The Football News Thread 2015/16 - everything non-Wolves

[Tony Towner]

....see Jez is a trailblazer

 

[FrankMunro-371]

....see Jez is a trailblazer

Is he on commission...?

 

[wanderer89]

How nice are the pies though?

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Fact of the day: Alex Ferguson had no 0-0 draws in his final 116 games as Man Utd manager. Louis van Gaal has presided over five 0-0s in his last nine games.

 

[ROVERT47]

I'm never usually bothered about ex-Managers but I have to admit, Mick has been brilliant on Goals on Sunday this morning.

 

[ROVERT47]

How the hell McLean never got a red card for that challenge on Dembele I'll never know, haven't got a clue what the Ref was playing at he initially played it on.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Interesting chat on MNF about the number of teams playing one up top these days - personally I think with more or less *everyone* doing it, it leads to quite stagnant football at times (especially in our league, a bit less so in the PL where quality wins out). Packed midfields, no space, an isolated forward with no-one to link with, quite often leads to entire halves of football with very few chances. I'm not anti 4-2-3-1 in principle - we have made it work at times, albeit not this season - but I think too many managers default to it at the moment, often when they don't have the players to make it work.

 

[Parkins left foot]

4-2-3-1 can work, but clearly depends on the quality of the 3 & 1 to be effective.

The 4 & 2 have pretty standard roles, but needs the right players further forward to be truly effective - not sure that we have the personnel to do this at the moment

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

I think clubs in the Championship would do well to look at Watford and what a big part of their success in 2015 Ighalo and Deeney have been. Why not make the opposition worry about you rather than the other way round. As for us we have two strikers who would both get in most teams in this league (Afobe would get in every team, Alfie would perhaps be first sub for 4-5 clubs, but not many more than that) and yet we never play them as a pair. Haven't done it once really this season, every time they've both started, Afobe has been miscast as a deep lying forward.

I appreciate a level up when getting to 40 points is the primary aim before you do anything else, you are going to have games where you can't afford to play two up top, you have to sacrifice it. Fine. But not in this division. Of course it's closer to home with the way we are currently playing, I'm heartily sick of turning up at Molineux and watching us have a half where we have at best one serious chance, it's happened several times this season.

The thing is if everyone's doing the same thing - and by design, the system leaves your forward very isolated if you don't get it right - it leads to some terrifyingly dull stuff. I've seen a much higher proportion of terrible Championship games this season (not just involving Wolves) than any other year I think, going back over 25 years. It's not that difficult a system to stop if the opposition aren't brilliantly set up, so you just get a stalemate.

 

[MARKakaJIM]

4-2-3-1 can work, but clearly depends on the quality of the 3 & 1 to be effective.

The 4 & 2 have pretty standard roles, but needs the right players further forward to be truly effective - not sure that we have the personnel to do this at the moment

I'd argue City's current 4 and 2 are the main reason they're struggling in spite of the vast quality amongst the 3 and 1.

Doesn't matter how much quality is up the top if there's no reliable means of keeping them in the game and providing a platform from which they can do their thing.

I think formations are massively overblown at times, relationships between players play a far bigger part than how they're laid out on a whiteboard in the changing room.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Oh of course. I'm no Zonal Marking autist.

However - rewind 20 years ago and playing one up top meant you were playing a lone forward, it was a fundamentally defensive system, Jack Charlton used to play it a lot for Ireland (to excellent though dull effect). As Carra and Bellamy briefly mentioned on MNF, Mourinho redefined it - in this country, at least - by having Drogba as the lone forward (big, strong, powerful, mobile, goal threat in his own right), wide players cutting in to support him and Lampard knocking in 15-20 a season behind him. As so often managers just copy trends and we're now in a rut of teams playing it as a classic defensive "lone forward" shape , you essentially have two teams both set up in damage limitation mode by default a lot of the time, I'm sure managers don't realise they're doing it. They often exacerbate it by playing some hopeless lump as the main forward who fulfils none of the Drogba criteria other than physical size. It's making for fucking tedious viewing, I know that much.

 

[MARKakaJIM]

I think there are perhaps a lot of managers who place too much faith/emphasis in formation.

They see another team having success playing in a certain way and think by copying the most obvious aspects of it that they'll have a chance of gaining similar results. Everyone suddenly went possession mental after Barcelona had their freakish spell of domination but they generally lacked any idea beyond simply keeping the ball. Just seems like lazy coaching to me, hoping to ride in on the coat tails of something that someone else has spent a lot of time and effort perfecting.

Same sort of thing happened with Juve and their back 3 a few years ago. They had the right defenders and wide players to make it work and it meant they could keep two forwards up top and the extra man in the middle to help Pirlo through his old age. Then you saw countless half arsed attempts at doing the same all over the place, just eyes lighting up at the idea of 2 forwards and an extra man in the middle.

 

[YoungWolf]

I think you are right Mark, football often goes through "trends". Maybe next everyone will start copying Chile's 3-3-1-3 ish formation!

I think coaches really need to start off and identify their own values first and foremost. With someone like Mick, you may not enjoy their football but you know it's what he believes in and it's genuine - whereas maybe someone like Rodgers (who is quite clearly an excellent coach) seems to jump on whatever seems interesting. Like when he started playing three at the back just after Guardiola did...

 

[The Bear]

Dave Jones was right...

 

[Johnny75]

I think there are perhaps a lot of managers who place too much faith/emphasis in formation.

They see another team having success playing in a certain way and think by copying the most obvious aspects of it that they'll have a chance of gaining similar results. Everyone suddenly went possession mental after Barcelona had their freakish spell of domination but they generally lacked any idea beyond simply keeping the ball. Just seems like lazy coaching to me, hoping to ride in on the coat tails of something that someone else has spent a lot of time and effort perfecting.

Same sort of thing happened with Juve and their back 3 a few years ago. They had the right defenders and wide players to make it work and it meant they could keep two forwards up top and the extra man in the middle to help Pirlo through his old age. Then you saw countless half arsed attempts at doing the same all over the place, just eyes lighting up at the idea of 2 forwards and an extra man in the middle.

It's an interesting discussion and I don't subscribe to your point of view, from what I've seen a quality system and formation to fit the players can do far more than just putting the players on the pitch with a vague notion on formations.

Of course the converse is also true, a terrible formation and system will be far more detrimental to the players than throwing them in and just saying 'play together'.

 

[Parkins left foot]

In reality the formation & players have to fit together, whatever system you are going with.

Deciding on a formation & throwing 11 players in and expecting success is not a recipe to follow.

 

[Kenny]

Scottish League Cup revamp:

Team who have not qualified for Europe will start the League Cup in the new Group Stages
Highland and Lowland League winners will also be included, making 40 teams
8 Groups of 5
Will play each team once
3 poins for win, 1 for draw but any games drawn will also have a Penalty shoot out and the winner will get a bonus point
Group winners + 4 best runners up will qualify for the knock out stages, where Celtic and Co will join the competition

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

Scromit

 

[Kenny]

Initial thoughts - going to be a lot of pointless games towards the end. Attendance figures will be struggling to hit double figures for some teams.

Not to worry though, BT Sport are chucking a bucket load of cash at it.

 

[Kenny]

Sturridge injured again. Done his hamstring v Newcastle.