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Big Vince

Small Club Mentality & the Flakesnow Generation

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The manager, players, supporters and the media are all buying into the idea that NCFC could not perform against Sheffield United due to tiredness after the Chelsea game. Is this a valid excuse when put into some historical context?

When Villa won the league in 1980-81 they did so with just 14 players and seven of those players played in all 42 games, including Gordon Cowans, Dennis Mortimer, Jimmy Rimmer, Kenny Swain and Tony Morley. They played Saturday-Wednesday for much of the season; had only one substitute per game (which Saunders in any case rarely used) and played on waterlogged and frozen pitches (when drainage and undersoil heating did not exist).

The mentality of the players was completely different. They were hostile to the idea of being dropped or rested. They wanted to play every game and Saunders took the view that the more they played together the better they understood each other''s game.

Contrast all this with today''s use of squad rotation, resting Tetteys and Hoolihans because they can''t play more than once a week; the ability to replace half the team with subs; larger squads; pristine playing surfaces; milder climate; huge number of backroom staff; combined with a much poorer player mentality where the likes of Oliveira and Murphy clearly don''t fancy certain games at certain times.

But there is also the element of small club mentality at play here as well. While Norwich were busy feeling sorry for themselves against Sheffield following the midweek defeat to EPL giants, Chelsea were busy romping to a 4-0 away win. Top players don''t get tired of winning.

Were the likes of Souness, Dalglish, McDermott, Rush, etc tired of winning all those titles in the 70s and 80s? Of course not.

Verdict: If you want to be a top player you have to have a Class A mentality as well as skill. Norwich players take note.

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Brian Clough''s legendary Nottingham Forest squad who rose from obscurity to win back-to-back European Cups in 1979 and 1980 did it all with only 17 players in total

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Wow wonders will never cease, I''m glad I was sitting down when I read this because I think, for once, this is a well thought out and reasoned post from you Vince.Most people will believe what they are told. So when players are told, directly or indirectly through the press, that they can''t be expected to perform to an extremely high standard because they have to play two games a week, subconsiously they will start to believe it and use the excuse to put in less effort. To my reccolection this is something that Ferguson started in the 1990''s. His list of excuses for poor performances from his side were exhaustive (wrong colour shirts at the Dell for instance), but his go to was always that too much was being demanded from his players. This has been taken a step further by managers like Mourinho who say that the powers that be don''t give his teams a fair chance because of the packed chedule they are asked to play. As if the vast sums of money they have at their disposal compared to rivals don''t already give him an (unfair) advantage, the "big" clubs want the deck further stacked in their favour .Like you say modern day footballers are now have more resources available than in previous eras to improve perofmance and as such it it is my belief that a drop in performance, rather than being physical, it is a psychological issue.

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[quote user="Hoola Han Solo"]The game was a lot slower in the 70s and 80s and certainly a lot less technical.[/quote]But was that down to ablity or pitches? If he were playing in the 1970''s would Cristiano Ronaldo be pulling off all his fancy tricks at the Baseball gorund in the middle of November whilst getting lumps kicked out of him by Roy McFarland? And if he were playing today on the pristine almost carpet like pitches, would George Best be considered one of the greatest of this generation?I believe the answer to the first is no and to the latter yes.

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IBT,

IMO, you are correct, more psychological than physical and as the subconscious begins to to believe, it formulates dominant thoughts and our brains are hard wired to prove us right, therefore they will drive us toward our dominant thinking.

So, my suggestion is, Stand Guard At The Door To Your Mind.

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One thing is for sure, a team that played 3 days before will find it a bit tougher than I team that hasn''t played for a week.

The days of the '' Tough of the Track'' ( showing my age there, Victor comic c.1970) eating fish and chips on the way to the big race, wearing mismatched running shoes and yet still winning, are long gone.

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wcorkcanary,

Agree, a bit tougher physically, that is when the mental side triumphs.

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Ray, I''m not saying that mental fortitude is not relevant, it is , very. I just feel that the 2 hrs playing time on weds contributed to our sluggish start on Saturday.

The mental side of game was ,as always, ably demonstrated by Wes, sharp mind alongside a bit of skill and we as a team looked so much better. His physical limitations are more than compensated for by his football brain.

Although disappointed that we had a bad day at the office on Saturday, I still feel we are doing the right thing with Webber and farke . I don''t think either of them are '' Flakesnows'' Vince.

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Different eras though.Frank Clark tells a story that they barely trained at Forest, so he decided to go for a run, and got roasted by Brian Clough who said he''d never play 50+ games a season that way.Little coaching, with success being about sourcing great players and motivating them.

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Great post BV, no point considering the exponential advancements in performance levels since 1970 or taking individual cases into account (Tettey has said himself he struggles to play two games in a week due to his knees). Lump them all in together and label it as a collective psychological defect.

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Sam Allardyce said after his Draw with Chelsea, that all his sports scientists were telling him before hand that half his team were not fit enough to play, due to the previous match but he decided to ignore it and play them, and it worked. Maybe too much is put on how the players are monitored.  

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Results are decided by fine margins, and a few days extra rest is clearly going to be a significant advantage. Ludicrous to suggest otherwise.

All this stuff like "in the old days, they had a fag and a pint at half time and still played 7 matches in 2 days blah blah blah" - yeah, but they were playing against other teams who had similar "fitness regimes".

Having said that, it''s not the only reason we lost on Saturday.

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We didn''t truck with this stuff in the old days. The goalkeeper played in goal. no passing. No coming up for corners. The fatter he was the more he''d save. This specimen played for Chelsea and England and four games a week didn''t bother him...

Image result for fatty foulkes
The good old days....

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[quote user="nutty nigel"]We didn''t truck with this stuff in the old days. The goalkeeper played in goal. no passing. No coming up for corners. The fatter he was the more he''d save. This specimen played for Chelsea and England and four games a week didn''t bother him...

Image result for fatty foulkes
The good old days....
[/quote]The above player can be seen here6.45.secs(younger viewers should be reminded that the footage is not of the last time ipswich town won a trophy)

the ball is in play much longer as there is no back pass to the keeper, always a way to slow things down

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wcorkcanary

Despite the up & down results and erratic form, I''m also on board with the Webber & Farke project. Time will tell. But I also think that English soccer (there''s the ''paddy'' bit!) is now completely driven by ridiculous amounts of money and the club is looking like it will be left behind. As someone else on this forum mentioned, this is a ''top 30'' club and at the moment, we''re not even achieving that level. W & F are being asked to attain and consolidate top tier status utilising a vibrant and productive academy combined with cheap signings on low wages relative to other clubs in direct competition. Not impossible but very little margin for errors & bad judgements (see Franke & Watkins)

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[quote user="paddycanary"]wcorkcanary

Despite the up & down results and erratic form, I''m also on board with the Webber & Farke project. Time will tell. But I also think that English soccer (there''s the ''paddy'' bit!) is now completely driven by ridiculous amounts of money and the club is looking like it will be left behind. As someone else on this forum mentioned, this is a ''top 30'' club and at the moment, we''re not even achieving that level. W & F are being asked to attain and consolidate top tier status utilising a vibrant and productive academy combined with cheap signings on low wages relative to other clubs in direct competition. Not impossible but very little margin for errors & bad judgements (see Franke & Watkins)[/quote]

Close. Webber & Farke are being asked to consolidate Championship status. You can forget all about the EPL - Delia has.

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Amazing if the team was so knackered why the only time we seemed likely to score in most of the home games this season is in the last 10 minutes when we throw the ball forward

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It''s a fair point for debate rather than the usual one-agenda anti-board rhetoric that the boy Vinnie relies upon.My two penn''orth to the debate is thus - it''s all very well saying the players should be able to cope with the rigours of the modern football calendar, on pristine pitches with great advances in everything from nutrition and fitness regimes to the playability of the pitches, but a lot of people have already been up in arms this season about Farke allegedly working the players too hard in training, leading to injuries.It''s another example of Farke being ''damned if he does, and damned if he doesn''t''. We had 18 fit players for Wednesday night, and the same 18 in the squad for Saturday (Tettey for Vrancic being the only change to the starting XI). No matter how fit the players are (or should be), the rigours of 90 minutes of high-intensity football are bound to have a great effect on a team that has played 120 minutes against top-class opposition less than 72 hours beforehand, and such margins can make a considerable difference (and did on Saturday, in my opinion).I think it''s universally agreed that we need at least two or three more players in the squad to counteract that cumulative fatigue - with a full week''s rest, Brentford on Saturday is a much more realistic barometer of where we''re at as a team than last Saturday was. My biggest concern is the fitness of Pinto and Lewis - we look much more cohesive with a back three, and we desperately need some cover there. Husband is the obvious replacement for Lewis but is struggling for form and fitness, but if Pinto gets injured it''s probably Stiepermann or Reed playing out of position. I''d expect to see a RWB and a striker at least come in before the end of the window.

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It’s difficult to compare eras in many sports. In things like darts and snooker it is easy enough; dart players didn’t average 110 in the seventies and Ronnie O’Sullivan, Stephen Hendry and the likes of Trump, Ding and Robertson have scored many, many more century breaks than their snookering counterparts of yesteryear.

Athletes keep getting quicker and the developments in the scientific side of sport see talent now better supported and accentuated by diet, training, lifestyle and equipment.

Footballers are now primarily athletes. While professional players in the 60s and 70s were undoubtedly “fit” in comparison to the other blokes in the pub, they were decidedly unfit compared to today’s protagonists.

George Best is an interesting case in so much that he undoubtedly had ability that was way ahead of his time. Pele, Cruyff, Maradona were others. If they lived in this era, they’d still be regarded as exceptional players; they had god-given talent. HOWEVER, the notion that if by some Back to the Future type DeLorean magic you could lift them from their own time directly into this, they’d barely get a look in. They’d be hands on hips puffing on the half way line after 20 minutes while players with far less technical ability ran rings round them.

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You only have to watch a bit of old football to see how much slower the game was. The demands of modern football are much greater, the intensity much higher and our knowledge of what the body can and can''t tolerate is much more in depth.

We should probably have rested more players on Saturday and I was surprised we didn''t but hindsight is a wonderful thing. At least we have a full week to recover pre-Brentford.

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I get all the old days'' stuff, particularly the demands of modern day football being much greater, but then the modern day footballer doesn''t play on quagmires and as has been pointed out is far fitter, etc.

I thought I read that Farke puts our guys through a far more intense training regime than most, if not all, other managers, so shouldn''t we be fitter and better able to cope with two games in a week, assuming we are blaming the physical aspect for the lack lustre performance. Personally I do not, I could understand it if we tired toward the end of the game but as far as I am concerned that performance on Saturday had more to do with tactics and man management than anything else, or the lack of.

Surely the base instinct of a professional footballer is to burst into the box to score and if that is the case we either have players who are the exception to the rule (highly unlikely) or they are playing to instruction not to and we are the home team, not that I believe that should make too much difference anyway.

To conclude, do two games in a week really make that much difference physically, especially if our guys are accustomed to training every day, 10 - 15 km according to Cam J, I believe it does not, however training the brain (mind) can make a massive difference, I just wonder how seriously we take this aspect of the game?

I know for a fact that many teams pay lip service to psychology, one who doesn''t is Big Sam, and he was mentioned earlier in this thread.

I''ve also heard people say something along the lines of, sort yourself out man, etc. when referring to the mental side of the game, yet we are happy to employ who knows how many sports scientists, etc. to help the guys with their training regime but not one psychologist. I wonder how much time, effort and money is spent on sports science compared to psychology, I''m guessing it''s a hell of a lot to zero.

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I am in full agreement that the players have it too easy in today''s football.

I like progress and welcome it. In all spheres of life.

Carrow Road, probably ready for some safe standing, to increase the capacity if not the income, is a place to go and socialise not just go and watch a game. Standing on the Barclay in the 60''s was exciting but not pleasant and we were treated like cattle. Piddling up a wall in a loo that had no roof on. Queuing forever for something to eat or drink. And steep steps to encounter when leaving.

Surely nobody wants that back.

But I don''t believe progress has been made in the relationship between the paying customer and the players.

I don''t see the point of debating whether players are better or fitter. That makes no odds to me. If football entertains me then I don''t care how it is played. I want to be excited and feel the buzz of a good game of football.

So watching Ron Davies smash in a header of the underside of the bar or a Maddison free kick in the top corner excites me in the same way.

But it does get up my ample nose when we are told that the players can''t perform at their best because they are playing too much. We know they can''t. They never could. But at least they used to play every game and give their best and if the standard dropped it didn''t matter if you were treated to an entertaining game.

And when coaches say that a player "isn''t quite ready" I ask for what reason? If he has been playing for another club he must be fit.

The crowd would have gone mad if Ron Saunders had said that we had brought in Graham Paddon but we would have to assess whether he could step up from Coventry Reserves first before playing. Sign on the line and you are playing Saturday.

And the players would have been knocking on the manager''s door if they were dropped. And if they were they went into the reserves who played as many games.

I remember George Best, acknowledging that he was a star and also acknowledging that he was a fun loving boozer even in his playing days, saying he didn''t begrudge the money even average players were getting but he got angry when they complained of tiredness etc. Everyone who works for a living gets tired.

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[quote user="Big Vince"]The manager, players, supporters and the media are all buying into the idea that NCFC could not perform against Sheffield United due to tiredness after the Chelsea game. Is this a valid excuse when put into some historical context?

When Villa won the league in 1980-81 they did so with just 14 players and seven of those players played in all 42 games, including Gordon Cowans, Dennis Mortimer, Jimmy Rimmer, Kenny Swain and Tony Morley. They played Saturday-Wednesday for much of the season; had only one substitute per game (which Saunders in any case rarely used) and played on waterlogged and frozen pitches (when drainage and undersoil heating did not exist).

The mentality of the players was completely different. They were hostile to the idea of being dropped or rested. They wanted to play every game and Saunders took the view that the more they played together the better they understood each other''s game.

Contrast all this with today''s use of squad rotation, resting Tetteys and Hoolihans because they can''t play more than once a week; the ability to replace half the team with subs; larger squads; pristine playing surfaces; milder climate; huge number of backroom staff; combined with a much poorer player mentality where the likes of Oliveira and Murphy clearly don''t fancy certain games at certain times.

But there is also the element of small club mentality at play here as well. While Norwich were busy feeling sorry for themselves against Sheffield following the midweek defeat to EPL giants, Chelsea were busy romping to a 4-0 away win. Top players don''t get tired of winning.

Were the likes of Souness, Dalglish, McDermott, Rush, etc tired of winning all those titles in the 70s and 80s? Of course not.

Verdict: If you want to be a top player you have to have a Class A mentality as well as skill. Norwich players take note.[/quote]

The excuse for the players and coaching staff was firmly in place before anyone went on to the pitch.

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[quote user="keelansgrandad"]I am in full agreement that the players have it too easy in today''s football.

I like progress and welcome it. In all spheres of life.

Carrow Road, probably ready for some safe standing, to increase the capacity if not the income, is a place to go and socialise not just go and watch a game. Standing on the Barclay in the 60''s was exciting but not pleasant and we were treated like cattle. Piddling up a wall in a loo that had no roof on. Queuing forever for something to eat or drink. And steep steps to encounter when leaving.

Surely nobody wants that back.

But I don''t believe progress has been made in the relationship between the paying customer and the players.

I don''t see the point of debating whether players are better or fitter. That makes no odds to me. If football entertains me then I don''t care how it is played. I want to be excited and feel the buzz of a good game of football.

So watching Ron Davies smash in a header of the underside of the bar or a Maddison free kick in the top corner excites me in the same way.

But it does get up my ample nose when we are told that the players can''t perform at their best because they are playing too much. We know they can''t. They never could. But at least they used to play every game and give their best and if the standard dropped it didn''t matter if you were treated to an entertaining game.

And when coaches say that a player "isn''t quite ready" I ask for what reason? If he has been playing for another club he must be fit.

The crowd would have gone mad if Ron Saunders had said that we had brought in Graham Paddon but we would have to assess whether he could step up from Coventry Reserves first before playing. Sign on the line and you are playing Saturday.

And the players would have been knocking on the manager''s door if they were dropped. And if they were they went into the reserves who played as many games.

I remember George Best, acknowledging that he was a star and also acknowledging that he was a fun loving boozer even in his playing days, saying he didn''t begrudge the money even average players were getting but he got angry when they complained of tiredness etc. Everyone who works for a living gets tired.[/quote]

"I want to be excited and feel the buzz of a good game of football".

Were truer words ever written? For 55 years I have experienced an almost continuous feeling which starts on a Monday. It basically involves there being a game in 5 days time and I can''t wait. This season, I think probably for the first time in 55 years, that life long feeling has gradually been dragged out of me. I no longer look forward to going to the game with ever increasing anticipation. It is now a case of I have to go, I''m not enjoying it but I have paid my money so I might as well.

There is no buzz. There is no excitement. We are not getting good games of football.

The policy being followed (The Webber/Farke master plan)

may mean we have to take ten paces back in order to move one pace forward but my God isn''t it painful.

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Dead right Webbo.

I bought into the revolution from the start. I thought a German coach, used to working with a DoF, was a sound place to start.

I knew the pace of play might drop off a bit but with the introduction of so many German and other European players, I thought at least there will be accurate passing and good organisation.

We haven''t really seen too much of that this season. I accept we are in the midst of change but it still doesn''t alter the fact that you should be able to pass to a team mate at a reasonable pace at this level.

And our crossing is woeful. Don''''t Murphy and the full backs practice hitting the far post?

It is generally the first defender getting heading practice.And surely the basis is that by keeping possession, you deny the opposition as many chances as possible while creating more of your own.

Lack of concentration or casualness is not acceptable no matter how early the stages of the revolution are.

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So what about people who run a marathon a day for 26 days and the like,?, modern day players are very fit, a couple of days rest after running say 15/20 kilometres at most should not really be an issue for them......

Very true,

At times, stats are put up that a certain player has run 11K in a match.

That stat is misleading as at least 60% per cent of that is either walking or slow jog.

No-one denies that football is demanding and physical. But well trained and suitably fit as well as proper diets should be able to handle two games a week.

Five years ago I was still working, training five days a weeks and running at least three 10K''s a week with probably one at race pace. And topography permitting, the times were always within 10 seconds of each other.

It is called spirit, competitiveness and determination.

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