- Nov 15, 2010
- 1,378
- 1,894
I think this is an excellent post.
Only thing id add is that I'm not sure we are really playing a 4-4-2. Who tells tv channels how to line up our little player icons on the screen ? Does our manager simply hand in a list of players or does he hand in a picture of a pitch with small uniforms set out in a 4-4-2 ?
The average position that our players are adopting during games under Sherwood would suggest that a lot of talk about formations where we decree such and such is setting out a team as a 4-4-2 or whatever, cannot be so rigid and pigeon-holed.
In truth things are a lot more organic than that.
I'm on my phone so can't post pics but I think Windy has put up maps with average positions for each game
Every time I see those little player icons I think 'shit look at that fucking gap right down down the middle'. Thankfully United had one the same the other day or else we'd have been fucked.
I actually think AVB wasn't besotted by tactics so much as his "system", and was actually tactically rigid - he didn't adapt his system according to the opposition or the players at his disposal, and was too slow in moving on and introducing more positive elements to the team's play once his possession philosophy and high line had started to bear some fruit. I'm all the more puzzled because possession is a weird concept in its own right, and hard to understand, in a way. Every team has the ball almost exactly the same number of times as the opposition. The philosophy of managers such as Rowe and Nicholson was always to treat the ball as a friend - look after it because you worked hard to win it in the first place. AVB seemed to be in that camp with his conservative approach but then we would lose the ball with wild speculative shots from miles out - so inconsistent and contradictory. I'm still baffled by his approach.
Anyway, we'll know more about TS by the end of the season. I have a conspiracy theory that he's been in DL's mind as a possible replacement for AVB for quite a long time and that it just happened sooner rather than later. Exciting times again.