A (possible) theory on why Sami is still here...

[perseus]

hmm....
I've just looked at whoscored.com

I disagree with your "our tactics are not inferior"

My interpretation of the stats are that either we aren't that great at shooting, or the shots are from positions that aren't great... or both. However I would be biased towards the positions we are shooting from are not that great.

Teams higher up the table have more shots from closer positions

Also I can't find a stat on "how susceptible are we to a counter attack". However if you compare year on year, you will see that last year our midfield tackled more per game relative to this year.

In comparison, our centre backs are tackling more this year. This suggests to me that we are not offering them the protection they need.

Finally. Our most used formation 433 has yielded NO wins. Our wins have come from 4-2-3-1, 4-4-1-1,4-5-1

Tactically Hyppia is inept.

There is certainly a big discrepancy between Derby at home and Brighton away in having chances from close in positions, but it is not as bad relatively as I expected from watching the Albion. Other teams are crappy at it as well.

We are high on interceptions (highest at one time) and about average at tackling.

I think the opposition have cottoned to deficiencies in our technical ability in midfield. They do what I would do if I was the opposition, selective pressing. Team selection is very iffy from the Spurs match and all subsequent games. It is not so much as we lose possession a lot through rotten passes and got dispossessed a lot, but we do so in dangerous positions but we lose the ball by doing the wrong thing in our own half of the pitch. A certain lack of vision and awareness by the younger and newer players.

My intuition says that this is worrying the players and they keep on making the easiest obvious and predictable pass in their eagerness to get the ball forward in the home matches. The vaunted patience of GP (translated as slowness by some) is now more kick and rush without composure and the lack of composure shows more when we get anywhere near goal or when we concede a goal and are chasing the game.

Not that other teams are not equally inept most of the time.

 

[Tim Over Whelmed]

Proactivity in the transfer window, alas, doesn't happen. You're a good Championship Player, you won't do anything as you'll be holding out for the EPL, you're a reasonable EPL player, you'll hang on in the vain hope you can retain your "average" EPL status, similarly overseas players. Really don't buy into this.

 

[JCL666]

If someone can explain how asking one of the oldest players in the side to play as a full back/winger EVERY game is not STUPID I'd really appreciate it.

"I don't have the players" is such a crap excuse.

The possession system that Poyet and Garcia utilised did not require amazing players, because passing the ball over a short distance is a basic skill most (if not all) professional footballers should have mastered.

They both employed defensive midfielders and although the full backs pushed up, they were not suicidal. The patient approach may have frustrated a number of fans, but it worked. Our shots to goals ratio was far superior to what it is now.

AND WE HAD A BRILLIANT DEFENSIVE RECORD



Hyppias tactics seem to be "RUN AROUND", "KICK THE BALL REALLY HIGH AT THE SHORT FELLA", "DON'T TACKLE"....... they are shit.

It reminds me of when I used to get bored on Championship/Football Manager and just try random tactics and formations.

 

[BensGrandad]

Paul Hayward tweeted Sami HAD offered to resign and was turned down. It must have been "I'll resign if you pay my contract off in full".

That may have have been pre empted by If you want me to go I will resign etc.,

 

[JCL666]

There is certainly a big discrepancy between Derby at home and Brighton away in having chances from close in positions, but it is not as bad relatively as I expected from watching the Albion. Other teams are crappy at it as well.

We are high on interceptions (highest at one time) and about average at tackling.

I think the opposition have cottoned to deficiencies in our technical ability in midfield. They do what I would do if I was the opposition, selective pressing. Team selection is very iffy from the Spurs match and all subsequent games. It is not so much as we lose possession a lot through rotten passes and got dispossessed a lot, but we do so in dangerous positions but we lose the ball by doing the wrong thing in our own half of the pitch. A certain lack of vision and awareness by the younger and newer players.

My intuition says that this is worrying the players and they keep on making the easiest obvious and predictable pass in their eagerness to get the ball forward in the home matches. The vaunted patience of GP (translated as slowness by some) is now more kick and rush without composure and the lack of composure shows more when we get anywhere near goal or when we concede a goal and are chasing the game.

Not that other teams are not equally inept most of the time.

It doesn't matter whether we are average or not at tackling, the KEY thing is who is doing it.

The previous managers based their tactics on solid defending. The stats support this, we had protection from the midfield.

Even though Hyppia has stumbled across this, he hasn't built on it.

As for shots. I don't care that we've had loads of them, they haven't gone in the goal. Last year (and previously) our goal to shot ratio was much much better.

 

[Machiavelli]

Sadly, I think the more plausible theory is simply one of financial considerations, and stubborness.

The club would love Sami to give up and resign, so they can 'reluctantly accept' and move on at little or no cost. So they are playing a (dangerous) waiting game.

If so, that really is dangerous or, better, a reckless gamble. How much will paying his contract up cost? £1.5m? I'd say that's well worth paying given that we've got a string of games against lesser or out-of-form opponents that could start to move us out of the relegation zone and away from it. The cost of relegation will undoubtedly be far higher.

 

[Guinness Boy]

That may have have been pre empted by If you want me to go I will resign etc.,

Well yeah, because we were able to turn it down. And actually, as much as I want Sami gone I would have turned a full payoff option down too. Paying people a large amount of money for being utterly rubbish at their job is one of my major bugbears.

 

[DTES]

There was a quote in the Seagulls Over London report (covered by [MENTION=27804]Dan Aitch[/MENTION], as I remember) that said Sami's style of football was not discussed or considered important, or along those lines. I thought it was a little odd at the time, but wasn't 100% sure of the context of the quote.

I don't think that's quite right. I was at the meeting and I interpreted Tony's comment to mean that, when they were recruiting, it wasn't important that Sami's style matched the tippy-tappy style we'd been playing under Gus/Oscar. I think they liked the style Sami was offering, so it's not that it wasn't discussed or important at all, just that it didn't matter if it meant a change.

 

[fat old seagull]

A (possible) theory on why Sami is still here...

Having, or even suggesting theories is totally inconsequential. He is still here, and likely to remain so until at least past the next transfer window. I hope TB will manage to throw off his FFP cloak, and embrace a new extravagance that gives Sami the teeth to take on the top Championship teams on the run in. IMO if the clubs scouting and procurement were more talented we might have got away without the extra outlay, but sadly (Leo apart) there doesn't seem to have been too much proffered from that department. And for all the dosh TB has spent on the Clubs infrastructure I can best describe it as a magnificent restaurant that only serves beans on toast.

 

[ROKERITE]

I believe the darkest hour may well be just before dawn. Lose at Wolves then at home to Reading and he'll surely be gone, however much it costs to see him off.
Then it's who comes in, and I hope it's a better choice than Reading have just made.

 

[aolstudios]

I believe the darkest hour may well be just before dawn. Lose at Wolves then at home to Reading and he'll surely be gone, however much it costs to see him off.
Then it's who comes in, and I hope it's a better choice than Reading have just made.

I fear you're right.
Weeks (frankly months) & many, many points too late. Making it harder for the next guy & the club less attractive to incoming players.

 

[GT49er]

We have developed a passing style and to throw it all away now to employ a Manager with a different style and outlook would be counter-productive. Rational rather than the emotional (=hysterical) way of looking at it.

We are still the second best passing side in the Championship, high up in the possession stakes, high up in shots per game and average in most statistics.

We do not even lose possession more than average, just at important times when we are over elaborate playing the ball out of defence.

Our tactics are not inferior. Team selection might seem not suited to the opposition. Recruitment is patchy at best and not really building a team but more like employing players with technical ability and trying, unsuccessfully so far, to mould them into a unit. Pre-season has been disrupted for the last two seasons.

"Second best passing side in the Championship, high up in the possession stakes, high up in shots per game............."

Sorry, statistics don't matter - except one: we're currently sh1t, we keep losing and we can't buy a win. The other sides may be crappy too, but just not as crappy as we are. We are actually not very good at all, regardless of stats.

 

[Peter_Taylor]

I fear you're right.
Weeks (frankly months) & many, many points too late. Making it harder for the next guy & the club less attractive to incoming players.

If Bloom has indeed trusted Sami to spend in the January window as Naylor is reporting then we will just have to get on and support him in this - even if we lose to Wolves - even if we lose to Reading.

It is not the 1 win in the last 17 that is important now - it is how many wins we get in the next 17 that matters. 6 or 7 wins should have us safe.

 

[Chicken Runner61]

Someone told me today that they are all in Spain for a xmas do including Sami - If thats true thats why he is still here (or there)!

If he was going would you let him go to the shindig?

 

[Monsieur Le Plonk]

So much this. Our best performance of the season was at Leeds. The team that day:

Stockdale
Calderon Greer Dunk Chicksen
Bruno Holla JFC
Teixeira Kemy
CMS

So a proper 5 in midfield away from home. Since then we have only seen that in the next game against Bolton, which we also won. So Sami found a winning formula and was too stupid to realise it.

Kemy has not even come off the bench since. Bruno has not played in midfield since that Bolton game. Holla at the point of the season looked like a real player, now he hasn't had a single minute for six games, in all of which we have lost the midfield battle.

The other league game we have won? Wigan? 5 in midfield again, yet virtually every other game Sami has picked two or three of Baldock, CMS, Colunga, Lua Lua and Bent. I'm counting Lua Lua as a forward for this as he does not have the tactical discipline to defend properly.

Good post. The highlighted bit really doesn't do Sami any favours.

 

[scooter1]

To the OP(ive not read the other 4 pages)

This still doesn't explain why, after a number of below par performances, he's still intent on picking JFC and Gardener in the middle of midfield and both(yes both!!) Ince and Holla on the bench

 

[DTES]

"Second best passing side in the Championship, high up in the possession stakes, high up in shots per game............."

Sorry, statistics don't matter - except one: we're currently sh1t, we keep losing and we can't buy a win. The other sides may be crappy too, but just not as crappy as we are. We are actually not very good at all, regardless of stats.

Quite. Reading had 65%(!) of possession against Birmingham this weekend, and lost 6-1. Possession football worked well for us under Gus with a good side (and could do so again with the right squad), but it's clearly useless trying to play that way if you don't have the players to do it. Number of shots is also irrelevant really - would we rather have 20 pot shots from 25 yards, or 5 clear-cut shots having gotten the ball to a front man 3 yards out?

 

[Seagull by the Sea]

To the OP(ive not read the other 4 pages)

This still doesn't explain why, after a number of below par performances, he's still intent on picking JFC and Gardener in the middle of midfield and both(yes both!!) Ince and Holla on the bench

No, it doesn't and I'm not saying that Sami's tactics are good but perhaps Bloom has accepted that with better players Sami's tactics will work. It was only recently that Bloom said in an interview that he watched every game and the performance was ok even if the result wasn't so he is obviously still supporting Sami's ideas, rightly or wrongly.

Also, I believe it is in Gardner's loan agreement that he plays if fit and as for JFC; he does seem to cover a lot of ground and be active but perhaps not eye catching. He is a real marmite player, I personally would drop him but Oscar, Sami, Southgate all really rate him! In yesterday's argus even Keith Andrews praised his 'bottle' in getting on the ball and trying to make things happen.

 

[Mattywerewolf]

Sadly, I think the more plausible theory is simply one of financial considerations, and stubborness.

The club would love Sami to give up and resign, so they can 'reluctantly accept' and move on at little or no cost. So they are playing a (dangerous) waiting game.

I agree, but in Sami's seat why would he ever want to move, other than professional pride? Not like he has a reputation as a manager to protect. Might struggle to get another job outside of Finland

 

[Rookie]

Someone told me today that they are all in Spain for a xmas do including Sami - If thats true thats why he is still here (or there)!

If he was going would you let him go to the shindig?

Players may have been but Hyypia, Jones, Burke and Barber were at the training ground yesterday.