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Thomas Frank - Head Coach

metalgear said:
Just saw Thomas Frank interview with fans where the question was what he demands from players:
1. good attitude
2. following the playbook
3. players able to express themselves (he also emphasized about being daring in another question)

I believe (3) is going to allow us to see some players get back to their natural best.
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3 is also what Ange said, and more importantly, lived. It's not an easy thing to put into place, in practice.

It's easy to say you want players to express themselves, but the proof is in the pudding. If they deviate from your tactical plans to ping a long ball to the other flank with a low chance of success, or if they dribble all the way down to the touchline ignoring players in better positions, or take a low-percentage shot, or get dispossessed doing a risky dribble - do you let them do it, or do you chew them out for it?

Ange genuinely meant it when he said he'd take the flak for players trying things that don't work out. Not saying Frank will or won't, but just saying - it's easy to say, harder to practice.
 
Has there been a change with your kicking now that Thomas Frank is in charge?

Vicario: Yeah something has changed, I really need to look to read the situation that presents in front of me, sometimes it is time to build from the back and play, sometimes it’s to go long. It’s kind of a different approach to what I was used to over the last two seasons but the important thing is it’s useful for the team and to achieve a good result if I can impact in this way.
 
DubaiSpur said:
3 is also what Ange said, and more importantly, lived. It's not an easy thing to put into place, in practice.

It's easy to say you want players to express themselves, but the proof is in the pudding. If they deviate from your tactical plans to ping a long ball to the other flank with a low chance of success, or if they dribble all the way down to the touchline ignoring players in better positions, or take a low-percentage shot, or get dispossessed doing a risky dribble - do you let them do it, or do you chew them out for it?

Ange genuinely meant it when he said he'd take the flak for players trying things that don't work out. Not saying Frank will or won't, but just saying - it's easy to say, harder to practice.
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Maybe Ange did but it was within a very narrow band. Fir a long time , we didn't have shots on goal, Sin could only stay wide and wait for an overlap and we could only play out from the back.
 
DubaiSpur said:
3 is also what Ange said, and more importantly, lived. It's not an easy thing to put into place, in practice.

It's easy to say you want players to express themselves, but the proof is in the pudding. If they deviate from your tactical plans to ping a long ball to the other flank with a low chance of success, or if they dribble all the way down to the touchline ignoring players in better positions, or take a low-percentage shot, or get dispossessed doing a risky dribble - do you let them do it, or do you chew them out for it?

Ange genuinely meant it when he said he'd take the flak for players trying things that don't work out. Not saying Frank will or won't, but just saying - it's easy to say, harder to practice.
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I think its much easier to achieve it if you are structurally strong and there are triggers to that freedom, like fighting for the right to play and being in advanced areas. With Ange that right to play seemed to be all over the pitch and was great when it worked for a period, then looked like chaos.

I like Franks idea that the better the players, the better chance you have to be robust but also play, we can argue how strong this team is but its better than Brentford IMO so in that respect he should have a solid season, if we make additions then even better.

I think we have a good guy here, of course the proof will be in the pudding I agree, but I am quietly happy.

I don't expect us to win tonight either, there will be no judgement there
 
DubaiSpur said:
3 is also what Ange said, and more importantly, lived. It's not an easy thing to put into place, in practice.

It's easy to say you want players to express themselves, but the proof is in the pudding. If they deviate from your tactical plans to ping a long ball to the other flank with a low chance of success, or if they dribble all the way down to the touchline ignoring players in better positions, or take a low-percentage shot, or get dispossessed doing a risky dribble - do you let them do it, or do you chew them out for it?

Ange genuinely meant it when he said he'd take the flak for players trying things that don't work out. Not saying Frank will or won't, but just saying - it's easy to say, harder to practice.
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Absolutely. Same with being brave on the ball deep. Same with wanting to play attacking/ambitious football.

I'm absolutely fine with Frank being flexible tactically, definitely a thing that can work well. But I also hope he shows tactical principles he wants to stick by even when things get tough beyond the obvious of hard work, defending as a unit and stuff like that.
 
metalgear said:
Has there been a change with your kicking now that Thomas Frank is in charge?

Vicario: Yeah something has changed, I really need to look to read the situation that presents in front of me, sometimes it is time to build from the back and play, sometimes it’s to go long. It’s kind of a different approach to what I was used to over the last two seasons but the important thing is it’s useful for the team and to achieve a good result if I can impact in this way.
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The interesting part of this is what Frank would have told the other players what to do. Ange would have been telling a lot of his players to get into positions where they can receive the ball from Vic on the ground. They would have been coming backwards towards their own 18 yard box to make the passes easier. After that the players needed to move again to get into positions to receive the ball from the first receiver. Looks absolutely great when it works to be fair. The problem is, like most things Ange, it becomes a predictable pattern for the opposition to counter. They just push up knowing that the ball won't be played in the air. They work on dispossessing us up the field and we saw loads of examples of turnover in dangerous areas.

Frank's approach is different. He's keeping the opposition guessing which one it will be. That makes us harder to play against.
 
DubaiSpur said:
3 is also what Ange said, and more importantly, lived. It's not an easy thing to put into place, in practice.

It's easy to say you want players to express themselves, but the proof is in the pudding. If they deviate from your tactical plans to ping a long ball to the other flank with a low chance of success, or if they dribble all the way down to the touchline ignoring players in better positions, or take a low-percentage shot, or get dispossessed doing a risky dribble - do you let them do it, or do you chew them out for it?

Ange genuinely meant it when he said he'd take the flak for players trying things that don't work out. Not saying Frank will or won't, but just saying - it's easy to say, harder to practice.
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Ange also said that whilst his system might look like one of freedom, it was all tightly orchestrated. If it worked it would look really free form but in reality it wasn't. So Ange gave them some freedoms but it was under a tight set of parameters. Things that looked risky liek saying incessantly playing short at the back wasn't because a player was free to do whatever they wanted and that was the choice they had made, that action happened because they were drilled to play that way in that situation.

I tend to believe with Frank that when it comes to the attacking principles, he actually does mean freedom. Its a bit like the Mourhino paradox. We all know him (even before his time at Spurs) as a fairly defensively orientated and rigid coach, but the truth is in regard to his attackers he gave them total freedom to play once in the attacking phase. Defensive shape and game principles were drilled, but he doesn't drill attacking patterns, instead he very much leaves it up to the individuals. Its partly why he succeeds when he has absolutely world class attackers and has struggled anywhere he doesn't have that. Frank is more in this mould, get the shape right, don't leave yourself foolishly open but then attack play in a way that make sense to you and your attributes.
 
Great minds think alike. I was just thinking of Mourinho's early days when he would defend deep for hours on end and then strike to get the goal, then defend more. You couldn't believe it would ever work. Surely Barca will score over 180 minutes of football?? Surely? But then Mourinho would win.
 
Bullet said:
Great minds think alike. I was just thinking of Mourinho's early days when he would defend deep for hours on end and then strike to get the goal, then defend more. You couldn't believe it would ever work. Surely Barca will score over 180 minutes of football?? Surely? But then Mourinho would win.
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Was that enjoyable or entertaining? I get nobody likes losing but if you only want to see your team win every game and can't accept that the element of risk should be part of any game you're in for disappointment.
 
K.D.D.D.D.Soc said:
Was that enjoyable or entertaining? I get nobody likes losing but if you only want to see your team win every game and can't accept that the element of risk should be part of any game you're in for disappointment.
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Mourinho's Porto, first incarnation of Chelsea and his Inter side were plenty entertaining. It's disingenuous to claim those sides were boring.
 
K.D.D.D.D.Soc said:
He did a good job of boring me at times, often left ground wishing I'd stayed at home at watched that 1940's film on BBC2
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His Spurs team definitely, likewise his second spell at Chelsea and his stint at United were quite boring, but I don't believe you if you are saying his first Chelsea team, and Real Madrid who I forgot to mention were in any way boring.
 
Bishop said:
His Spurs team definitely, likewise his second spell at Chelsea and his stint at United were quite boring, but I don't believe you if you are saying his first Chelsea team, and Real Madrid who I forgot to mention were in any way boring.
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Honestly I don't care what he did elsewhere, I thought he was a selfpromting egotist who thought he was doing us a favour.
 
K.D.D.D.D.Soc said:
Honestly I don't care what he did elsewhere, I thought he was a selfpromting egotist who thought he was doing us a favour.
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I do agree with that. I never wanted him as our coach. He was never suited to us in anyway. However that doesn't mean I'll dismiss his history, im a football guy and I have to be honest he was once a great coach but lost that verve a long time ago.
 
Bishop said:
His Spurs team definitely, likewise his second spell at Chelsea and his stint at United were quite boring, but I don't believe you if you are saying his first Chelsea team, and Real Madrid who I forgot to mention were in any way boring.
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Definitely. I think he's one of those victims of the constant tactical shifts that leave managers behind - Mourinho made his name bringing periodisation and Spanish methods of team-building and drilling to the Premier League, at a time when the tactical default was still a largely unstructured end-to-end style of play. And for close to a decade, his mastery of those concepts brought him success wherever he went. He mainly coached defenses, and let the attack figure itself out.

But around the mid-2010s, the new paradigm became the high press / gegenpress Klopp was implementing at Dortmund. Poch then brought a version of it to the Prem, followed by Klopp himself, and then Guardiola arrived bringing a modified version of Klopp's original approach that he had honed at Bayern.

The high press required a lot of attacking coaching - when to press, how to press, what positions to be in when the ball broke. As outlined, Mourinho didn't coach that. And it also required a level of fitness training and adaptation that surpassed what Mourinho was used to implementing.

Time makes fools of us all, and Mourinho ultimately fell victim to tactics advancing beyond him. But while he ruled, he *ruled* the game.
 
Despite the result, this was pretty impressive from Frank. Long throws, an actual plan on offensive set pieces, good tactical discipline from the full backs and the holding midfielders, plenty of energy in defending as a team, also from Kudus and Richi. Playing to the strengths of the players, like Danso, Kudus, Richi and Spence. I thought Palhinha was our 'worst' player from the starting eleven, I suppose he must get used to playing with the players around him. The best and brightest minds, tactically, like Bentancur and Sarr, and possibly Spence as well, will benefit enormously from the flexible approach that Frank stands for.

Will be very interesting to see how we line up ánd how we play at home to Burnley who will come for a 0-0. Johnson will probably start you would think.
 
DubaiSpur said:
Definitely. I think he's one of those victims of the constant tactical shifts that leave managers behind - Mourinho made his name bringing periodisation and Spanish methods of team-building and drilling to the Premier League, at a time when the tactical default was still a largely unstructured end-to-end style of play. And for close to a decade, his mastery of those concepts brought him success wherever he went. He mainly coached defenses, and let the attack figure itself out.

But around the mid-2010s, the new paradigm became the high press / gegenpress Klopp was implementing at Dortmund. Poch then brought a version of it to the Prem, followed by Klopp himself, and then Guardiola arrived bringing a modified version of Klopp's original approach that he had honed at Bayern.

The high press required a lot of attacking coaching - when to press, how to press, what positions to be in when the ball broke. As outlined, Mourinho didn't coach that. And it also required a level of fitness training and adaptation that surpassed what Mourinho was used to implementing.

Time makes fools of us all, and Mourinho ultimately fell victim to tactics advancing beyond him. But while he ruled, he *ruled* the game.
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Was mourinhos style of play much different to george grahams?
Peps style wasn't much different to wengers.
 
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