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Thomas Frank Thread

After 3 years with a NLD win, it might be good to have a manager who knows what it takes to beat the Goons.

learning.coachesvoice.com

Thomas Frank - Coaches' Voice

Brentford manager Thomas Frank looks back on the tactics behind his team's 2-0 win over Arsenal in the club's first ever Premier League match
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Lilbaz said:
Just not sure it's his preferred system.

I don't even know if he has a preference.
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I was thinking about all this today and how we have become re-active as a fan base to our previous PTSD.

Poch - One system that was attacking. No Plan B. We wanted someone who was more tactically diverse.
Mourinho - Comes in with Experience and pedigree. Bores us to death with his defensive tactics.
Conte - A more hopefully balanced approach ( inter were high scorerer under him) but again overley defensive.
Ange - Attacking again, we had craved it after having Mourinho, Nunes and then Conte. We got what we wanted. But back to one system.

We want the best of both worlds. But its been a long time since I feel we have had any coach that looks at the squad we have and gets a formation to work for those players. We go through recycling periods of players every time we shift manager.

Frank works for me in the fact he has Premiership know how, understands our league and its demands, and can adjust our playing style to suit the players we have.

Glazner. he has some trophy pedigree with Frankfurt and now with Palace. They looked very well set up against us and city. But it was mostly out of a low block. Is he coaching to what he had? how did Frankfurt play under him? is he a one season one troply wonder in the prem?

I am more sold on Frank even though he has not won a major trophy because of his years coming through our pyramid. I feel that he will know a formation to use our players and have more than one plan.

Lets see what happens this week. I wanted Ange out. Our league for and the excuses was just too much.
 
Sandman said:
I was thinking about all this today and how we have become re-active as a fan base to our previous PTSD.

Poch - One system that was attacking. No Plan B. We wanted someone who was more tactically diverse.
Mourinho - Comes in with Experience and pedigree. Bores us to death with his defensive tactics.
Conte - A more hopefully balanced approach ( inter were high scorerer under him) but again overley defensive.
Ange - Attacking again, we had craved it after having Mourinho, Nunes and then Conte. We got what we wanted. But back to one system.

We want the best of both worlds. But its been a long time since I feel we have had any coach that looks at the squad we have and gets a formation to work for those players. We go through recycling periods of players every time we shift manager.

Frank works for me in the fact he has Premiership know how, understands our league and its demands, and can adjust our playing style to suit the players we have.

Glazner. he has some trophy pedigree with Frankfurt and now with Palace. They looked very well set up against us and city. But it was mostly out of a low block. Is he coaching to what he had? how did Frankfurt play under him? is he a one season one troply wonder in the prem?

I am more sold on Frank even though he has not won a major trophy because of his years coming through our pyramid. I feel that he will know a formation to use our players and have more than one plan.

Let’s see what happens this week. I wanted Ange out. Our league for and the excuses was just too much.
Click to expand...

I keep thinking that there is no perfect blend of idealism and pragmatism that serves as our cheat code. It’s just philosophies and choices with different trade offs.

We’ll be good under Frank. I have no doubt. But there’s a really obvious, basic trade off with the idea that he’s kinda attacking but adapts when needed, and it’s that he needs to be the one to get his adaptations right every single time. We played Brentford this season towards the end of our injury crisis, but still within it, and won fairly comfortably. A coach with a belief in perfecting a system can beat a coach who will adapt theirs. If the former team is clicking into gear, it either doesn’t matter what the adjustments are, or they need to be absolutely perfect to be stopping the opposition.

That’s the trade. There’s gonna be times we fail to break teams down because our possession game isn’t as well drilled or refined. There’s gonna be times we decide to sit on a lead and invite pressure, and end up conceding. If Frank gets his adjustments right every game, maybe we win the league. But there’s extreme likelihood is we get back into the top 6, and we (the fan base in general) end up being kinda happy but kinda frustrated with the trade offs that become apparent from his philosophy.

This is not to say that any other coach is perfect, rather they will all struggle unless given time to get their squad the way they want it, in condition, and drilled to succeed. If that happens, we see the best of the trade off balance rather than the negatives. If not, the opposite.
 
Sandman said:
I was thinking about all this today and how we have become re-active as a fan base to our previous PTSD.

Poch - One system that was attacking. No Plan B. We wanted someone who was more tactically diverse.
Mourinho - Comes in with Experience and pedigree. Bores us to death with his defensive tactics.
Conte - A more hopefully balanced approach ( inter were high scorerer under him) but again overley defensive.
Ange - Attacking again, we had craved it after having Mourinho, Nunes and then Conte. We got what we wanted. But back to one system.

We want the best of both worlds. But its been a long time since I feel we have had any coach that looks at the squad we have and gets a formation to work for those players. We go through recycling periods of players every time we shift manager.

Frank works for me in the fact he has Premiership know how, understands our league and its demands, and can adjust our playing style to suit the players we have.

Glazner. he has some trophy pedigree with Frankfurt and now with Palace. They looked very well set up against us and city. But it was mostly out of a low block. Is he coaching to what he had? how did Frankfurt play under him? is he a one season one troply wonder in the prem?

I am more sold on Frank even though he has not won a major trophy because of his years coming through our pyramid. I feel that he will know a formation to use our players and have more than one plan.

Lets see what happens this week. I wanted Ange out. Our league for and the excuses was just too much.
Click to expand...
I think we are pivoting from someone tactically inflexible to the opposite with Frank. I am warming up to him slowly, he did do very well adapting to the loss of Toney.
 
Raziel said:
Says he uses it against top sides

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I know he uses it. Just not sure if he had the resources of say city or madrid and the choice to play any system that would be his preferred one. If you understand what i mean.
In the championship he used 433. This season he's played with 2 up top at times. Or at least a 4411.
 
Sandman said:
Glazner. he has some trophy pedigree with Frankfurt and now with Palace. They looked very well set up against us and city. But it was mostly out of a low block. Is he coaching to what he had? how did Frankfurt play under him? is he a one season one troply wonder in the prem?
Click to expand...
Frankfurt were a counter pressing team. Not bothered about posession, but intense pressing and quick attacks when they won the ball. Think he played mostly with 3 centre backs.
 
BrainOfLevy said:
I keep thinking that there is no perfect blend of idealism and pragmatism that serves as our cheat code. It’s just philosophies and choices with different trade offs.

We’ll be good under Frank. I have no doubt. But there’s a really obvious, basic trade off with the idea that he’s kinda attacking but adapts when needed, and it’s that he needs to be the one to get his adaptations right every single time. We played Brentford this season towards the end of our injury crisis, but still within it, and won fairly comfortably. A coach with a belief in perfecting a system can beat a coach who will adapt theirs. If the former team is clicking into gear, it either doesn’t matter what the adjustments are, or they need to be absolutely perfect to be stopping the opposition.

That’s the trade. There’s gonna be times we fail to break teams down because our possession game isn’t as well drilled or refined. There’s gonna be times we decide to sit on a lead and invite pressure, and end up conceding. If Frank gets his adjustments right every game, maybe we win the league. But there’s extreme likelihood is we get back into the top 6, and we (the fan base in general) end up being kinda happy but kinda frustrated with the trade offs that become apparent from his philosophy.

This is not to say that any other coach is perfect, rather they will all struggle unless given time to get their squad the way they want it, in condition, and drilled to succeed. If that happens, we see the best of the trade off balance rather than the negatives. If not, the opposite.
Click to expand...
I think that all reads true.

A few of points though.
1. Most (all?) managers will get a certain amount of time to show that the direction of travel is positive (not just at our club)
2. As I noted in another post...It's hard when you are not the very top club(s)..they have the muscle to fast track plans, cherry pick the best and move on from failings without consequence.
3. It's not impossible though. Napoli, Leverkusen have their moments. And Simone is probably the closest example to what you are saying (he must be bordering on a generational manager now?), but even then it's only every now and then they succeed.
4. We had a manager in Poch that only failed on very fine margins and probably a bit of luck. He'd done (and been left to get on with) what you described, and we were hand on heart the best team in the league for a while.
5. Even Arteta has now resorted to changing the Goons game, simply because he's looking for a way past City and Liverpool.
6. I'm not being defeatist, just a realist. It'll probably take what you describe, but we will need to land with a gem of a manager, but offering a blanket theory doesn't negate the need to judge every case on its merits in the here and now.
7. I suppose the crux of it in this instance. Is you thought Ange fitted this mould and we've let an opportunity slip by? I don't feel that. He was nowhere close to Poch as an overall package. Where we might agree is I would have probably given both the next season (or the rest of the season in Poch case) Not necessarily because I think it's going to work, but due to the churn in managers we have anyway, i may as well let the long shot finish it's race before either putting up the screens and shooting it or marvel at it's training performance. Although I'm not the one in the firing line for throwing away seasons.

Good having you back Brain!
 
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glorygloryeze said:
What prediction for timing of announcement. I say either 10-10.30am this morning or between 3 and 4.30pm tihs afternoon
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I guess it depends if they are trying to sort anything out with Brentford for any other staff following as well. Wouldn’t surprise me if it is today but could be at any point this week. I’d be surprised if it goes beyond this week.
 
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