Are there only so many moves or ideas in football?

[Bigbrenn 88]

As I recuperate from knee replacement surgery, I've had time to read a bit more about football and coaching. And after Wales win last night and the views about Bellamy's tactics, are there only so many ways you can come up with new ideas?

The Bellamy ideas about pressing, being more dynamic in and out of play, confidence etc sounds awfully similar to ours and other clubs new way of playing. Therefore, how can we climb above other teams? I suppose clever recruitment is absolutely key in this because if two opposing teams have the same intentions, they could cancel each other out or collapse in exhaustion.

So, can I be confident that what we have is so unique that no one will challenge us or pessimistic that we are into a new temporary fad?

 

Edited September 10 by Bigbrenn

[lake district canary 4,816]

1 hour ago, Bigbrenn said:

As I recuperate from knee replacement surgery, I've had time to read a bit more about football and coaching. And after Wales win last night and the views about Bellamy's tactics, are there only so many ways you can come up with new ideas?

The Bellamy ideas about pressing, being more dynamic in and out of play, confidence etc sounds awfully similar to ours and other clubs new way of playing. Therefore, how can we climb above other teams? I suppose clever recruitment is absolutely key in this because if two opposing teams have the same intentions, they could cancel each other out or collapse in exhaustion.

So, can I be confident that what we have is so unique that no one will challenge us or pessimistic that we are into a new temporary fad?

Great question. There is so much knowledge out there that every club can tap into, whether they are top PL  sides down to grass roots village football teams. So we end up with a lot of clubs playing in the same way, the same moves, tactics etc etc.

So you can have the best tactics, the best players, all the statistical analysis in the world, but if you lack in some of the less measurable things - like belief, confidence, togetherness, spirit - then all you can end up with is football by numbers - players playing systems in matches that end up looking like chess games, with little entertainment.

So clubs that get everything right - including having those things I mentioned - are few and far between. This where the manager has such an important role.  Thorup seems to have a great mindset and if he can get the whole club moving together - as Farke did throughout the ups and downs - then we might just have a long term manager that can stay and develop us over ten years or more (as Farke should have been allowed to do rather than stupidly sacking him - the worst single decision in the history of our club imo).

Uniqueness is difficult, if not impossible, but this club constantly does better than it's resources compared to other clubs suggest it should - so as long as Thorups methods are sound - and he can get supporters on his side too, then there is no limit to what we can achieve.

[BobLoz3 608]

1 hour ago, Bigbrenn said:

As I recuperate from knee replacement surgery, I've had time to read a bit more about football and coaching. And after Wales win last night and the views about Bellamy's tactics, are there only so many ways you can come up with new ideas?

The Bellamy ideas about pressing, being more dynamic in and out of play, confidence etc sounds awfully similar to ours and other clubs new way of playing. Therefore, how can we climb above other teams? I suppose clever recruitment is absolutely key in this because if two opposing teams have the same intentions, they could cancel each other out or collapse in exhaustion.

So, can I be confident that what we have is so unique that no one will challenge us or pessimistic that we are into a new temporary fad?

 

It seems tactics are based on similar principles. It's all about the players a team has to execute them, surely. They will be the weapons in the tactician's arsenal. 

[Christoph Stiepermann 1,260]

I wouldn't say we're doing anything particularly unique or innovate by modern standards we're just trying to keep pace with what other successful clubs. In terms of tactics you don't get a job in high level football anymore unless you're tactically astute and pretty much every system and way of playing has been tried at some point. You get little unique innovations here or there like Wilders overlapping cb's or De Zerbi's rope-a-dope playing out style but teams figure out how to counter than sooner rather than later.

I think because tactically football has reached a bit of a plateau in the PL teams then instead prioritised physicality and athleticism nowadays to keep being competitive. In the past you tended to get either a passing team with smaller players  or physical sides but now all the passing sides are full of big, fast super athletes too with coaches who are tactically astute so it then becomes about who can do the best with recruitment. We're going down that route too trying to be a passing side with physically strong players but it's not anything unique so we've got to really get the recruitment right. 

[Ulfotto 798]

I think a lot of the tactics are overblown there is clearly a brand of football laid down by Pep Guardiola which is now accepted as the way to play football. If anyone tries anything that does not resemble that they are a luddite. 

In my opinion one of the big things which Pep and his followers are done is getting all players to press the ball it sounds so simple but it was very rare even 10 years ago to get creative players pressing and pressing with purpose.

In my opinion if someone can come with a system to counteract high pressing possession based football consistently then that manager will become hot property.

Also think there is mileage for a lower league club to adopt a similar style filling the team with players who haven’t made the grade at top tier academies. In the lower league it’s mainly grizzled veterans rather than players dropping out of the top academies.

[Christoph Stiepermann 1,260]

6 hours ago, Ulfotto said:

I think a lot of the tactics are overblown there is clearly a brand of football laid down by Pep Guardiola which is now accepted as the way to play football. If anyone tries anything that does not resemble that they are a luddite. 

In my opinion one of the big things which Pep and his followers are done is getting all players to press the ball it sounds so simple but it was very rare even 10 years ago to get creative players pressing and pressing with purpose.

In my opinion if someone can come with a system to counteract high pressing possession based football consistently then that manager will become hot property.

Also think there is mileage for a lower league club to adopt a similar style filling the team with players who haven’t made the grade at top tier academies. In the lower league it’s mainly grizzled veterans rather than players dropping out of the top academies.

if you ignore the quality of your players v the opposition team on paper the system to counteract a high pressing possession based football is to defend deep with numbers,  play long balls and win the second ball and try to win set pieces. That usually beats a possession based team of roughly the same quality as we found when we went up last time in 2019. The reason it doesn't work against Pep's Man City is the same reason any other style of football doesn't work against them, they're just too good. 

To be honest though I don't see many teams trying to copy his football even though it's lauded as the way every team wants to play. Us under Farke and Southampton under Martin are/were very similar but I think most PL teams are more like Klopp's Liverpool where it's more about quick transitions and playing at a really high intensity with a bit of Allardyce like discipline off the ball. I do wonder if people who say it's all about possession football nowadays actually watch many PL games? There are very few possession based sides up there outside of the top 6. Brighton and Bournemouth play something resembling what you'd see from a Guardiola team but the rest are all counter attacking teams who are all extremely well organised so I don't think that tactic has completely taken over here like so many people like to think it has. 

Edited September 10 by Christoph Stiepermann

[It's Character Forming 1,204]

22 hours ago, Bigbrenn said:

As I recuperate from knee replacement surgery, I've had time to read a bit more about football and coaching. And after Wales win last night and the views about Bellamy's tactics, are there only so many ways you can come up with new ideas?

The Bellamy ideas about pressing, being more dynamic in and out of play, confidence etc sounds awfully similar to ours and other clubs new way of playing. Therefore, how can we climb above other teams? I suppose clever recruitment is absolutely key in this because if two opposing teams have the same intentions, they could cancel each other out or collapse in exhaustion.

So, can I be confident that what we have is so unique that no one will challenge us or pessimistic that we are into a new temporary fad?

 

I'd be interested to know if there are any books you'd recommend ?

There was one about the development of the Premier League I read a while back, and it has certainly developed in lots of ways since the 90s.  If you look back e.g. Wenger was a huge innovator when it came to diet etc. now everyone does as standard the sort of innovations he made.

 

If you look at the top of the game, unfortunately having lots of money and spending it wisely is the only real way to ascend the ladder for the long term.  Depressing but true IMO.

 

Another thing that I wonder whether we could use to our advantage is giving coaches/management longer to get their way of playing fully embedded in the team.  With Farke, he had an amazing level of authority with players by the end of his time here, which he certainly doesn't have at Leeds.  Unfortunately we threw that away when he was sacked and it's going to take an equally long time to get a successor to the same position, if ever.

[Bigbrenn 88]

Sorry, no books to recommend, just an amateurs interest. Ben Lee's Pinkun analysis as to how City played In a match is interesting. The way the team shape-shifts as the ball is progressed up the pitch through the team intrigued me.

Will it work? As has been commented, you need 11 players switched on for 90+ mins and if you have good players, there are grounds for optimism.

But injuries, bad refs, another good coach who can block your set-up could lead to disappointment. Your best intentions can be dashed but does Thorup have all this covered? With a mix of ages and willing players and a (the) system , can I have more hope now than when my dad took me to my first game in 1970? 

 

 

[shefcanary 2,950]

1 hour ago, Bigbrenn said:

But injuries, bad refs, another good coach who can block your set-up could lead to disappointment. Your best intentions can be dashed but does Thorup have all this covered? With a mix of ages and willing players and a (the) system , can I have more hope now than when my dad took me to my first game in 1970? 

I think you can. Thorup in the little time he has been here has shown a degree of flexibility and the ability to react to the game state, that none of our previous managers displayed. Things will still go against us short term, but he is willing to learn and he also has the experienced Riddersholm by his side to assist him. 

I may be showing naivety here, but if we can hold on to him and support his aspirations I'm feeling very positive about where he can take us in a few years time. It's an exciting journey we are on with him.

[Barham Blitz 869]

10 hours ago, It's Character Forming said:

I'd be interested to know if there are any books you'd recommend ?

Might not be quite what you are after in that it focuses more on the historical evolution of football tactics, but if you like that sort of thing I can thoroughly recommend 'Inverting the Pyramid' by Jonathan Wilson. I've mentioned it before on here and I found it fascinating.

On a slightly more esoteric level, 'Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football' by David Winner was also interesting.

I can be a bit of a tactical geek ...

 

Edited September 11 by Barham Blitz

[Fen Canary 1,456]

On 10/09/2024 at 23:55, Ulfotto said:

I think a lot of the tactics are overblown there is clearly a brand of football laid down by Pep Guardiola which is now accepted as the way to play football. If anyone tries anything that does not resemble that they are a luddite. 

In my opinion one of the big things which Pep and his followers are done is getting all players to press the ball it sounds so simple but it was very rare even 10 years ago to get creative players pressing and pressing with purpose.

In my opinion if someone can come with a system to counteract high pressing possession based football consistently then that manager will become hot property.

Also think there is mileage for a lower league club to adopt a similar style filling the team with players who haven’t made the grade at top tier academies. In the lower league it’s mainly grizzled veterans rather than players dropping out of the top academies.

Nailed it. A while ago Barcelona’s (and Spain’s) tippy tappy stuff was all the rage that teams tried to emulate until Mourinho beat them with Inter Milan. Once teams worked out how to play against it more effectively then everybody started to move away from it.

We’ve all seen dozens of preferred styles over the years come and go, this supposed “pressing” malarkey (or simply closing players down in the old language) is just the latest fad.

I’m waiting for sweepers to make a comeback personally

[......and Smith must score. 1,589]

Firstly I hope your recovery from the operation goes well. Knee replacement needs a fair bit of rehab which often puts people off having it done but down the line they’re glad they did.

My first game was not long before yours. Back then it was mainly lump it long and hope one of your forwards wasn’t taken out trying to control the ball. Football has moved on but I do think with all the different tactics now employed it’s got a bit too complicated. It often feels like a game of chess with little being left to chance but this often results in pretty sterile matches.

Views on here differ but entertainment is a part of football and that doesn’t seem to happen so often now.

Edited September 12 by ......and Smith must score.

[Parma Ham's gone mouldy 2,461]

8 hours ago, Fen Canary said:

Nailed it. A while ago Barcelona’s (and Spain’s) tippy tappy stuff was all the rage that teams tried to emulate until Mourinho beat them with Inter Milan. Once teams worked out how to play against it more effectively then everybody started to move away from it.

We’ve all seen dozens of preferred styles over the years come and go, this supposed “pressing” malarkey (or simply closing players down in the old language) is just the latest fad.

I’m waiting for sweepers to make a comeback personally

They already have. They’re called goalkeepers now.

Parma 

[Nuff Said 5,957]

1 hour ago, Parma Ham's gone mouldy said:

They already have. They’re called goalkeepers now.

Parma 

Blimey. Your shortest post ever Parma? 😉

Edited September 12 by Nuff Said

[Nuff Said 5,957]

It’s an interesting philosophical point, wider than football tactics. In a competitive field, do you adopt the current conventional thinking and try and do it that bit better (“marginal gains” - hard if your competitors are better resourced than you), try and find a specific element that will give you an edge, look for a new approach (hard and possibly fruitless), or should you take a contrarian approach (buy a couple of big ugly strikers and lump it up to them at every opportunity)?

[Ulfotto 798]

1 hour ago, Nuff Said said:

It’s an interesting philosophical point, wider than football tactics. In a competitive field, do you adopt the current conventional thinking and try and do it that bit better (“marginal gains” - hard if your competitors are better resourced than you), try and find a specific element that will give you an edge, look for a new approach (hard and possibly fruitless), or should you take a contrarian approach (buy a couple of big ugly strikers and lump it up to them at every opportunity)?

Yes I think it’s fair to say in our case if we are trying to establish ourselves in the premier league it’s not a fair fight. So why fight fair? We need to fight dirty. I appreciate we are looking to analytics department to help I doubt this will be enough. It makes me wonder how up for the multi club model we would be. Although it’s not something I personal would endorse. If we want to compete we need to find something different.

[Capt. Pants 5,001]

5 hours ago, Nuff Said said:

It’s an interesting philosophical point, wider than football tactics. In a competitive field, do you adopt the current conventional thinking and try and do it that bit better (“marginal gains” - hard if your competitors are better resourced than you), try and find a specific element that will give you an edge, look for a new approach (hard and possibly fruitless), or should you take a contrarian approach (buy a couple of big ugly strikers and lump it up to them at every opportunity)?

Marginal gains, maximal losses.

As Sky/Ineos found it's easy for competitors to replicate the 'marginals' and basically pretty much everyone does it and now they're hopeless.

From what I can see of football every team plays mainly the same way now. It's those with the best players who will win most if not all of the time. Perhaps there's a coach out there who can perform a tactical masterclass and nullify the opposition enough to sneak a cup win, but it seems pretty predictable for the league(s). As much as I'd like to see it in some ways, I can't see anyone winning anything again by lumping it up to the big man. CBs are too good.

 

 

[Nuff Said 5,957]

2 hours ago, Capt. Pants said:

I can't see anyone winning anything again by lumping it up to the big man. CBs are too good.

Yeah, definitely an example rather than a serious suggestion.

[Petriix 3,214]

I've been thinking about this thread for a while and how to articulate my thoughts. Basically I largely agree with the premise that there are a limited number of viable tactics in the current game. However, there are an unlimited number of ways to create and score goals.

Ultimately the underlying tactics are all about minimising the opportunity for your opponent to score while maximising the openings you create for yourself. All incredibly obvious stuff, but there are unique possibilities depending on the players you have and the things they do.

As @Parma Ham's gone mouldy says, it's all about 'weapons' and getting them into the right places at the right moments. I'm firmly of the opinion that you can cultivate and develop new weapons by repeatedly playing out the same kind of scenarios and allowing players to come up with creative ways of scoring goals.

Think about how Farkeball worked at its well-oiled best: three dynamic attacking midfielders interchanging positions behind a striker with exceptional movement and timing. It's not rocket surgery but it took a lot of time to hone it so that the goals mostly came at the right end of the pitch. 

In my opinion it's all about having a fundamentally solid defensive structure underpinning the way the team sets up, then developing and learning ways to transition into an attack which catches opponents out and back into a solid defence without too many holes. 

Obviously all teams are trying to do something along those lines, but there's pretty much infinite possibilities with how you can go about trying to gain an upper hand. I don't mean by playing radical formations, but by creating unique and incisive patterns of play. That's where a skilled coach can make all the difference: drilling and motivating the players to do the hard work and empowering them to consistently pull off their creative, attacking plays.

Often it's all about finding a certain chemistry and letting events unfold. Pukki and Buendia. Lambert, Culverhouse and Karsa (who knows what he actually did?).

I like to think of it like music. Often there's a rigid structure and many pieces follow a similar formula, but there are so many different possibilities and lots of them are mind-blowingly amazing. 

[Robert N. LiM 6,270]

15 minutes ago, Petriix said:

I like to think of it like music. Often there's a rigid structure and many pieces follow a similar formula, but there are so many different possibilities and lots of them are mind-blowingly amazing. 

 

Or, as a former director of NCFC would have said,

"Imagine a piano keyboard, eighty-eight keys, only eighty-eight and yet, and yet, new tunes, melodies, harmonies are being composed upon hundreds of keyboards every day in Dorset alone. Our language, Tiger, our language, hundreds of thousands of available words, frillions of possible legitimate new ideas, so that I can say this sentence and be confident it has never been uttered before in the history of human communication: "Hold the newsreader's nose squarely, waiter, or friendly milk will countermand my trousers." One sentence, common words, but never before placed in that order. And yet, oh and yet, all of us spend our days saying the same things to each other, time after weary time, living by clichaic, learned response: "I love you", "Don't go in there", "You have no right to say that", "shut up", "I'm hungry", "that hurt", "why should I?", "it's not my fault", "help", "Marjorie is dead". You see? That surely is a thought to take out for a cream tea on a rainy Sunday afternoon."

[Nexus_Canary 1,206]

On 10/09/2024 at 12:55, Ulfotto said:

 

Also think there is mileage for a lower league club to adopt a similar style filling the team with players who haven’t made the grade at top tier academies. In the lower league it’s mainly grizzled veterans rather than players dropping out of the top academies.

Oi!!

Have you been looking at my footy manager save ??

🤣👍

[Europe_93 50]

There may be a limited number of tactics to deploy, but context does change.  So pitches have altered significantly over the years, the fitness capability of players has altered, rules have changed (amount of subs, what is considered a yellow / red card) and in my view technical ability has improved too (similar skills but more precision, pace etc).  The financial rewards of the elite, means the elite can afford the best technicicans, tactiticians etc. 

In rugby , the more physicality you have, the less you need to add players to the breakdown, this will then open up space elsewhere on the pitch.  The best football teams implement this principle -  who wants to be left one on one vs Salah, Haaland etc whereas Van Dyk and co are perfectly happy too.  The lesser equipped must work on the fringes, create overloads or work on fast transitions, or maybe find that one player to create magic one on one while the rest defend for their lives.

However, nothing procludes the top teams playing as teams also, they can employ the best tacticians, the best motivators and those best able to read and influence a game.  Players are like chess pieces, managers like chess players and tactics matter, but ultimately money determines whether your team is full of pawns or Queens, you may be able to swim against the tide for a while with the right manager and the right group of players but without similar finance you'll be over achieving until you find your natural level again.

[Nuff Said 5,957]

On 12/09/2024 at 06:45, ......and Smith must score. said:

Firstly I hope your recovery from the operation goes well. Knee replacement needs a fair bit of rehab which often puts people off having it done but down the line they’re glad they did.

This. My wife has had both her knees replaced and her no. 1 lesson is DO THE PHYSIO! If you don’t, you will never achieve the best mobility and flexibility from the replacement. Why go through all that pain and disruption only to waste it?

Edit: having it done has been transformational, definitely worth it.

Edited September 13 by Nuff Said

[Nuff Said 5,957]

17 hours ago, Petriix said:

It's not rocket surgery

You’d hope not, because WTF would be the point?