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Parma Ham's gone mouldy

Tactics vs Players

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Bravo ICF 👍

Time for some cards on the table. Might it be that there is a theme running through sound assessments made by Badger, Tumbleweed, Westie, Purple, ICF and others? Something that makes almost all of the above true?

Why change and then immediately state that you haven''t? Why prepare meticulously and yet autistically leave open a flaw that far inferior opponents identify and exploit.

Why use players that are less suited to the chosen formation and playing methodology to make a point to those left out?

Why make a point to senior players then exclude them from the team for extended periods whilst the replacements fail to deliver?

Why call out players individually and repeatedly whilst making pointed references to the loyalty of the owners in press conferences when the focus is on selection and results?

Why come into the job stating how paralysing it is to focus nervously on mistakes, how debilitating this is for players, how freedom of mind to make mistakes is key only to arrive at today whereby individual mistakes are identified as the predominant reasons for the poor run? Players, players, players.

If direct disciplinarian methods are intially successful, if they are necessary early on to establish authority for a 35 years old manager with a limited playing career and a promotion above his typical pay grade, might they have a limited shelf life without something deeper, more fundamental, more intrinsically authoritative to back it up?

Parma

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I''ve always guessed that Neil has often been very disengenuious in press interviews. I''m no body language expert but the constant looking up to the side, scratching his nose, fidgeting and quick put downs seem imply he''s not at all comfortable with what he''s saying.

I think in private and to the players he''s a very different man. I would imagine the whole ''i was right all along'' interview was to encourage the fans to forget about him and to support the team. We''re always going to be better with the crowd behind the team, AN obviously knows that which is what I think he was trying to achieve with that interview.

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Machiavellian Management mis-direction is thoroughly welcomed Horse, whether via media manipulation or when buying, selling or re-conditioning players.

Michael Bailey, Paddy Davitt and others have observed and commented however that Alex Neil has always been (or is perceived as being) direct, honest and open - often to their surprise. He is judged to be ''without angles'' which is unusual for Football Managers and media interviews.

The key criteria to analysing any statement, action or event is: ''does it benefit the team / club / results'' ?

Unlike many, Italians would be relatively unconcerned at any ''truth'' in what is being said (often multiplicit and imperfect in any case), rather they would ask ''what is the motivation for the statement?'' and/or ''who benefits?''.

Provided the answer is ''club / players / results'' as stated then all is well and anything goes.

After a terrible run, then successful tactical change, a statement along the lines of ''I was right all along, there was no [tactical]change, it was just the players [finally] doing what I told them'' would be considered an insult to intelligence and belligerent nonsense rather than Machiavellian scheming.

It would not be clear how such a statement was conducive to improving ''club/ players / results'' rather it would be seen as the Manager justifying his own position for his own reasons and would have been highlighted as such.

Parma

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Interesting debate. Parma do I get the impression that you are not very enamoured with our current manager. Do you still think he has the capacity to learn (he''s had two years with us now),has he reached his limit in his capabilities of being a manager or has just been somewhat beligerant in his own beliefs and ability and is now ''listening'' more?

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Ron,

There is a swirling frustration that when a long, difficult, negative corner begins to be turned statements are made that justify ones own actions, plus somewhat mealy-mouthed compliments to players that actually are the opposite ''the players just played well and did what they were told [in this game]'' means clearly by extension that they didn''t in the others. That it wasn''t his fault, wasn''t what he was doing, it was all their poor performance.

The 8 defeats in 10 games is a performance level well below the mean level of the playing resources available. There were repeated tactical errors and exploited flaws in our system as highlighted.

If you are a player - and in light of the above media statement and its clear inference - how do you feel?

Parma

ps: if you think you are already right, what is to learn?

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It''s a shame because we were all hopeful (well most anyway) that a young up and coming manager would learn from his mistakes. He was cut fair bit of slack by those that realised he was going to make a lot of errors, consoled by the apparent misguided belief that there would be some learning and implementation on the job.

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Parma,

As your PS) ended with a question mark, I can but assume you were seeking an answer, all I can come up with is; that you may learn that you were wrong. May be we are at that stage! Along the same lines, if you think you are green then you are still growing, if you think you are ripe then you start to rot.

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[quote user="Ron Manager"]Thanks Parma, your PS makes it all clear![/quote]It certainly makes Parma''s interpretation of the actualitéclear. I''d like to ask exactly where the "swirling frustration" is swirling.

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Parma, as usual you have turned this into my favourite kind - a philosophical one!

At it''s core is: why do we play football? Why do we play games at all?

Is it "win at any cost"? Bend the rules as far as you can, be as duplicitous & perfidious as you can get away with in order to win??

You may not like this, but when I grew up there was no diving. No shirt pulling. No simulation. Plenty of fouling, but of the most obvious kind that you could see coming a mile off. But the arrival of Continental & South American players saw the gradual introduction of the above more subtle means of circumventing the rules & hoodwinking the referees. Win at all cost, rules are for suckers.

And the crowds hated it. It was unmanly. Not British. We liked the sort of tackle that got Brady sent off, wholehearted, fearless, dangerous if not fully committed. Sorted the men from the boys. No rolling around on the floor, writhing in (apparent) agony before pleading to the referee with supplicant hands for your opponent to be sent off.

So how does this apply to our present situation? Well, Neil''s (apparent) honesty is very appealing. He tells the ''truth'' as he sees it. No calculation. It''s disarming. It''s all a bit ... well, British.

However, it also means he''s possibly not a very good manager & therefore should be sacked!

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Ron Obvious wrote: " .....It''s all a bit ... well, British. However, it also means he''s possibly not a very good manager & therefore should be sacked!"Possibly. After all, that Capello chappie has the best record of any English manager since Walter Winterbotham (excluding Big Sam 1 from 1 of course) [:D]

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Ron, I am certainly not going to defend diving and cheating in a binary ''good vs evil'' philosophical sense, it I will tell you a story to illustrate that ''the foreigners cheat, we''re honest and better for it'' argument is a little more nuanced....

In my first trial in Italy I was marked by Francesco Cannavaro (Fabio''s younger brother)...it was brutal. No space to breathe, endless shirt holding, standing on toes, man-marking right into midfield areas...I needed to look good, impress - or at least get on the ball and show my pace - so I ended up dropping deep enough to collect balls from the goalkeeper in the wing back areas, anything to get away. Any chance available I was fouled early, prevented from turning and generally hounded. I learned quick.

Defenders in Italy and elsewhere are ruthless. They are the absolute masters of the half-foul, or the foul a half second before the hall arrives, the foul when the referee is out of eye line and - the one that frustrated me most as a fast player - the gentle, but well-timed nudge when accelerating or approaching full flight. All just enough to stop me doing what I wanted, being in the position I wanted to be in.

All of this was magnified x 10 in the penalty box.

Remember if the refereee doesn''t see it, it isn''t a foul. The little nudge, block, obstruction, pull that no-one sees that stops me getting into the space to score....nearly always isn''t penalised...the game is too fast, the defenders too clever, the ''foul'' not crude enough to ensure the just punishment when a goal-scoring chance is prevented.

So...

Strikers had to find a way to throw light on the dark arts that made their jobs so difficult. Dark arts that weren''t seen or - at the highest level - were elegantly calculated to do just enough to stop the intended action being successful.

Now none of this is defending ''diving'', which I haven''t ever done, but - and it''s a huge but - I made sure I went down every foul contact I received in the box that was enough to stop me doing what I wanted to do, moving where I wanted to move and reaching any goalscoring chance presented.

If I wasn''t going to score, I wanted to get a penalty as the next best option (and yes I calculated the odds in real time like any good striker). The defenders were the ones cheating, I merely ''revealed and clarified'' their fouls.

Staying on one''s feet honestly, only to see a chance disappear in a key game, when the defender has subtly obstructed the chance, is not honesty it''s stupidity.

Parma

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Parma, my critique of the influence of overseas players on the traditional ''British'' game was a little tongue in cheek.

I am no admirer of Neanderthal, brutalist football & marvel, mouth agape, at the skills of many modern footballers, most of them foreign it grieves me to say.

But this throws up a problem, as you so eloquently describe. Faced with such ability defenders have to develop ways - ways involving far more intelligence than the Norman Hunters & Chopper Harrises could ever muster - to nullify their skills. I particularly remember the late, unlamented Brian Moore exclaiming "well, he asked for that!" When a tricky winger, committing the appalling crime of juggling the ball near the corner flag, was scythed down by some troglodyte defender. These ways will inevitably result in, in extremis, committing fouls that the referee doesn''t see. Attackers then have to develop their own answers to these increasingly underhand techniques, & we get stuck in a spiral of deceit.

The only answer I can see is for the FA (& FIFA etc, as well) to embrace technology & provide refs. with instantaneous high quality information on which to base their decisions. There''s plenty enough luck in football to add pique to the mix without adding awful refereeing decisions on top.

PS I''ve been watching the W Ham v ManC game; the penalty was a textbook example of what you described in the last few paragraphs.

As I watched it live, it struck me that the attacker was going down even before the tackle was made. Watching the replays I''m convinced that he shifted his path in anticipation of the tackle, such that his right foot was on a collision course with the defender''s leading foot ... so, what is that then? Is that ''provoking'' a foul? How far do you have to change course before you''re the one committing the foul? I honestly don''t know.

Damn clever though.

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Just getting back to the title of the thread, does anybody yet know what AN''s preferred tactics actually are? I must admit that I get mighty confused most times I see the latest line-up. he obviously favours 1 up front, but we have also seen a back 3 a few times and all sorts of variations in midfield. Can''t really help the players know what they are supposed to be doing in any particular week, again one reason why I feel the Derby result was "just one of those games".

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