I was at Villa Park last season and couldn't believe it when Parker came on instead of Defoe...but I did at least figure out the rationale behind the decision. The fact is, we were down to 10 men at the time, and since Danny Rose had gone off we had moved Bale to left-back. The decision to bring on Parker was an attempt to get our best attacking player further up the pitch, like when Emirates Marketing Project sometimes bring on a defensive midfielder when they want to attack more, because Yaya Toure can then push further up.
Back onto AVB, Saturday was a big opportunity for him to show some real ingenuity and tactical nous. The starting line-up was one that most people expected. But if he'd been REALLY smart, he would have expected Stoke to play with 10 men behind the ball for much of the game, not give us much space and make it difficult to create chances. In that situation, he'd have looked at his squad and thought he needed to make sure he had somebody capable of either playing a good pass to players who HAVE managed to find some space, or at least be able to shoot from distance seeing as getting time and space in the box won't be easy. As Huddlestone and Carroll were injured I think (I am VERY concerned if they were available and he went for Livermore on the bench instead), the obvious person in this mould was surely Sigurdsson. If he'd been really tactically smart, he would have rewarded Gylfi good recent performances with a position in the starting line-up, on the basis that he'd not only been playing well but was also the right player for the occasion. There were a number of options as to who he could start ahead of, perhaps Defoe who has played a huge amount of football this season and with Stoke defending well with so many players back he'd probably struggle to get into the positions that have seen him get so high in the goalscoring charts. Or perhaps Adebayor who hasn't really hit form yet this season. But I probably would have started him in place of Lennon, as he could not only switch places from the wing and in the middle with Dembele as the game progressed to keep our play unpredictable, but also Lennon's own form has been a bit rusty and it could give him the kick up the backside he needs, also his pace is a great thing to be able to bring on against tired legs in the second half.
But he didn't take that opportunity. Oh well. I guess a lot of managers would stick to the established first XI that has been getting results recently. But we were brick in the first half. So something had to change. AVB's response was to switch Bale and Lennon over, you know, that thing that annoyed the fudge out of so many people last season when Harry did it. It worked reasonably well, but...we were still struggling to create chances. 10 minutes into the second half I was getting frustrated, why wasn't he bringing on Sigurdsson? 20 minutes in, still no Gylfi. 30 minutes in, STILL no Gylfi. We had to wait until the 78th minute to see Sigurdsson appear. And instantly, we looked better. We forced more saves from Begovic in the 12 minutes he was on the pitch than in the 78 he was on the bench. So why the fudge did he wait so long? Did he hope we'd just magically find a way past this very strong defence who up to that point hadn't given us a sniff at goal yet? Einstein once said that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, well AVB was insane for 78 minutes.
But it didn't stop there. Then, with the scores level at 0-0 but the momentum all with us, he took off Dembele to bring on Parker. I have theories as to why he did this, unfortunately none of them to do with beating Stoke. I think AVB is very cautious, after what happened at Chelsea, of tinkling off any of the big personalities in the squad. So one theory is that he'd told Parker beforehand that he'd get a run out, concerned about upsetting a big personality in the squad, brought him on instead of Townsend for the final few minutes. Or maybe Dembele was injured, in which case Parker wasn't the best replacement. If he'd really wanted to bring on Parker, he should have taken off Sandro IMO, even though he'd been playing well. Or maybe even bring off Walker and get an extra man in midfield. But...no.
Now this is only part of what he got wrong on Saturday. We are entering the busy Christmas period. After Stoke, we have two tricky away games this week, as well as another game on New Year's Day. We need to be resting and rotating players. So to go with our regular starting XI for this game and wait until the 78th minute before making the first sub, the 85th minute for the second and to not even make the third, shows a lack of understanding about managing the form and fitness of the squad, as well as serious continued issues of indecisiveness and hesitation.
In a nutshell, another poor tactical display. What do those of you who continue to deny AVB's lack of tactical nous consider to be a poor tactical performance, short of dropping all of your best players and putting a striker in goal? Because this, for me, was another poor tactical performance from our manager. I'm sure he's a lovely bloke when you get to know him, the players all seem to like him at Spurs. But what I am seeing from him is poor tactics on a regular basis and it makes it so hard for me to give him any credit for anything when he keeps doing this.
It's not about being an AVB "hater" or anything like that. I'd love for him to do well here. And seeing as he hasn't lost the dressing room, all he has to do is show some intelligence in his tactics and he'll win me over. But he keeps failing to do so. Not only does he fail to show real flair and creativity in his tactical decisions, he gets the simple things wrong too. Like I said earlier in the thread, in true Glory-Glory style, AVB...what does he do?
)...playing the ball out from the back virtually every time. We really didn't launch to many hoofers today and in playing it out slowly from the back, we looked about as strong as I can remember with regards to keeping possession. if we can upgrade the finishing in Jan, and if we can be patient and keep on developing particulars like this, we will be very very hard to beat. Oh, another positive if nobody minds another potential positive, two clean sheets back to back and third clean sheet in 4 league games now?
