AVB & Spurs Tactics and Formations discussion thread

[mick cooper]

Out of interest Mick, just how wrong does a decision have to be and how many of our fans need to see it before it makes Redknapp wrong?

Had he played Friedel on the right wing with Bale in goal would you have been defending the decision? How much of the match do we all have to see it going completely wrong before Redknapp's made the change too late? I'm just interested to see how far infallibility goes.

As for whining about winning a double, if we were lined up for the quadruple but Redknapp inexplicably changed a working formula losing us two finals in a row, then of course I would complain. Isn't is right that fans always want their club to improve? That they always want the club to perform to the best of it's ability?

That takes the rather simplistic view that every loss is attributable to an individual decision, rather than the more complex truth that millions of decision are made throughout a football game and most mistakes are made up of a myriad of factors.

I hate seeing Bale on the right wing, but we all know that wherever he plays, if the opposition are well organised by a competent and well structured management team, they will nullify individual flair players by tag teaming a defence against them. Couple that with the threat that Baines presented, then tying him up with looking after Bale was not such a bad choice. Had Lennon been available we would have been in a better situation to massage the roles and requirements.

You see it as a simple issue that the management fecked up, I don't - I see it as a far more involved and complex set of issues, and thats what gets me about this hysterical and frankly naive witch hunt analysis thats going on.

 

[mick cooper]

Pinning my hopes on? Just what are you on about? You got all that from me saying it's strange to slag Kranjcar off when he's played roughly 50 minutes in these 3 games(in which Spurs are actually at +1 while he was on the field)

In League games Kranjcar has started either wide left or right ....

Wolves 0-2 Spurs
Spurs 4-0 Liverpool
Spurs 3-1 Wigan
Spurs 5-0 Saudi Sportswashing Machine
Liverpool 0-0 Spurs
Arsenal 5-2 Spurs - he went off at 2-2

Clearly he is a dependable backup, but sure, spacegoat Kranjcar because Harry has screwed up these past few weeks.

I'm not making a spacegoat of him at all, I just gave you an opinion of the limited value that he represents, I believe that he was instrumental in the massive collapse against the goons, as he was the catalyst that set the rot in motion.

 

[mick cooper]

dont agree with this. some of our best performances ever have been with NIko present and with him working very hard.

infact, i wouldnt mind someone being able to tell us how many games we have actually lost when Niko has played on the flanks.

games against wolves away, liverpool, Saudi Sportswashing Machine at home..all had niko on the flank. i quite enjoyed the 9-1 against wigan last year too

I really rate Niko when his effort is high

so do I - doesn't happen often enough to make him someone to rely on though, does it?

so you are always gambling, or desperate when you play him.

 

[ArnieArdiles]

weird. ferguson HAS played scholes on the flank when scholes was much younger, he plays Giggs there on the flank and giggs doesnt have the pace anymore...he's a wide playmaker. he plays park and he's a central midifielder

why would barca move Xavi to the left when they dont have a left midfield position? and yet they are overloaded with top class FLANK players? that makes no sense

fergie may actually play modders wide, who knows ....... and as for moyes...he plays osman (who was actually a central nimble and mobile player) wide. he played Arteta of all people on the flank and arteta was amazing there , especially when he played with baines on the left

And why uis moyes being used as comparison anyway? is he amazing after this win?

I can't say I recall a young Scholes on the wings but I'll take your word on it ...

I still stand by what I wrote that when you go into a game on the back of two heavy defeats, it's best you go back to the team and system that bought you the best results ...

I'm not in awe like some are with the achievements of Moyes ... Ten years at the club and although not to be sneezed at, all I see from his teams are defensive organisation and honest endeavor ..

I did say other 19 premeirship managers but the three managers I named with regards to the usage of our squad were because they were our last three opponents. I could've, no should've perhaps, named Terry Connor of Wolves instead ?

 

[scaramanga]

i think you're kind of both wrong if you want to play sandro on the right and make him the wonky. i.e wide playmaker. jenas could cut it cause he was a jack of all trades

My point was more in response to Redknapp's concern that Baines was a threat (my personal view is that if you avoid giving Baines 3-4 yards of space in the final third he's fairly innefectual).

I'm saying it's better to have no right winger but Modric & Bale in their correct positions than it is to have both Modric and Bale in the wrong positions with two midfielders shielding the back 4 - especially when the team we're playing can't score for brick.

I understand the concept of pinning a left/right back into their own half, I just don't think Baines is anywhere near good enough to warrant ruining our attacking threat for it. In fact, there are few left backs in the world that would make me play Modric left, Bale right and no creativity in the middle.

 

[africanspurs]

there was no need to play Bale AND Lennon. Bale missed the Utd game so it was ok to play just him midweek. But Lennon, who has a history of dodgy hamstrings/groins, and who had played against Utd, really didnt need to be risked on a cold midweek evening game against such lowly opposition.

and please, we were at home to Stevenage. We have a squad large enough to cope with that sort of game without having to be so desperate to play Bale and lennon together. Plus their pace was more vital in an away game like at Everton where we need pace on the break than in a home game against Stevenage who are more likely to sit back and invite us onto them.

no. if a game is important to you then play your strongest 11. its easy for you to talk now cause we won that game but prior to that i wouldnt want to think that thought of "there was something more i could have done"

if our squad was so crash hot you would have to ask yourself how come we didnt beat them the first time around?

actually on a serious note, i wouldnt mind you answering that one. if you think we didnt need to give the utmost respect to stevenage in a game to get to the quater-finals.., then why didnt we thrash them first time around?

 

[indianspur]

no. if a game is important to you then play your strongest 11. its easy for you to talk now cause we won that game but prior to that i wouldnt want to think that thought of "there was something more i could have done"

if our squad was so crash hot you would have to ask yourself how come we didnt beat them the first time around?

actually on a serious note, i wouldnt mind you answering that one. if you think we didnt need to give the utmost respect to stevenage in a game to get to the quater-finals.., then why didnt we thrash them first time around?

not thrash but we should have won. We didnt because we played poorly. We are in a poor patch of form tbh.

if you think it was right to start with both Bale and Lennon at home to Stevenage then fair play thats your opinion. I cant agree

 

[braineclipse]

Of course he would do a good job, but that misses the point that I made in my post underneath that one. We could stick Sandro there to cover Baines, but that isn't what we are asking Bale to do. We want the initiative so Baines is pinned back because we have an attacking threat there. Everton decided to pin Coleman on Bale wherever he went - a defensive move and as such they didn't get out of their half for 45 minutes. Us putting Sandro on the right means nothing would come down that side, either from us or them, which isn't what we are trying to do. We still wanted Bale to be a threat in his own right.

In reality Sandro was never going to be played there as it wasn't about nullifying Baines, just keeping him occupied by us so they react to us rather than us to them. If Bale was to be played on the left it would mean Modric on the right and he would have spent all his time chasing back Baines rather than creating for us. It's the difference between being an outlet and an instigator. With Bale to contend with, Baines has to watch out for our outlet and can't be so gung ho. With Modric/VDV/Sandro to contend with, he doesn't have to worry about outlets, and knows he has cover behind him. We wanted an outlet.

Although come to think of it, maybe Sandro/Parker on the right, Modric in the middle and Bale on the left wouldn't have been such a bad idea with hindsight. But it also could have meant that they rip through out soft centre with direct play because as it was, Sandro made a lot of good tackles in the middle. I dunno, I just don't think the team was set up too terribly. We are on an unlucky run and still deserved easily a point from that game.

How is playing Bale on the right to occupy Baines not us reacting to them?

Have you seen Luka Modric? What teams have ripped us apart with a Modric - Good DM combo in the middle? Certainly not no-goals-everton. You vastly underestimate him if you think we are soft in the centre when he plays there. Tired of repeating this old tidbit, but even with Modric alongside the rather immobile Huddlestone we didn't look soft against quality opposition. Surely Parker could do the defensive job Huddlestone does?

Meanwhile without a playmaker/good footballer in the centre we conceded initiative, quite a bit of possession, created close to nothing in the entire first half and allowed Everton to put us under pressure very cheaply.

I think it was bad, and I will continue to think that a midfield duo of any two out of Sandro, Parker and Livermore is a bad idea unless one of them improves quite a bit on the ball (Livermore seems to be on his way).

 

[indianspur]

i think you're kind of both wrong if you want to play sandro on the right and make him the wonky. i.e wide playmaker. jenas could cut it cause he was a jack of all trades

how about Livermore then, he has the defensive mind but also the ability to pick a pass.

 

[braineclipse]

That takes the rather simplistic view that every loss is attributable to an individual decision, rather than the more complex truth that millions of decision are made throughout a football game and most mistakes are made up of a myriad of factors.

I hate seeing Bale on the right wing, but we all know that wherever he plays, if the opposition are well organised by a competent and well structured management team, they will nullify individual flair players by tag teaming a defence against them. Couple that with the threat that Baines presented, then tying him up with looking after Bale was not such a bad choice. Had Lennon been available we would have been in a better situation to massage the roles and requirements.

You see it as a simple issue that the management fecked up, I don't - I see it as a far more involved and complex set of issues, and thats what gets me about this hysterical and frankly naive witch hunt analysis thats going on.

I disagree that it is necessarily simplistic.

I know and understand that there are tons, possibly millions of decisions made. Some of those are major, some are minor. Some decisions the management team can make or improve on easily, some might take months or years of training or actually signing a new player to be improved upon.

I also accept that we don't have all the information, and that there are tactical stuff we don't know or understand. That overall Harry knows best.

However, I still think there are decisions, major ones, that managers get wrong. And I do think sometimes I and other forum posters are right about some things that managers get wrong. And when those opinions are voiced not only by forum posters, but also by respected experts on TV and it seems very likely that other respected managers would at least do things differently than our manager does it I think voicing and discussing those opinions is quite interesting.

 

[Rossi22]

The only backup players we have that could play week in week out for a top 4 club imo are Sandro and Gallas(if he could stay fit), possibly Dawson. We have decent enough backup players but unless you're City you can't have a squad made of two top 4 sides. It's still far more favourable to bring a backup player in for an injured player than it is to shuffle the rest of the team around as you end up weakening multiple positions rather than just the one, as we saw on Saturday.

 

[africanspurs]

how about Livermore then, he has the defensive mind but also the ability to pick a pass.

okay thats better tbf.but now what you have is a player who isnt that quick...why not just play niko?

livermore isnt a bad shout tbh, but then again at some point he will find himself on the wing ....then he would have to actually be a makeshift wide player. dont know if he can really do that

he might be able to. like i said, good call

 

[indianspur]

okay thats better tbf.but now what you have is a player who isnt that quick...why not just play niko?

if we were missing Lennon for a period of time, id go with Livermore as a replacement and slight adjustment in tactics for away games, and id play Krancjar in the home games. Of course not ideal, meaning both selections in place of Lennon, but with the squad we have imv its the best we can do

Bale, Parker(Sandro) and Modric stay in their best positions, and we minimise the disruption to the line up.

 

[Rossi22]

If Lennon's missing I go;

Home and softer away games:

------------------------ Friedel ------------------------
Walker -------- Kaboul ------------ King --------- Ekotto
Kranjcar ------- Parker ----------- Modric --------- Bale
--------------------- Van Der Vaart --------------------
----------------------- Adebayor ----------------------

Tougher away games:

------------------------ Friedel ------------------------
Walker -------- Kaboul ------------ King --------- Ekotto
--------------- Sandro ----------- Parker ---------------
------------------------ Modric ------------------------
------- VDV -------------------------------- Bale -------
----------------------- Adebayor ------------------------

 

[mick cooper]

I disagree that it is necessarily simplistic.

I know and understand that there are tons, possibly millions of decisions made. Some of those are major, some are minor. Some decisions the management team can make or improve on easily, some might take months or years of training or actually signing a new player to be improved upon.

I also accept that we don't have all the information, and that there are tactical stuff we don't know or understand. That overall Harry knows best.

However, I still think there are decisions, major ones, that managers get wrong. And I do think sometimes I and other forum posters are right about some things that managers get wrong. And when those opinions are voiced not only by forum posters, but also by respected experts on TV and it seems very likely that other respected managers would at least do things differently than our manager does it I think voicing and discussing those opinions is quite interesting.

and you have every right to that opinion, I'm in no doubt about that at all.
and so do I to mine

its just that my opinion is soooooo much better than yours :lol:


interesting that you agree about all of the options and permutations but dont think that the simple principle of slagging the manager off is simplistic!

and you then go on to describe exactly why it is a simplistic route to take.

Looks to me like you just agreed with me

 

[The Moonlit Knight]

If Lennon's missing I go;

Home and softer away games:

------------------------ Friedel ------------------------
Walker -------- Kaboul ------------ King --------- Ekotto
Kranjcar ------- Parker ----------- Modric --------- Bale
--------------------- Van Der Vaart --------------------
----------------------- Adebayor ----------------------

Tougher away games:

------------------------ Friedel ------------------------
Walker -------- Kaboul ------------ King --------- Ekotto
--------------- Sandro ----------- Parker ---------------
------------------------ Modric ------------------------
------- VDV -------------------------------- Bale -------
----------------------- Adebayor ------------------------

Football Manager land, changing the team or system every game dependant on the opposition and what does that cause in real life? Inconsistant performance and erratic results. Just like the last few games we've played where we chop and change so much.

 

[Kingdawson]

Football Manager land, changing the team or system every game dependant on the opposition and what does that cause in real life? Inconsistant performance and erratic results. Just like the last few games we've played where we chop and change so much.

Sir Alex doesn't have a prefered X1 and chops and changes regularly yet they're still first.

 

[Kingdawson]

Sir Alex doesn't have a prefered X1 and chops and changes regularly yet they're still first.

Second is Emirates Marketing Project who.............................................









chop and change regularly.

 

[Rossi22]

Football Manager land, changing the team or system every game dependant on the opposition and what does that cause in real life? Inconsistant performance and erratic results. Just like the last few games we've played where we chop and change so much.

What have I changed? It's what we've played all season.

 

[Pirate55]

Yes, it is, Arry

](*,)

Why cant harry see what is plain as day for the rest of us?