OK, a chance for you guys to educate me. I was always intrigued by Pards comment that Iwelumo had to go because he didn't fit with the playing style of the team. Everything I've read during my marathon read of players autobiogs. says that a good manager will develop a team and style of play that utilises his players strengths. They also all complain about managers that fail to do this as they consider that it leads to teams always trying to defend against opponents strengths rather than allowing them the freedom to play their own game. I'd really like to know what you all think.
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As everyone knows, the 11 players with the greatest ability at a club don't generally make the most effective team, so you do need a balance made up of players who compliment each other within the team unit.
You also need a system, pattern of play, gameplan - whatever you want to call it, that individual players can understand and become familiar with. It's essential that a player knows his own job, and how he fits into the wider efficiency of the team unit.
Now having built that organised team platform, you need to allow players to do what they are best at (after all, they were signed because of their individual ability and characteristics), but they do need to retain that team discipline.
For example, no point picking the most talented winger if all he is going to do is hug the touchline, wait for the ball, beat 4 men easily before running into trouble and losing posession. That player needs to make himself available, know when to take a man on and when to pass, cross or shoot; or make the run off the ball in order to draw his marker with him and create space for his overlapping fullback or inside midfielder to exploit. He also needs to give protection to his fullback behind him. In short he needs to interact within the discipline of the team unit.
So you can see, that much of his play is actually without the ball, played within his mind; it's vital that he can 'read' the game (good anticipation and 'seeing' possible moves in his head), good communication, good attitude and the right character.
So a manager needs to build that harmonious team unit first, instill the discipline of each player knowing his job - and only when that is done, allow players to express individual flair.
And, of course, everybody else on here, will disagree with me ....!
;o)
We'd still have a chance of staying up, lol
Or hopefully wouldn't have collapsed into no-system chaos in the first place.
I see it pretty much as Oggy said it. The manager's responsibility is to create a clear and concise plan and relay this to the players. He then needs to identify the players who can make it work. Finally he needs to bear in mind and harness the individual talents of a player for the benefit of both player and the team.
The players' responsibility is to carry this out to the best of their ability. On top of this they need to make sure their individual skills and talents add something to the team rather than detract from it (see Oggy's winger analogy).
In the short term you play to the strengths of the players you have.
You also have to factor in the strenghts and weaknesses of the other side as well as injuries, loss of form, suspensions, conditions, importance of the game or result.
Take the right back for example. What do you individually see is the primary role of a full back ?
It can be to play deep and act as a support for the right mid. It could push up and take defensive responsibility for the opposing left mid, allowing your right mid to push onto their full back (giving your team more structure further up the pitch), or allow for a right mid to play more narrow and central. It could be to act as a sweeper when the opposition is attacking the opposite flank, it could be to take the centre forward in the same situation allowing your centre half to sweep. It ca also set the tone for your style of attacking play, ie if played deep and wide it can be used as a possession outlet and through extra space and time set the style of play you want to achieve. If that style is one of continuity and possession, the its job is to find a pass to feet and allow your midfielder to play wider, if its to put arial pressure on the opposition defence then once in possession it will be looking for the long ball to a centre forwards head (and in the process giving time for an attacking centre mid to get beyond the centre forward). For example, if the Charlton team know that when attacking, Danny Butterfield is going to play more often than not a high channel ball to Kandol's head, then Shelvey / Racon and Spring will know before Butterfield has even played his ball where they should be positioned in the event of him either winning the header, or losing it. Playing a set style allows you to try and get one step ahead of the opposition by know where the next play is likely to go before they do.
And that's just the right back !
The way i see it, when you are not playing well or confidence is low, you play with a rigid formation and limit every players individual role. Spell out exactly what their job is in every scenario and get them to concentrate on doing that bit right. If they do, with that comes confidence, and then you can open things up a bit more.
The key to me should always be to concentrate on your own strengths and equally allieviating whatever the oppostion strengths are. In pro football, everything is well scouted and can be prepared during the week. Amateur football, you won't know your opponents strengths until you play them, but you can work out within the first ten minutes or so how they set their play and where the main danger is likely to come from. Cancelling out your opponents strengths often gets overlooked in amateur football, but its something that changes games as it throws the oppo off their game.
Pardew is spouting his usual sh** regarding Iwelumo. It is not the fault of Iwelumo that defenders lumped it forward in the air so it came down with snow on it. It is the manager's fault for not telling the defenders to play it on the ground except obviously in dire emergency.
Iwelumo was excellent on the ground as we saw in the Sheffield Wednesday match we came back to win 3-2. He was also good in the air from wide crosses note Varney's cross to him and countless crosses this year from Jarvis and Kightley. What he wasn't so good at was playing with his back to goal as a target man. So what did Pardew do?
The fact of the matter is that Mr "I am" Pardew did not have the ability or competence to use Iwelumo properly and did his usual of blaming anybody but himself.
Tosser!
He'd rather let players just play to their strengths.
Which, with no cohesive team unit, made us look like a bunch of underachieving individuals
Agreed.
If we played to Iwelumo's strengths then we would have played with emphasis on width and getting the ball in the box from wide areas, or narrow with attacking midfielders getting in behind.
Instead we did neither. We played long as a get out and with the midfield to far deep to do anything effective, and with zero emphasis of getting the ball in from wide areas.
Often a particular team's style will be built around one or two key players, but that can only get you so far and I suspect that this is what Pardew was getting at (not that I want to defend him). A player like Iwelumo forces a team to play in a certain way and, if that works, great ....... but when it gets countered (and note that Iwelumo's goals have dried up again in the second half of the the season, just as they did with us), you need a Plan B.
It is this flexibility (this ability to invoke a Plan B or Plan C etc when the favoured approach isn't working) that sets the good (great) managers and teams apart. For all his success with us, this was my criticism of Curbishley - he rarely had a Plan B (and I'm talking more than just 4-4-2 becoming 4-5-1 etc). He would generally resort to like-for-like substitutions, for example, when things were not going well. He would rarely change the style of play.
Another example of what I am talking about is Darren Bent. Great at what he does, but poor at finding alternative solutions when his strength is countered. That is one of the things that will prevent him from being world class.
I think the idea of each player having a clear main role, with three of four specific contributions to make, is spot on. It has been one of our major failings over the last couple of years. For example, three central midfield players in a 4-5-1, but each effectively trying to do the same job. So, you really have three players actually contributing only 1.5 or 2 players worth. If you adopt a formation like that, you need clear roles ....... who is primarily the holding midfielder, who is primarily supporting the front man etc etc?
In summary, at professional level, I think you choose an ideal style of play and go looking for the players that you need. As Henry says, that is a long-term approach. Maybe Phil Parkinson is thinking that way. Meanwhile, you adopt an approach that tries to get the best out of what you have. Quite different scenarios requiring quite different managerial skills.
That. And as said lower down you go, the more it's about the short term, playing to players strengths.
Agree that had to be Pardew's fault. If didn't want them playing long balls to Iwelumo he shouldn't have let them.
And that's true. We seemed to look less organised and less of a team the further it went on with Pardew. His very first few games he sorted us out (well, compared to the mess the team was in with Reed), simple 4-4-2 with players doing their own jobs, completely the opposite in that Sheff Utd game.