darkwolf666
Well-known member
It's the modern equivalent of bull fighting, ole!!!
Or
Piggy In The Middle...
Or
Piggy In The Middle...
It isnt new its been around for years. It was also highly criticisedby dinosaur ex managers and pundits before Guardiola arrived and shut them all up.
It has been a culture shock to a lot of fans who have become accustomed to the hump up to Murray where he manhandled the CB into us keeping possession 50% of the time (i know i made that stat up). This has combined with the arrival of Potter and the new rule for a goal kick. This new rule was brought in because teams that pressed (more and more teams do this pressing game now) were making it incredibly hard for some teams to play the ball out due to the ball having to travel a considerable distance to the nearest defender before they could kick it.
It takes some balls to do this and a lot of training, we have only been doing this for 7 months or so some have been doing it for years and pressing for years.
Rather than look at how scarey it is look at the results. See how much space and time Stephens had for the pass to Maupay (we tried to do that twice before that but it didnt quite come off). Look at the space and time Mooy and Propper had vs Arsenal (whose press was pretty pathetic). Nuno admitted their line was too high against us (trying to deny us space) and we punished it for the first goal. They get away with it against other teams because they cant play it out.
We are getting better at it and are commanding possession and shots in games against teams well above our level.
Finally your PE teacher wasnt dealing with a full on gegenpress and high defensive line against your six year old team when he told you not to kick it across your six yard box.
In relation to your last paragraph, which seems a bit chippy, the Sky Sports commentator said exactly the same thing yesterday.
It will clearly take time for some to adjust...
Will take our fans a while getting used to it, I’m calm with it now. It seems to be taking some people a bit longer, it isn’t changing any time soon with Potter in charge so may as well get used to it and accept it will go wrong occasionally.
Nothing annoys me more than the idiots behind me in the north who everytime we pass it around just say ‘get rid’ and then proceed to moan when one of players has no option an just punts the ball out or smashes it long to nobody.
Not a major issue, we didn't lose. Move on.
It is chippy I will hold my hands up to that. Sky sports commentators are not the tactical geniuses they think they are.
A year ago I translated this article about Potter (originally published in some Swedish paper) where he pretty much explains he got some issues with British football mentality. Could be an interesting read for some of you:
After a year in Southampton, where no one had seen him play when they bought him, he moved down a level to West Bromwich in the second division. "I had a coach saying: "I cant make you better, but I can make you fitter. So we ran. 'If you run more than the other team you will win!'", Potter says, grinning.
"Another coach, Terry - bless him - used to say that if the opponents got a goal kick it was good, because then it was 70 meters away from our own goal. For a second I thought: Wait, that is not the answer. It triggers the mind. When we conceded goals from a corner, the coach was often speaking with the guy who lost his marking. That was all of the analysis. In my mind I thought: yeah, but we had to defend against 16 or 17 corners? Thats the problem right? You play against teams that control the ball a lot. They attack you. You start thinking."
Eventually the contract with York ended. Potter hears nothing from the club. Instead he reads on the teleprompter (or whatever the word is) that he is a out of a job, the same day he is marrying his wife.
Next destination is Boston United, a club that because of unpaid salaries tries to compensate their players with giving the players frozen turkey for Christmas. He gets to know Graeme Jones, but loses the motivation to keep playing. After a short session in Macclesfield, he quits, only 31 years old.
"I went through the coaching education but it was very traditional. It was not moving, just uncomfortable. To be a coach and stand in front of people and speak didnt feel natural. I could not go into professional football again with my toolset."
"There was a lot of ex players who didnt care, they thought they were born coaches and didnt have to learn anything about it. Maybe I didnt realise it then, but the most thing is to be able to sort and categorize ideas and put them together, structure things and people to make them better. My experience from playing and coaching wasn't that. It was just "things". Nothing. A place with "things" and people wanting a badge. No teaching, no learning."
"I realised I didnt have a damn clue about anything. I was just shit. I still realise that sometimes. But then, if I had become a coach I would have failed. I had no abilities and no ideas how to structure things. I had the education, but I learned nothing."
On his days off, Potter used to go to Swansea to watch Jones & Martinez training sessions. "They were killing League One with their ball possession. It was the first time anyone played like that in England, at least on a lower level. It became the identity of Swansea. There was a big reluctance against it within the club as well, but I saw how they were working towards something."
"You try to steal some stuff. I was looking for something as well. I had nothing. I had a bit of own thoughts but I needed a period of experimenting. I tried different systems and methods, and now when I think back that time was very important. I had a platform that showed me the things I needed to know and handle. Ideas of how I wanted to work started to grow."
"But it wasnt easy. There is this attitude in England, a culture that says: "the ball goes forward". We dont realise it before someone says: 'I saw something else'. It is a bit difficult, you need to think a bit different, you need to train a bit different, but it is possible, I knew because I saw it happening in Swansea."
Soon a vision of play got into his mind but when Potter moves to Leeds after 2,5 year in Hull he still thinks something is missing in his toolbox. "When I was playing there was no culture of learning. There was a culture of blaming, filled with mistakes and fear. As a coach you need to challenge it. But how do you do it differently?"
He starts a master education in emotional intelligence. It is provided by a psychiatrist who had earlier worked with special forces of the British army, among other places in Afghanistan where soldiers were to go into caves and tunnels and where a lot is about handling pressure in life-and-death situations.
Apart from the man wanting to become a football coach, he shares bench rows with a lot of surgeons. "How do you coop with failure and mistakes? That started to create a more theoretical understand of leadership in me. How am I going to use this knowledge in football? Mistakes happen. How do you react? How do we develop responsibility, self-conciousness and empathy? It is the most important thing in a football team. I knew it, but now I had the tools to develop it. Anyone can see a training session or practice on Youtube, but if it is delivered in a bad environment, its not going to work."
When he was done in Leeds, he was of interest to no one. "I was a university coach. No one was interested in me. They want to know: where are you signing players, what experience do you have of League Two, how are we getting out of this division? That sort of things. They dont wanna hear about a method, or how you work. Football is like that generally. When you start talking too much theory and tactics, people are going to see you as this high-brow *******. It doesnt help you being intellectually developed. You prefer someone who makes funny jokes."
"I knew I had to take another path. I wasnt exactly sure I had to go abroad. Very early, I got an offer from Swanseas youth academy, but it wasnt good enough."
In Östersund, he could in a safe environment use the methods he had been taught. He and Graeme Jones learned about "holistic" training principles on trips to Spain, and he learned about the physical periodization strategy of Raymond Verheijen. "In football, result is everything. It is too much. There is a lot of great work being done but since the team doesnt win its not interesting. Football is often simplified. The discussion seldom goes any deep, it stays short term and its danger, because we get into this conservative bubble. Then its easier to buy experience and refer backwards. That is why 95 percent of the leagues are determined by economical muscle. The big challenge of football is to leave the bubble."
It's absolutely about creating space in front as the opposition are lured further forward and then passing past them. Yes we will concede perhaps 2 or 3 times a season from it (we have already when Webster lost control away to e's, can't remember, Man U?) but it will also increase possession and chances at the other end. And perhaps it is also better than a golie punt upfield where 30% of the time we'll lose possession.
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I’d like to know what pundits who’ve successfully managed think about it.
I’d be surprised if anyone said, yes, it’s fine to do it all the time. Shirley better to mix up tactics, and always clear long when it’s going awry.
We do mix it up, with the considered long ball. See: first goal, yesterday.
We do mix it up, with the considered long ball. See: first goal, yesterday.
It is risky without doubt and at 2 1 a couple of minutes before half time is not the time to try it. Wolves were well onto us and it was naïve. We paid the price.
I assume the purpose is precisely to lure the opposition on to us, and then pass round them.
Beating the press, I believe I heard someone say.
Seems a decent way of creating some space.
But yes it's going to go disastrously wrong at some point.