Post by eusebio13 on Apr 7, 2009 11:22:14 GMT
I've been rereading Ingham interesting post on patience in a football context yesterday and Mark comments on the identikit manager. I think the issue in football is that we are in so much of results business that the willingness to allow the souffle to rise is rarely there. If you look at most managers including our very own Holloway, he realised that we weren't likely to pass our way out of the division so adopted a standard 442 with two distinct wingers and a big striker in Furlong to run into the channels and knock the ball down. Often it was dire to watch but it was relatively effectively especially in League 1 were in resource terms we were giants. Now move that onto CCC and forget Holloway's momentum fueled 7 wins on the bounce and you'll see we struggled to be anything more than midtable and lower. As Mark said this identikit formation is replicated by multiple managers and success is often purely down to resources and in the CCC we would (at the time) have been relative paupers compared to Birmingham, Wolves etc.
With LDC the mould was set to abandon this style and move to a more flexible formation predominantly based on a lone striker with more threat from midfield (a move made by the Prem club 5-7yrs ago now) and at its best this quick pass and move style of football is exhilarating. However is it really the natural way of playing in the CCC for most players of that level, probably not. We all accept that our best team probably includes Buzz & Vine but Vine played predominantly on the left under LDC running from out to in (not as the target man) and this is because these players suit this type of football. So when we have the players most suited to the style of play we perform well but when we shoehorn in players built for the 442 we seem to fall short. The issue therefore is perhaps not whether we need to have patience with Sousa but whether we need to have patience with the system. Dowie's firing shows us that Flav is not going to put up with a more classical 442 which I think Dowie moved to later out of pragmatism, so do we think that an Ince, Wise or Ferguson will be allowed to revert (I don't think so) and perhaps Flav's illogical dislike of Blackstock revolves around the fact that he was such a 442 type player and so obviously out of place in the lone striker role.
If this is the system then time must be allowed to let the squad change to suit it and that is irrelevant of the manager.
IN SOUSA WE TRUST
With LDC the mould was set to abandon this style and move to a more flexible formation predominantly based on a lone striker with more threat from midfield (a move made by the Prem club 5-7yrs ago now) and at its best this quick pass and move style of football is exhilarating. However is it really the natural way of playing in the CCC for most players of that level, probably not. We all accept that our best team probably includes Buzz & Vine but Vine played predominantly on the left under LDC running from out to in (not as the target man) and this is because these players suit this type of football. So when we have the players most suited to the style of play we perform well but when we shoehorn in players built for the 442 we seem to fall short. The issue therefore is perhaps not whether we need to have patience with Sousa but whether we need to have patience with the system. Dowie's firing shows us that Flav is not going to put up with a more classical 442 which I think Dowie moved to later out of pragmatism, so do we think that an Ince, Wise or Ferguson will be allowed to revert (I don't think so) and perhaps Flav's illogical dislike of Blackstock revolves around the fact that he was such a 442 type player and so obviously out of place in the lone striker role.
If this is the system then time must be allowed to let the squad change to suit it and that is irrelevant of the manager.
IN SOUSA WE TRUST