Ratings vs Everton

[JJetset]

Some really great posts in this thread and even BC has mellowed with good stuff :0) sorry BC x

 

[Bus-Conductor]

Some really great posts in this thread and even BC has mellowed with good stuff :0) sorry BC x

The further away from Sunday I get, the mellower I feel...

 

[Spurger King]

The further away from Sunday I get, the mellower I feel...

Do you still think there were no positives?

 

[Bus-Conductor]

Do you still think there were no positives?

Fucking hell, give it time, it's only been two days.

 

[davidmatzdorf]

...I didn't want AVB sacked because I liked the methodology that I believe he was trying to indoctrinate and believe that given the same amount of time as people like Jol or Redknapp (or at the very least the rest of the season - and hopefully longer) we could have reaped the benefit of this philosophy long term.

I just do not believe results or performances, as a whole, even came close to warrant binning the last 18 months of work for a whole new process to begin again

Here is where we agree. I reckon Sherwood is doing pretty well and, unlike you, I'm enjoying the more incisive attacking play more than I'm ruing the lack of defensive grip, but the main issue is that we shouldn't be sacking the manager every 18 months unless we're in relegation trouble.

This is why I am inclined to agree with the people who say that the reason for AVB's sacking was not results. We were doing pretty well, results-wise. It had to be hierarchy-related behind-the-scenes stuff, with the Liverpool match used as an excuse.

At the time, I thought that AVB would get our attacking play sorted out, given time. Now I'm less convinced of that. There was a kind of rigidity of approach and I wonder whether he ever would have permitted his players to loosen up a bit.

In short I recognised in his approach values which I have always believed are at the core of good football teams. Hard work, discipline, control of the ball, suffocation of the opposition. I have never subscribed to the lets win 4-3 approach. I am hating what I have been watching the last few weeks. I just hope it's part of the learning process.

And here is where we differ. The virtues you have listed are important parts of a good football team, but they were adding up to stultifying football this season. I'd really rather watch us try to win 4-3 than sit through match after match of 'hard work, discipline, control of the ball, suffocation of the opposition' in the absence of freedom, creativity,virtuosity and improvisation. I was basing my support of AVB and my opposition to his removal on the hope that he would let his players express themselves eventually, after he had laid a foundation of defensive discipline. But I'm no longer as confident that it ever would have happened. We couldn't go on that way. As entertainment and footballing style go, it was garbage.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

Here is where we agree. I reckon Sherwood is doing pretty well and, unlike you, I'm enjoying the more incisive attacking play more than I'm ruing the lack of defensive grip, but the main issue is that we shouldn't be sacking the manager every 18 months unless we're in relegation trouble.

This is why I am inclined to agree with the people who say that the reason for AVB's sacking was not results. We were doing pretty well, results-wise. It had to be hierarchy-related behind-the-scenes stuff, with the Liverpool match used as an excuse.

At the time, I thought that AVB would get our attacking play sorted out, given time. Now I'm less convinced of that. There was a kind of rigidity of approach and I wonder whether he ever would have permitted his players to loosen up a bit.



And here is where we differ. The virtues you have listed are important parts of a good football team, but they were adding up to stultifying football this season. I'd really rather watch us try to win 4-3 than sit through match after match of 'hard work, discipline, control of the ball, suffocation of the opposition' in the absence of freedom, creativity,virtuosity and improvisation. I was basing my support of AVB and my opposition to his removal on the hope that he would let his players express themselves eventually, after he had laid a foundation of defensive discipline. But I'm no longer as confident that it ever would have happened. We couldn't go on that way. As entertainment and footballing style go, it was garbage.

I have seen very little incisive attacking play in the last month.

 

[markieboy]

Coaches should be working on attacking patterns with players, you can't rely just on the individual inspiration of players all of the time - the coach provides the framework, players add the inspiration.

For me it's about the balance between the 'script' you give the players, and how much room for ad libbing you give them. In my opinion, Redknapp had no script, no real framework, but he had an incredible group of players, who even then had the ability to look entirely lost on occasions, but when they got it together it could be phenomenal.

I'm forming the conclusion that AVB maybe gave them too much of a script to work from, hence the football looked mechanical and methodical - I don't buy that he was teaching us to be defensive and ultra cautious at all, he wanted us to attack, he just got the balance wrong between mechanised football and individual inspiration, and the lack of tempo and change of tempo meant these patterns weren't executed correctly, or more to the point, we hadn't moved the opposition around the pitch well enough to execute them well.

I think this quote from Marcelo Bielsa sums it up brilliantly...

“Totally mechanized teams are useless, because they get lost when they lose their script. But I also don’t like ones that only rely on the inspiration of their soloists, because when God doesn’t turn them on, they are left totally at the mercy of their opponents.”

You take a couple of goals we scored early season, Siggy against Chelsea and Norwich, and they were remarkably similar in execution, they seemed to me like a determined pattern of play, the quick ball in to the CF who combines with a midfield runner - we tried this quite a lot if anyone remembers. You practice these patterns so that players play automatically when they are given that same situation in a game, they realise 'I've been here before', many, many times over in training - I move here, he moves there, when he moves over there I play here. That's the script, but players must of course use their own decision making and quick thinking, because not every single situation in the game will mirror the training environment - you're just trying to give players situations that they recognise and in theory, react quicker too.

As for the pressing, no coach in the world would want their team to not put some amount of pressure on the ball - but wanting it to happen and coaching it is a different thing entirely, whether you want a low/middle/high press, and how you want to execute the pressing - what triggers you want the players to work off and where, when and how you want to recover the ball. Sherwood can talk about wanting to press all he wants, but if the players aren't doing it then you need to either coach them better, or get rid of the players if they just won't follow instructions and get in players who will.

Great points and as I have mentioned previously,just watch Tim Sherwood during the game and listen to his interviews,the guy is clearly frustrated with the effort and tactical application these guys are giving him.
Do any of us think that any of our 7 new signings from the summer could be called good pressers of the ball?
I certainly don't,in fact there are games when I am missing Scott Parker(apart from when he has the ball and gets stuck on his invisible roundabout) and the drive and determination he gave the whole team.
We have far too many players who are losing the 50/50 balls and who think its okay to fall to the ground and remonstrate with the ref for a foul that is never going to be given in this league.
We currently have far too many players who are not taking responsibility and it needs to change.
Can Tim make that happen? Personally I would doubt that it could be addressed in a short period of time.

 

[sloth]

Of course yes I agree, it helps when you have players with intelligence and craft who see things quicker, who can unlock defences, beat a player etc - you absolutely need this, but give them a framework to work from and it can multiply their talents. You take City right now - Silva/Toure/Aguero are great players who undoubtedly would still come up with the goods if left alone to figure if out for themselves, but when they know exactly where the other is likely to be, where they've been coached to be, then you have the potential for perfection.

I watched them rotate against us, it was clearly planned - When Silva drifted into the left channel, Navas would come off the right into the channel to create 4 central midfielders in a box around our 2/3, if Silva drifted into the right channel (where he set up Aguero for the 1st), Dzeko dropped into the left channel and Navas would stay wide right. They did this time and again and it was this planned rotation that consistently overloaded our CM. Liverpool have a similar rotation pattern under Rodgers too.

Ultimately your better players will make your framework better, and often is the case better players without a framework can still, by their individual talents, beat a team of lesser players with more of a framework. Nirvana is when you have the best players and a system that multiplies their talents.

For me this is all about methodology rather than the objective - which is to play the most coherent football suitable to winning the PL possible. The case against AVB is not about what he wanted to achieve but whether he was able to get his team to play the way he wanted. If football was chess then winning matches would just be about the way you set them out, the kinds of players you had and what they were capable of doing. The fact is that they're flesh and blood though, with different temperaments, emotions etc and finding the key to making a team perform as a unit rather than as merely the sum of its parts is an art as much as a science. How do you make players be braver? Take risks? Be aggressive off the ball? Press? How do you change a mindset? How do you ensure they keep concentrated, don't let heads go down or the alternative get carried away? We've all seen that teams can struggle, then the goal goes in and they relax and the fluency's suddenly there, or they don't get out of their half until they go a goal behind and suddenly they start playing. Everyone argues about when a defender is put on when you're leading and whether that's a pragmatic move or it's sending the 'wrong signal' and the opposite when you put an attacker on. Setting the side up has a huge mental side to it as well, a motivational aspect I mean...

So give them a frame-work and it can improve them, but it can also have the opposite effect. If a team's constipated in the way it plays and for whatever reason won't take the risks or be brave, then just telling them to stick to the structure, and endless drills or whatever won't necessarily help, sometimes they need a jolt, things need changing so they rediscover their vim and then you can work on structures again.

In our case a big, obvious issue, was a whole load of players who came into the side having been used to a totally different kind of football in their previous leagues. The French league is famously slow, so is the Italian league, and so is the Brazilian league, the Spanish league obviously has its own character too. The Dutch league is more open, very free-flowing. So we have Chadli and Eriksen, then Lamela, Capoue and Paulinho, and of course the PL core. No one in the team is used to playing the same way, and who adjusts towards who? Is there a middle ground? The ball comes to Paulinho or Capoue and they're thinking one way, then to Eriksen who has another style in mind, or to Lamela and it's slow, slow, looking for quick, slow. And all the while you've a poacher up front who doesn't know what runs to make, or faith that his players will find him if he does, or if he should stick to what he knows or try and adjust to his new team-mates, but what's their style? And all the while you've a manager trying to tell them what he wants, they're thinking, thinking, thinking and where's the feeling for the game? For me it's amazing we've hung in there so well. Now we've changed manager and it's all change again, and I guess what TS is trying to do is to stop having them over-think it and just rediscover their feel for the game... sometimes it's working and sometimes they're like strangers to each other, but at least they scored a few goals and got a bit of faith back in their ability to do so and hopefully, going forward, with a bit of guidance from the coach, they'll find their style and it will all start to click a bit more often.

 

[Archibald&Crooks]

What Sloth said

So the theory that 'gelling' and giving them 'time' isn't perhaps as laughable as some of SC's experts claimed it to be?

Gadzooks, say it isn't so.

 

[sloth]

So the theory that 'gelling' and giving them 'time' isn't perhaps as laughable as some of SC's experts claimed it to be?

Gadzooks, say it isn't so.

I think I'm being a bit dense here, but I'm not quite getting the point you're making?

 

[Spurs_Bear]

So the theory that 'gelling' and giving them 'time' isn't perhaps as laughable as some of SC's experts claimed it to be?

Gadzooks, say it isn't so.

No, it's still bollocks, you were harping on about the players needing "time" to "gel" which is horse, the time element here is relevant to the manager who has been in charge for 9 matches, not 18 months like it was previously.

In my eyes anyway.

 

[Spurs_Bear]

I have seen very little incisive attacking play in the last month.

Very little is still more than none though.

 

[Archibald&Crooks]

I think I'm being a bit dense here, but I'm not quite getting the point you're making?

Yes, yes you are But then again it's highly likely that its me.

The point i'm making is that at the height of the AVB debate, some people were saying or offering up the theory that time might be needed in order for the players to gel, settle or whatever. A few people, who have their heads so far up their own arses that they sneeze shit, told us that time was not a factor and took the piss out of the 'gelling' theory. I assumed that your post was pro-gelling, time etc

No, it's still bollocks, you were harping on about the players needing "time" to "gel" which is horse, the time element here is relevant to the manager who has been in charge for 9 matches, not 18 months like it was previously.

In my eyes anyway.

Testicles to you too. The length (hehe) of tenure has fuck all to do with it. We were talking about a manager and players from the start of THIS season. Given the massive turnover of players that's pretty much the only reasonable way of looking at it. In my minces anyway.

Oh and PS, this was pretty much all pre Sherwood, who for the purposes of my post, has fuck all to do with it.

 

[Spurs_Bear]

Yes, yes you are But then again it's highly likely that its me.

The point i'm making is that at the height of the AVB debate, some people were saying or offering up the theory that time might be needed in order for the players to gel, settle or whatever. A few people, who have their heads so far up their own arses that they sneeze shit, told us that time was not a factor and took the piss out of the 'gelling' theory. I assumed that your post was pro-gelling, time etc

Testicles to you too. The length (hehe) of tenure has fuck all to do with it. We were talking about a manager and players from the start of THIS season. Given the massive turnover of players that's pretty much the only reasonable way of looking at it. In my minces anyway.

Oh and PS, this was pretty much all pre Sherwood, who for the purposes of my post, has fuck all to do with it.

Gelling is pre-historic, but then so are you.

Now wipe my nose/arse.

 

[ShelfSide18]

Most of what your talking about there is purely instinctive to good players, believe it or not the best players aren't constantly thinking about what they've been told in training during a game. There is no way Aguero is coached to be or told to be anywhere at any given time it's simply not true. All teams are drilled with patterns of play, this is true but no manager worth his salt would be saying to Aguero and when he has the ball here and when he runs there then you must go there, would be ridiculous for so many reasons, not least of which you don't know how the opposition are going to be set at any given time or where the space maybe or may suddenly appear or what error may be made by either side.

A top top players brain is working overtime like a computer, constantly reassessing, re-evaluating, all happening in split seconds whilst he's on the move or even in possession. You don't robot players, especially extremely talented ones like Aguero, that is the fullest form of over-coaching. Yes there are structures, shapes and patterns, of course there are but this is a fast game of fluid motion and not American Football. The picture is constantly changing, the shape is constantly changing.

The best sides are the ones with the best players, there's a reason for that and there's a reason that they're the best players. Technical ability is part but it's the way they constantly assess and react that makes them the best and makes the best teams the best teams. Contrary to what is often said it doesn't mean other top flight players lack intelligence, in fact far from it, you won't find many top flight footballers who don't have a good footballing brain because if they didn't they would be hopelessly exploited, even if they have excellent physical capabilities.

Let's go back to Aguero and ask a very simple question, does anybody think Pelligrini, Brian Kidd or any other coach at Manchester City knows how to play as a front man or off the front better than a player of Aguero's natural talent and with his instinctive football brain does? Not a chance do they, they don't even come close to it! Now undoubtedly they will tell Aguero to do certain things and carry out certain duties but then they know not to say you then go here and you then do that and when he goes here you run there would just be ludicrous and would very quickly turn a player so so difficult to defend against into one that would become predictable and far easier to control. We are talking about Aguero here who is in my opinion the best payer in the Premiership, i'd definitely take him over Suarez, i just think he has a bit extra. This is a player that you give basic instructions and duties to and then tell to go and destroy the opposition, to control his movement, where to run and when to run would be over-coaching in its worst form and something that players in this country are suffering from and have been for years.

There's too much talk for me about coaches and managers, they provide structures, shapes and systems that aren't actually that difficult to do. There's nothing genius about playing a holding midfield payer or 2 holding midfield players or 2 wingers or 1 up or 2 up, they are all just systems. Sure you can set up to block out danger players or play high or anything else you want to talk about, none of it is difficult, none of it.

Mourinho isn't a tactical genius, he doesn't ask his team to play any way that any other manager or coach couldn't do. 2 massively important things about Mourinho. 1) He has always for the last 10 years had one of the best groups of players, no disrespect meant by that, in fact it's credit because he can spot a player and that is one of the if not the most important job of any manager, knowing which players are good enough to achieve their objective. 2) Mourinho & Ferguson as well are brilliant psychologists, they know exactly what to do to get the very best out of every single player, and trust me it isn't telling them to run here when he runs there and he drifts of his wing to there! They make their teams mentally tougher and more determined than anybody else and then with good structure, good shape and the best players they let them go and deliver.

Over-coaching and poor coaching can kill the potential of any team, to remove empowerment and expression from a game of rapid fluidity and ever changing situations is a hindrance that can destroy a teams very potential, it will make it mechanical, robotic, very predictable and will ultimately destroy its ability and confidence.

Football isn't chess, it isn't American Football either, it's a moving picture and in a moving picture you need to be aware of your responsibilities but also be empowered to act upon the picture as it develops.

I like what Sherwood says when he says they're just systems nothing else, nothing tactically amazing, i agree with him 100% when he says you see the danger you shuffle, you see the space you close it, players responsibility, bang on the money! He hasn't got us functioning off the ball well enough yet and he hasn't got us blocking out space well enough yet, but it's hardly like he doesn't know it. He's mentioned it time and time again, players need to show responsibility, he picks the team (right or wrong players, right or wrong formation, right or wrong set up) we can all have a view on that, but he's not the one who can't pass a ball 10 yards, or lets his man run off him, or loses concentration. To my mind he's trying to give this team a platform, remove its inability to express itself and find its belief and confidence again, and if the price is a few bad performances, a few bad results, people questioning his tactics and supposed lack of coaching then i hope he has the balls to say bollocks i don't care what they think!

Lots I agree on here, and lots I could debate for hours - quite a long one though L10 so forgive me I can't cover every point.

The first paragraph is interesting, because of course Aguero (or whoever!) is never thinking explicitly of the coaches instruction/guidance, this comes automatically (if coached well) - the coaches job is to set-up situations in training that are mirrored on match day, nothing complex at all about it, so that when a situation occurs in a match, the player instinctively recognises that he's been there before.

It's all about giving them a framework to work from but leaving room for their own creativity and innovation - this is why modern methods of coaching are massively centred around decision making opportunities and brain training, within a set style of play. So Pulis will obviously have a different style of play to Guardiola, so their players will be given appropriate situations in training that bring out that style of play, to give their players a repetition of similar situations that they want to play out in a game. Where we would disagree is there are certain 'planned' movements which coaches will train there players to recognise and carry out at given moments in the game - a specific midfield rotation or one that is becoming quite common at the moment is full backs underlapping wide players as opposed the overlap all the time, watch Alaba at Bayern and tell me that he hasn't been instructed to do so when the opportunity arises. You can plan for certain situations, but recognise that it is a fluid game with, as you say, a constantly changing picture and players must be able to take responsibility, to make quick, instinctive decisions and take advantage of spaces that open up etc. It's a chaotic game so you have to be able to react well to that chaos, better than your opponents can.

It's an excellent remark about players brains being like a computer, constantly seeing moving pictures, having to reassess constantly (it's why there is a link between players who scan the field more being more successful with passing, studies show, and no great surprise etc). A player is constantly being asked to make decisions on the pitch, and the better players make more decisions correctly than the lesser players - so it makes sense to not treat them like robots. It's a fine balancing act, summed up well with that Bielsa quote about mechanical and soloist football, you have to strike the best middle ground for your players between the 2, and sometimes this may be dependant on the players you have.

Ultimately I would argue that the game is more tactical than you would probably claim, and whilst I wouldn't argue it's a complex game, I think it's a game of many, many facets that are all individually very simple, the complexity lies in bringing those small, simple details together.

 

[ShelfSide18]

Very much like your post, love the Bielsa quote, but do you not think the biggest problem, and a problem also showing up under Sherwood in most games (including the last 4) is the lack of collective wit/intelligence/finesse (or inspirational wit) in our team. Bale didn't look like he was suffering from over mechanisation, under AVB his talent was enhanced. Townsend didn't look like he was waring a straightjacket this season (looked more like he needed one at times).

I watched Walker get into an identical position about 5 times on Sunday and the outcome was staggeringly similar each and every time. Hit the first defender. Rose is the same. Isn't the truth that we still struggle to buy the type of player that combines intelligence and ability and the right mentality ?

My biggest criticism of AVb was that he made selections that didn't help his own system. Why the hell bring Lennon into a side lacking wit when you have 30m Lamela needing to bed in. Why drop Chiriches and play Dawson in a high line against Aguero. Chiriches might not have stopped him scoring but I don't understand the logic. Again, why pick Dempsey to play behind the striker when you have Sigurdsson (tough call but still Sigurdsson every time for me). Eriksen had one poor game and was dropped (then injured).

AVB seemed to shoot himself up the arse with his selections sometimes it seems to me. Lowering the "wit quota" voluntarily.

Absolutely - you can lead a Walker to the byline, but you can't make him not smash the ball into the first man.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

For me this is all about methodology rather than the objective - which is to play the most coherent football suitable to winning the PL possible. The case against AVB is not about what he wanted to achieve but whether he was able to get his team to play the way he wanted. If football was chess then winning matches would just be about the way you set them out, the kinds of players you had and what they were capable of doing. The fact is that they're flesh and blood though, with different temperaments, emotions etc and finding the key to making a team perform as a unit rather than as merely the sum of its parts is an art as much as a science. How do you make players be braver? Take risks? Be aggressive off the ball? Press? How do you change a mindset? How do you ensure they keep concentrated, don't let heads go down or the alternative get carried away? We've all seen that teams can struggle, then the goal goes in and they relax and the fluency's suddenly there, or they don't get out of their half until they go a goal behind and suddenly they start playing. Everyone argues about when a defender is put on when you're leading and whether that's a pragmatic move or it's sending the 'wrong signal' and the opposite when you put an attacker on. Setting the side up has a huge mental side to it as well, a motivational aspect I mean...

So give them a frame-work and it can improve them, but it can also have the opposite effect. If a team's constipated in the way it plays and for whatever reason won't take the risks or be brave, then just telling them to stick to the structure, and endless drills or whatever won't necessarily help, sometimes they need a jolt, things need changing so they rediscover their vim and then you can work on structures again.

In our case a big, obvious issue, was a whole load of players who came into the side having been used to a totally different kind of football in their previous leagues. The French league is famously slow, so is the Italian league, and so is the Brazilian league, the Spanish league obviously has its own character too. The Dutch league is more open, very free-flowing. So we have Chadli and Eriksen, then Lamela, Capoue and Paulinho, and of course the PL core. No one in the team is used to playing the same way, and who adjusts towards who? Is there a middle ground? The ball comes to Paulinho or Capoue and they're thinking one way, then to Eriksen who has another style in mind, or to Lamela and it's slow, slow, looking for quick, slow. And all the while you've a poacher up front who doesn't know what runs to make, or faith that his players will find him if he does, or if he should stick to what he knows or try and adjust to his new team-mates, but what's their style? And all the while you've a manager trying to tell them what he wants, they're thinking, thinking, thinking and where's the feeling for the game? For me it's amazing we've hung in there so well. Now we've changed manager and it's all change again, and I guess what TS is trying to do is to stop having them over-think it and just rediscover their feel for the game... sometimes it's working and sometimes they're like strangers to each other, but at least they scored a few goals and got a bit of faith back in their ability to do so and hopefully, going forward, with a bit of guidance from the coach, they'll find their style and it will all start to click a bit more often.

I like a lot of this post but you spoilt it with the hollywood ending.

The continual stuff (not just by you) suggesting of some kind of AVB mind control program is more "The men Who Talked to Goats" clap trap.

The same players are still doing mind numbingly stupid things long after AVB has gone and Sherwood as rescued them from the cult of AVB's dimensions. On sunday I watched players stop and pass the ball backwards instead of moving forwards, I watched Dembele take on at least three people too many instead of just laying the ball off, I watched Walker drill crosses straight to the first man at least 5 times, and I watched as people shrug with indifference when not found with passes.

I didn't notice Gareth Bale stopping and thinking "should I pass backwards now or hit a 25 yard screamer". I do believe that AVB believed in retaining possession of the ball trying to suck and blow opponents around using this, but he also believed the point of that was to manipulate the opponent with a view to eventual vertical penetration (in his vernacular), I believe this is the very reason he wanted Modric/Moutinho and eventually Capoue (obviously not in their league but a CM who can pass the ball too)

I have read him say that he believes in encouraging players to think for themselves and take responsibility. Here is a Bleacher Report article:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1090105-andre-villas-boas-sacked-by-chelsea-from-moment-he-signed

But within a collective framework. I believe this is what the best teams all work in various forms and what he was trying to emulate, albeit on our budget and with players not always entirely bright enough to pull it off.

It's got nothing to do with "over thinking", more just "thinking" and imposing your method on the opposition, not just reacting to theirs.

Did he always match his selections, tactics and philosophy well ? No. Was it always his fault players made poor choices ? No. Does that mean you should dump the philosophy entirely ? No.

 

[Legend10]

Lots I agree on here, and lots I could debate for hours - quite a long one though L10 so forgive me I can't cover every point.

The first paragraph is interesting, because of course Aguero (or whoever!) is never thinking explicitly of the coaches instruction/guidance, this comes automatically (if coached well) - the coaches job is to set-up situations in training that are mirrored on match day, nothing complex at all about it, so that when a situation occurs in a match, the player instinctively recognises that he's been there before.

It's all about giving them a framework to work from but leaving room for their own creativity and innovation - this is why modern methods of coaching are massively centred around decision making opportunities and brain training, within a set style of play. So Pulis will obviously have a different style of play to Guardiola, so their players will be given appropriate situations in training that bring out that style of play, to give their players a repetition of similar situations that they want to play out in a game. Where we would disagree is there are certain 'planned' movements which coaches will train there players to recognise and carry out at given moments in the game - a specific midfield rotation or one that is becoming quite common at the moment is full backs underlapping wide players as opposed the overlap all the time, watch Alaba at Bayern and tell me that he hasn't been instructed to do so when the opportunity arises. You can plan for certain situations, but recognise that it is a fluid game with, as you say, a constantly changing picture and players must be able to take responsibility, to make quick, instinctive decisions and take advantage of spaces that open up etc. It's a chaotic game so you have to be able to react well to that chaos, better than your opponents can.

It's an excellent remark about players brains being like a computer, constantly seeing moving pictures, having to reassess constantly (it's why there is a link between players who scan the field more being more successful with passing, studies show, and no great surprise etc). A player is constantly being asked to make decisions on the pitch, and the better players make more decisions correctly than the lesser players - so it makes sense to not treat them like robots. It's a fine balancing act, summed up well with that Bielsa quote about mechanical and soloist football, you have to strike the best middle ground for your players between the 2, and sometimes this may be dependant on the players you have.

Ultimately I would argue that the game is more tactical than you would probably claim, and whilst I wouldn't argue it's a complex game, I think it's a game of many, many facets that are all individually very simple, the complexity lies in bringing those small, simple details together.

I like a lot of this and IMHO it's a better explanation than some of your previous posts around coaching and so on. Every club has a sign or signs up in their dressing room which is designed to motivate and remind players, like the old hat 'there's no 'i' in team' and some of them are pretty good and are useful. With this in mind every coach should have one on his door which is the last thing he should see before he goes out with his players that says something along the lines of:

"Over-coaching is a symptom of ego, this is our team and not mine'

To accept and recognise that every single successful sports team empowers it's players, every one of the encourages it's players to take responsibility, every one of them recognises the importance of creativity and every one of them has a sense of belief & trust between coach/manager & players.

It is very easy through over-coaching to eliminate all of the above and you are left with a team with no soul, no heart for the fight and no direction which is the thing the coaching set out to provide in the first place.

In fact IMHO no coaching at all is infinitely better than over-coaching, infinitely, because at least you leave in place what made the players good in the first place.

Now i completely agree with what you say about 'underlapping' FB's, 100% agree, this is something where a manager has seen in his team something that he thinks can be creative and will lead to good situations developing, it is an instruction i agree, it's a pattern and something that will be developed in training, midfield rotation, hmmm maybe, probably some of it is done but as a reminder to players more than anything, good midfield players do this type of stuff instinctively, the football brain between their ears tells them to. But i do agree in essence that a lot of clubs, will run through routine, try to develop patterns of play, absolutely outline defensive responsibilities and shape etc, but there's a difference between that and laying out strict guidelines of you must go here, you must do that, you must you must you must! If i had a boy who was being coached like that i'd take him out straight away, i wouldn't care who the coach was, what he's telling him is wrong! What he should be telling him is to evaluate and make a decision based on what he sees, feels and believes, if you think the aggressive play is on, go for it, if you don't then you have other options, evaluate which you think is the best, if you see danger, react, communicate what you see and so on, your the player so ultimately it's your responsibility and i trust you!

IMHO AVB over-coached, i think that because i saw a team develop that was rigid, inflexible, very very cautious and always seemed to be over thinking. Attacking wise which is where over-coaching will reveal itself, we saw a team develop with little imagination, unpredictability and risk attached to it's play. Last season he created a platform for one player, Bale, to a large extent that was successful, but this season told us as an attacking unit Bale papered over the cracks, looks to me like he was banking on Lamela to do the same this season and then Townsend suddenly emerged and it was over to him! Problem is Bale is exceptional, not good, exceptional and to replace him as our attacking force it couldn't be one player, it needed to be the team, but AVB's rigidity doesn't allow that, or i should say didn't allow that. We had become an over-coached, confused team that didn't offer the players empowerment or freedom of expression and i think by the time AVB went the trust between manager & players was at best dwindling.

Oh and i would just like to add a thought on Tony Pulis, often derided on here but what a job he has done at Palace! Rather than being deride he should be seen as somebody who knows his level (meaning the players he has and available to him) and how to deliver the maximum on that!