they can think.....I am just offering other thoughts, not saying folk are wrong in their thinking.

Pep replied the week end when asked what can he bring to Haalands game.....the kid is 22, so its more than a reasonable question.

Pep made an ironic laugh and said " what can I teach him about scoring"......Pep was an honest man, what can he?

I am not challenging coaching per se......but some times folk turn to it too quickly and the answer to all the ills.

 

All the players playing poorly….then it’s coaching!  

[sne]

Any ideas about who this player who is both tall enough and angry enough to transform out team could be?

[nick76]

4 minutes ago, sne said:

Any ideas about who this player who is both tall enough and angry enough to transform out team could be?

[allani]

3 minutes ago, Zatman said:

mm good managers build a team around the squad you have and not build your squad around a tactic. The manager is the one playing McGinn though as well, I know McGinn is going to do the same thing weekly and a manager on 5 million a year should be able to see the same thing

But Smith and Gerrard have both tried different approaches and neither have cracked the midfield conundrum.  Maybe the issue is that key players just aren't good enough regardless of the system?

I fundamentally disagree with the point in bold though.  The world's best managers have a brand of football that they want their team to play and they buy / sculpt players to fit into it.  If players can't then they are quickly shown the door.  Klopp, Pep being the obvious two.  Best managers in the world by a distance but they have moulded their teams based on the way that they want to play - they've not compromised on the way that they think the game should be played just because a couple of players don't fit in with that approach.

We need a manager to make the bold decision of saying that some of our popular players / fan favourites might not be what we need.

[TRO]

7 minutes ago, nick76 said:

All the players playing poorly….then it’s coaching!  

Too simplistic Nick...in my view.

If the balance of the squad is out of kilter, coaching can have a diluted effect....coaching is one element of many things a football team has to get right, important sure.....but its not always down to just that.

You cannot coach a 5'9 defender, (with any great success) to out jump a 6'4 striker to an aerial ball, its just a mismatch....you have to have a variety of players to choose from to mark such players......too many of ours are too samey,too many  too small.

are all the managers and their coaches at Man U since Fergie Poor?

I am not saying the coaching is spot on, far from it.......but not convinced its just that.

[VillaParkAvenue]

1 minute ago, allani said:

That's a very weird thing to think that I am saying.  But whatever floats your boat.

You said some fan favourites aren’t what we need. Which ones then?

[nick76]

1 minute ago, TRO said:

Too simplistic Nick...in my view.

If the balance of the squad is out of kilter, coaching can have a diluted effect....coaching is one element of many things a football team has to get right, important sure.....but its not always down to just that.

You cannot coach a 5'9 defender, (with any great success) to out jump a 6'4 striker to an aerial ball, its just a mismatch....you have to have a variety of players to choose from to mark such players......too many of ours are too samey,too many  too small.

are all the managers and their coaches at Man U since Fergie Poor?

I am not saying the coaching is spot on, far from it.......but not convinced its just that.

But the squad is always going to be unbalanced, very few squads ever get to the Man City level of being balanced, even they lacked a striker for last season.  We lack some very key attributes in our squad but we do have a very talented squad and the XI out there on Saturday was much stronger than Bournemouth’s but they had a plan and they executed it.  We obviously didn’t!  If we get bullied by Bournemouth and every team is going to do that then we are going to be fighting relegation this season.  Well coached teams who are more talented than the opposition generally impose their play on the game, we do not, that is coaching.  If it’s just down to size then why aren’t the biggest teams always winning, I doubt Man City are close to being the biggest team, in fact last season they we actually relatively small, but they are coached very well and impose their play even on bigger physically stronger teams.  Our fundamental problem is coaching!

[villan501]

Self destruction Steve should of tried different formations In pre season instead of dividing the dressing room picking a skipper not fit for the first team.

It's too.late to try these things when the pressure has increased tenfold.

[QldVilla]

5 minutes ago, nick76 said:

But the squad is always going to be unbalanced, very few squads ever get to the Man City level of being balanced, even they lacked a striker for last season.  We lack some very key attributes in our squad but we do have a very talented squad and the XI out there on Saturday was much stronger than Bournemouth’s but they had a plan and they executed it.  We obviously didn’t!  If we get bullied by Bournemouth and every team is going to do that then we are going to be fighting relegation this season.  Well coached teams who are more talented than the opposition generally impose their play on the game, we do not, that is coaching.  If it’s just down to size then why aren’t the biggest teams always winning, I doubt Man City are close to being the biggest team, in fact last season they we actually relatively small, but they are coached very well and impose their play even on bigger physically stronger teams.  Our fundamental problem is coaching!

I’m not convinced it’s coaching, yet. Coaches may be able to get simple short/medium term fixes, but it is generally because their tactics are simple and easy to implement. They eventually come undone and their tactics exposed.

Anything that is long term in coaching and effective tactically takes time and the manager needs at least 12 months to build the foundations and have the right athletes to be able to deliver those directions tactically. This is difficult and some players don’t have the ability to deliver.

 

[dont_do_it_doug.]

4 minutes ago, QldVilla said:

I’m not convinced it’s coaching, yet. Coaches may be able to get simple short/medium term fixes, but it is generally because their tactics are simple and easy to implement. They eventually come undone and their tactics exposed.

Anything that is long term in coaching and effective tactically takes time and the manager needs at least 12 months to build the foundations and have the right athletes to be able to deliver those directions tactically. This is difficult and some players don’t have the ability to deliver.

 

So either Gerrard is a genius and we just can't see it yet, or he by your own logic he can't even implement the basics? 

I would argue that even the best managers with complex tactics are at the very least able to quickly lay foundations to build from. I'd be interested to hear an argument to the contrary. 

[allani]

21 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

I think it's beyond reasonable to suggest that whatever our squad's deficiencies, we ought to be able to compete with Bournemouth. We got **** bullied. 

Lots has been said about our record since January. We've lost to Bournemouth, Wolves,  Watford, Newcastle, Brentford.

What kind of **** cheat mode are we expecting if the only answer is "we need a better squad". We need a better **** manager.

 

But we were also the same under Smith - we had some awful performances against teams that weren't "as good as us" on paper.  I'm not saying that the only answer is "we need a better squad" but by the same token I don't think that "we need a better manager" is the answer either.  We need a midfield that is strong, competitive, capable of controlling the ball, capable of dictating the pace and tempo of the match, capable of putting more than 5 passes together before giving the ball away, capable of tracking their man and not letting second ball / half clearances from the defence landing at the feet of unmarked opposition players standing at the edge of our box, etc.  I am unconvinced by our midfield and I am becoming more unconvinced by Gerrard as he doesn't seem to have addressed this issue yet.

[allani]

Just now, dont_do_it_doug. said:

I don't know. Either way it isn't working so I don't feel it's particularly relevant. 

I don't know. I just know that this one can't. I am confident that a better coach can get more from this set of players though, yes.  

Then change the shape to suit our relative strengths. He has had 9 months. Just because Smith couldn't solve it either doesn't mean it can't be solved. 

I just can't see how you can get a combination of McGinn, Luiz, JJ and Sanson controlling the midfield - in either attacking or defensive mode (we've tried it for long enough without success).  I hoped that when Smith failed to address this, that one of the country's best modern midfielders would spot it and resolve the problem.  My worry is that (a) he hasn't and (b) he seems to believe that McGinn is the answer.  I would hope that a new coach / manager would spot the problem and find a way of dealing with it but ultimately I think that needs new players and that a better coach will still struggle to find a way to make our current midfield effective.

This is all incredibly frustrating because I think that we are close, very close in most other areas of the pitch and I do think that Gerrard has helped us to recruit pretty well in most of those areas.  However, his decision to make McGinn his captain and his failure (so far) to bring in a second midfield signing have me growing increasingly concerned.

[Davkaus]

6 minutes ago, Nabby said:

In terms of time needed ,in SG case we have a direct comparrison with Howe as both took over clubs at about the same time and Howe's results and performances are miles ahead of SG.

 

 

 

And how many of us would swap squads

 

For a relevant example, here are the respective first 11s that saw them beat us a few months ago

 

 

How many of those players would we swap? Why  is Howe getting so much more out of his players?

[dont_do_it_doug.]

3 minutes ago, allani said:

I just can't see how you can get a combination of McGinn, Luiz, JJ and Sanson controlling the midfield - in either attacking or defensive mode (we've tried it for long enough without success).  I hoped that when Smith failed to address this, that one of the country's best modern midfielders would spot it and resolve the problem.  My worry is that (a) he hasn't and (b) he seems to believe that McGinn is the answer.  I would hope that a new coach / manager would spot the problem and find a way of dealing with it but ultimately I think that needs new players and that a better coach will still struggle to find a way to make our current midfield effective.

This is all incredibly frustrating because I think that we are close, very close in most other areas of the pitch and I do think that Gerrard has helped us to recruit pretty well in most of those areas.  However, his decision to make McGinn his captain and his failure (so far) to bring in a second midfield signing have me growing increasingly concerned.

Then don't try to 'control' the midfield? 

[dont_do_it_doug.]

Bournemouth proved on Saturday you can control a game of football without the ball. We did it once or twice under Gerrard early on, I seem to recall having something like 30% possession vs both Brighton and Palace but beating both comfortably whilst never looking like being beaten. That's what I call control. 

Sure you probably can't win titles that way, but a good coach will set a team up to play to it's strengths in the meanwhile. They put the foundations in place. He has done none of this.

[allani]

15 minutes ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

Then don't try to 'control' the midfield? 

How do we get the ball to our attackers that way?  They aren't big enough / strong enough to bypass midfield.  I don't think Emi2 or Couts work in a counter-attacking team and Ings / Watkins aren't good enough at leading the line.  How do we protect our defence with only 1 midfielder who can tackle?  We've spent 3 seasons not controlling the midfield and been hugely inconsistent as a result.