Tim Sherwood…gone \o/

[veron23]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

My worry with Sherwood is that he has set out his stall very openly with the 4-4-2 and its worked up till now. I think teams will look into us more and work it out eventually and the test will be...do we have a plan B and C

exactly my worry. it works now but teams will figure us out

 

[veron23]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

Wow. Takes some skill to get "Dumbass Post of the Year" done and dusted on the 1st January.

haha.

 

[Jurgen the German]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

how does he explain the performance at the lane then?

united had more of the ball and better chances...yet the draw was taken as a supreme result

i didnt hear him say negatives about that game like he has this one

has scara pulled the "they played their reserves" line yet?

Personally I loved how we controlled the game and outthought the likes of Hull at home with a dodgy penalty and also at home in the league cup on penalties against Hull reserves.

 

[Jurgen the German]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

Wow. Takes some skill to get "Dumbass Post of the Year" done and dusted on the 1st January.

You should see some/all of Stenno's posts

 

[Nigeyman]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

exactly my worry. it works now but teams will figure us out

teams will always figure us out to a degree and likewise we will with them....

Of course depending on the opposition do we give a f**k regarding their strengths or do we just play our own game and believe in our players.

The two up top can be very deceptive and I agree with Kingdawson in that I would like to see Lamela partner either Solly or Ade....

With Ade he roams so can cause confusion & depending on whether we are bossing the midfield he can get closer to the poacher...it makes us adaptable to situations in a match.

In my opinion both Ade & Lamela can play the centre forward, support striker, or roaming attacking midfielder role.....

Sometimes I think we get to hung up on formations.....As long as certain players can mix it up swapping and or mixing up positions I dont think it matters too much...

what I mean is in terms of figuring us out its not that difficult...our gk is bonkers at the mo we will play with a back 4 with full backs bombing on........a big difference recently is the players confidence which seems to have grown recently....this along with ensuring Solly is not isolated is a major factor regarding recent results.

 

[DHSF]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

Teams will always figure out other teams. The question then becomes - are the players creative and skillful enough to counter that? It becomes a question of who has the better players.

 

[Nigeyman]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

Teams will always figure out other teams. The question then becomes - are the players creative and skillful enough to counter that? It becomes a question of who has the better players.

Yes......along with the effectivness of how a squad is managed over a season....whether the coach gives players the necessary instructions.

I suppose in football we all rate players differently... You would say in five matches a better side will win 4 games....but its the uncertainty factor and the chance that you can get your tactics spot on for that one game that keeps us loving the game...

For example who thought Birmingham would beat the other lot in that league cup final........Alas for McCleish who got it spot on that day with a bit of luck to boot.\o/

 

[veron23]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

I agree and there is a reason I have confidence in him - he wanted a ten year contract. Thats longevity for you, he has a plan for all those that dont think he has one or there isnt one.

jeez you cant be that dumb? 10 year contract was a figure of speech

 

[DHSF]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

jeez you cant be that dumb? 10 year contract was a figure of speech

Jeez - I know. I was also saying what I said in jest jeeeeeeeeeeeez

shoulda said five then eh

 

[onlyme]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

Teams will always figure out other teams. The question then becomes - are the players creative and skillful enough to counter that? It becomes a question of who has the better players.

What a cracking post!!

When Rooney scores against us it is understandable but when ..I am stopping there...

 

[DHSF]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

Yes......along with the effectivness of how a squad is managed over a season....whether the coach gives players the necessary instructions.

I suppose in football we all rate players differently... You would say in five matches a better side will win 4 games....but its the uncertainty factor and the chance that you can get your tactics spot on for that one game that keeps us loving the game...

For example who thought Birmingham would beat the other lot in that league cup final........Alas for McCleish who got it spot on that day with a bit of luck to boot.\o/

I think TS is giving them the necessary instructions i.e. little instructions. There has to be a balance between micro managing and macro managing. He strikes me as someone who has a balance. Letting the players go out and play their football but in a specific system. Before, it was telling the players how to play and move in a specific system which is takes out all the enjoyment of football therefore becoming less effective

 

[veron23]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

Jeez - I know. I was also saying what I said in jest jeeeeeeeeeeeez

shoulda said five then eh

my bad

 

[africanspurs]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

exactly my worry. it works now but teams will figure us out

but wouldnt the fact that he changed formations twice in that united game not give you some sort of idea that he doesnt have just one plan?

or that in the youth set up he plays 433?

 

[africanspurs]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

Jeez - I know. I was also saying what I said in jest jeeeeeeeeeeeez

shoulda said five then eh

:lol:

 

[Nigeyman]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

I think TS is giving them the necessary instructions i.e. little instructions. There has to be a balance between micro managing and macro managing. He strikes me as someone who has a balance. Letting the players go out and play their football but in a specific system. Before, it was telling the players how to play and move in a specific system which is takes out all the enjoyment of football therefore becoming less effective

True....And as long as you have players who are willing to follow your instructions in game and carry them out to the letter....Ade meant we went from 442 to 4231 & 433 in the same match......It was massive we survived the early Old trafford onslaught......Once Ade was told to drop deeper off solly we started to get a foothold and compete in the midfield.

 

[BrainOfLevy]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

Based on the bolded bit in your post, it seems you do think that when people talk about a system, they're talking about the manager having more micro-level control over what their players do during games - is that right?

It's an interesting debate, this whole thing about the need for a system. My feeling is that some sort of middle ground is best - fielding 11 players who will complement each other when they play their natural games, and then gradually tweaking things by making suggestions as to what the players (collectively and individually) should be doing differently or additionally to make the team more effective.

As a player, I just imagine that I wouldn't enjoy playing in a system in which I was micro-managed on the pitch, with 'rehearsed patterns of movement' and the like (depending on their complexity / rigidity - obviously a little bit of guidance is good and necessary). And therefore that having that prescriptive approach might actually represent a tradeoff, to an extent, with players' enjoyment of the game and therefore motivation. And therefore in defence of the less system-based approach, I disagree with Scaramanga's previous argument that freedom and motivation can only get players to equal the some of their parts. The key is if they're more motivated / fired up / happy / spirited / determined / hard-working / playing with freedom than their rivals, which is certainly possible if this tradeoff does exist.

I also think, as others have alluded to, that the way that the system-based message is conveyed to the players is important - let's face it, most English players aren't particularly intellectual and I think they would struggle to fully understand or enjoy being 'taught' how to play football on an intellectual level.

I think it entirely depends on the objectives of the club and the make up of the squad.

A squad full of young talented players that haven't achieved anything yet and thus aren't able to really disagree with a manager can sometimes actually love a rigid system that is put in place if it ends up having them perform far and away beyond near where they were performing before. Something I imagine with Mancini at City is that his system actually annoyed the players because they had lots of talent, but their system was restricting them to the point where it didn't help, it just made things worse. They had talent enough to give their good players freedom, but ultimately they couldn't get to those heights. I actually think United had more of a system, and needed it, over the last few years under Fergie, to perform how they have done with what is a pretty poor squad. And ironically I think AVB drew a lot of ideas from it, United would raise intensity when they needed to, and managed the peak conditions of their players extremely well. How many games did we all say over the last few years 'United were rubbish but got the result'? It happened so much that I think it was by design. They maintained consistency throughout the campaign by managing their tempo, I'm almost sure of it.

So it can be either really good or really bad, and if you want to be par for the course, I think a Harry Redknapp 'get your good players on the ball' kind of system will see you ok but you may not pull up any trees but the benefit is you won't have any abysmal league finishes because the quality will shine through at enough points in the season to getus where we want to be, as it hasn't been restricted. Mourinho has talked about needing to implement something long term and he's been quite disparaging about Benitez, basically saying he could chase results but Mourinho can't do that because he's trying to put the system in place. I think Rodgers on the other hand has adapted fairly well to being at a big club in that he's given players more freedom than they had when he was at Swansea (when the players would have unquestionably loved the fact that a stricter system had them performing well above their station) and it's meant they are meeting their objective of being well within reach of a CL place this season. If they ever wanted to take the next step to be title challengers though, I would say they may need a stricter system again if they are going to compete with City and Chelsea long term.

And it's the same for us. With the quality of our squad, we could let the players play, chase results, and more often than not we'd end up likely around 4th/5th/6th every year having made a good challenge. Sometimes we'd make it and sometimes we wouldn't. However our club seems to want the title, and I think to do that there has to be some sort of system in place that allows us to over-perform. The good news is with Sherwood, I think he's got a way of playing that means once it clicks (and I think it will pretty quickly) we should beat the 12 or so teams in the league that will put up a similar challenge to Stoke on Boxing Day, especially at home. He's also shown he can adapt it to bigger games where we need to be a little more conservative, and we were still able to create chances at a tough away game at Southampton. So it bodes well.

I think there's two routes we can go - one is the strict system that takes a while for players to get to grips with, but long term we should see the benefits of it. I think we would have gotten there eventually with AVB. I don't have anything to back it up, but I suspect that the harder it is for players to get to grips with a certain system (and I suspect maybe our players found the requirement to shift tempo from slow to quick and back again during a match quite difficult for example) then the more it will pay off in the end. Otherwise, it's not really worth bothering to try and implement it unless we will ultimately perform above our station. The more pain we have to suffer, the more it would benefit us ultimately if we go with a strict system. If we chase results straight away, we will perform to our level, suffer less early pain but maybe don't quite perform exceptionally to get where we want to be. LvG at Bayern took a few weeks for the players to get to grips with the system and they had poor results, but they stuck at it and he took them to the CL final. AZ Alkmaar's players actually begged LvG to stay after he handed in his resignation after poor results, because they knew his system needed getting to grips with and that he was a good manager for them. So there's an example of players liking that sort of management.

The other route is I think something that Pardew does well. It's about being adaptable. I think he delivers fairly strict instructions and does good work on the training ground, but it's not about working on one system that they impose on the opposition, it's about adapting depending on the opposition. And they do it well. I think Saudi Sportswashing Machine can play quick tempo, defensive, on the counter, or they can slow it down in possession and get results doing it all in different games. I think Pardew is actually an impressive manager and while he's not a 'system' guy, I think the other way you can make a team over-perform is by getting your preparation right depending on the opposition. Obviously it's then a lot of pressure on the manager to devise the right strategy every time, but if the manager is good and understands the game, he should be able to do it. And from the sounds of it so far, I think Sherwood falls more into this bracket. We've got an idea of how we want to play when we should be imposing ourselves on the opposition, but when that isn't always possible we adapt and give them a different challenge to think about.

I think both approaches (a strict system vs adaptability) can lead to the over-performance we require. Neither is right or wrong, but I think do need something to help us shoot above our station and I do agree with Scara on that point. It may be the case that a strict, possession controlling system is the only way to achieving that. Sherwood is relatively young in management terms and maybe he has the new ideas that can give us the advantage we need before other clubs catch up.

 

[Nigeyman]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

Oh and in terms of working teams out....we can all pretty much guess (fast forward a week & a day) what we will face when we come up against Tony Pulis Palace.

We will have to get throught two very well organised banks of 4 and we will have to be mindful of direct passing to 2 strikers Jerome & Chamak...they will play percentage football hitting the strikers early and try and get midfielders to support.

So if Ade partners Solly in a 4-4-2 we may need him to drop between the two lines of defence in order to make things happen....and we will need to try and cut off the source to their strikers (press their defenders) mark their strikers carefully and be mindful we dont get done on the counter........

Not easy and you can say we have the much better team.

 

[BrainOfLevy]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

Another quick point on systems and over achievement - I think Harry obviously fell more towards the Sherwood bracket but I don't think he adapted very well to the challenge of teams sitting deep at us, I think he gave almost too much freedom and it meant we didn't break enough of them down when required. Sherwood at least thinks a system of high pressing, quick tempo one touch passing is required for those sorts of games, and gets the team doing that. I think Harry's management can over achieve too, but it would require exploitation of the transfer market in order to identify bargains before anyone else. From reading his book, that's what he did at Bournemouth in the lower leagues, and that's what he did at West Ham with the foreign influx. At Portsmouth he used his connections to get guys like Merson and Steve Stone. I think though for Harry, at the very top level he would never win the league for us. Scouting is so good these days that it would be incredibly hard for him to find an undiscovered niche like he did before, unless Australasia for example started churning out world class potential and we were the first to react.

It's all about eeking out advantages whichever way you can. I think Harry's was good for a time and if he was given big money when the foreign influx started, maybe he could have won the league because he was ahead of his time on recognising the changes that were taking place and being one of the first to react to it and take the necessary risks. But he's not ahead of his time any more and I think that means the best he would do is simply to get a team performing to their level rather than over and above.

It's interesting though, how to eeek out these over-performances. It may become apparent, and one team may provide empirical evidence of it soon, that there are entirely different ways to get them, that we haven't even thought of yet. Beyond tactical systems or adaptability, it could be something random like having 11 foreigners from the same country fostering some togetherness that leads to it. Or new fitness techniques. Or something entirely different. I was at a talk a couple of months ago by Chris Anderson (author of The Numbers Game) and he said that what we know about football, the stage we are at, is like medicine at the stage when they were still using leeches. It's fascinating to think where it can go.

 

[Nigeyman]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

I think it entirely depends on the objectives of the club and the make up of the squad.

A squad full of young talented players that haven't achieved anything yet and thus aren't able to really disagree with a manager can sometimes actually love a rigid system that is put in place if it ends up having them perform far and away beyond near where they were performing before. Something I imagine with Mancini at City is that his system actually annoyed the players because they had lots of talent, but their system was restricting them to the point where it didn't help, it just made things worse. They had talent enough to give their good players freedom, but ultimately they couldn't get to those heights. I actually think United had more of a system, and needed it, over the last few years under Fergie, to perform how they have done with what is a pretty poor squad. And ironically I think AVB drew a lot of ideas from it, United would raise intensity when they needed to, and managed the peak conditions of their players extremely well. How many games did we all say over the last few years 'United were rubbish but got the result'? It happened so much that I think it was by design. They maintained consistency throughout the campaign by managing their tempo, I'm almost sure of it.

So it can be either really good or really bad, and if you want to be par for the course, I think a Harry Redknapp 'get your good players on the ball' kind of system will see you ok but you may not pull up any trees but the benefit is you won't have any abysmal league finishes because the quality will shine through at enough points in the season to getus where we want to be, as it hasn't been restricted. Mourinho has talked about needing to implement something long term and he's been quite disparaging about Benitez, basically saying he could chase results but Mourinho can't do that because he's trying to put the system in place. I think Rodgers on the other hand has adapted fairly well to being at a big club in that he's given players more freedom than they had when he was at Swansea (when the players would have unquestionably loved the fact that a stricter system had them performing well above their station) and it's meant they are meeting their objective of being well within reach of a CL place this season. If they ever wanted to take the next step to be title challengers though, I would say they may need a stricter system again if they are going to compete with City and Chelsea long term.

And it's the same for us. With the quality of our squad, we could let the players play, chase results, and more often than not we'd end up likely around 4th/5th/6th every year having made a good challenge. Sometimes we'd make it and sometimes we wouldn't. However our club seems to want the title, and I think to do that there has to be some sort of system in place that allows us to over-perform. The good news is with Sherwood, I think he's got a way of playing that means once it clicks (and I think it will pretty quickly) we should beat the 12 or so teams in the league that will put up a similar challenge to Stoke on Boxing Day, especially at home. He's also shown he can adapt it to bigger games where we need to be a little more conservative, and we were still able to create chances at a tough away game at Southampton. So it bodes well.

I think there's two routes we can go - one is the strict system that takes a while for players to get to grips with, but long term we should see the benefits of it. I think we would have gotten there eventually with AVB. I don't have anything to back it up, but I suspect that the harder it is for players to get to grips with a certain system (and I suspect maybe our players found the requirement to shift tempo from slow to quick and back again during a match quite difficult for example) then the more it will pay off in the end. Otherwise, it's not really worth bothering to try and implement it unless we will ultimately perform above our station. The more pain we have to suffer, the more it would benefit us ultimately if we go with a strict system. If we chase results straight away, we will perform to our level, suffer less early pain but maybe don't quite perform exceptionally to get where we want to be. LvG at Bayern took a few weeks for the players to get to grips with the system and they had poor results, but they stuck at it and he took them to the CL final. AZ Alkmaar's players actually begged LvG to stay after he handed in his resignation after poor results, because they knew his system needed getting to grips with and that he was a good manager for them. So there's an example of players liking that sort of management.

The other route is I think something that Pardew does well. It's about being adaptable. I think he delivers fairly strict instructions and does good work on the training ground, but it's not about working on one system that they impose on the opposition, it's about adapting depending on the opposition. And they do it well. I think Saudi Sportswashing Machine can play quick tempo, defensive, on the counter, or they can slow it down in possession and get results doing it all in different games. I think Pardew is actually an impressive manager and while he's not a 'system' guy, I think the other way you can make a team over-perform is by getting your preparation right depending on the opposition. Obviously it's then a lot of pressure on the manager to devise the right strategy every time, but if the manager is good and understands the game, he should be able to do it. And from the sounds of it so far, I think Sherwood falls more into this bracket. We've got an idea of how we want to play when we should be imposing ourselves on the opposition, but when that isn't always possible we adapt and give them a different challenge to think about.

I think both approaches (a strict system vs adaptability) can lead to the over-performance we require. Neither is right or wrong, but I think do need something to help us shoot above our station and I do agree with Scara on that point. It may be the case that a strict, possession controlling system is the only way to achieving that. Sherwood is relatively young in management terms and maybe he has the new ideas that can give us the advantage we need before other clubs catch up.

Well it was hard to get through all that but im glad I did....

eye opening stuff and I feel much more cleverer rer rer all of a sudden......good stuff very insightful.

 

[veron23]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

but wouldnt the fact that he changed formations twice in that united game not give you some sort of idea that he doesnt have just one plan?

or that in the youth set up he plays 433?

i dont see it like that. the changes were made AFTER utd were getting through to our goal. they should have easily scored a few by then. i was screaming at the tv for the mids to get back and cover and every time i was proved right as utd were getting too much of the lose balls too easy. if i can watch tv and see us being exposed then why cant the manager cant see it until its too late. as far as im concerned he made the changes as a reaction to us getting out numbered so you can argue he couldnt see the flaws before they happened.

its quite simple in my opinion, if we keep playing the way we do (assuming we dont progress) we will eventually be 2 or 3 down within 45 minutes.
if we played city or chelsea and allowed them the same room around our box the way we allowed southampton and utd they would have battered us