Should you worry about the opposition?

Interesting comments about the new Spurs managers (Mauricio Pochettino) ethos on how to plan for the next match. Sounds much more Owen Coyle thinking that Mr Freedman's - and we all know how that ended - thanks Owen!

What do you think though?

"When he first arrived at St Mary's, players were surprised that so little time was spent focusing on the opposition. The manager would only mention them for two or three minutes after the pre-match meal. No plans were made for specific players. Instead, Pochettino focused on his team, on his approach. It bred a confidence, a swagger. Whether Southampton were playing Manchester United away or Cardiff City at home, the preparations would stay the same in the week before. Formations were not discussed among the players, only shape. Pochettino talked about areas and fluidity but never the need to stay in a rigid 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-2. It was innovative stuff and it worked".

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Just another school of thought I suppose, Wenger takes a similar approach but then when they lose big games he get's criticised heavily. With Southampton it clearly worked, he had some excellent players who were clearly suited to playing a fluid, high pressing system. We'll see if he's got enough pace to do that at Spurs.

With the players Southampton had at their disposal compared to the shite at the likes of WBA and Norwich last season i'm not surprised really.

If he starts struggling next season though this will be made to go against him, plus the not speaking english at a press conference - press will have a field day with it.

Worked for Owen Coyke Sluff and he did get Burnley promoted out of this league after all! In fact Sean Dyche works in the same way and he got a Burnley promoted also on a tiny budget in comparison to us. But we are building for the future right? I hope so...

You can definitely spend too much time worrying about the opposition, Dougie is definitely guilty of this.

Sometimes the best way is just to send your team out to play the way that suits them best, regardless of who you are playing.

And before the happy clappers start, do they really think we should be worrying about the likes of Yeovil, Doncaster, Blackpool and Charlton?

JAH wrote:Worked for Owen Coyke Sluff and he did get Burnley promoted out of this league after all! In fact Sean Dyche works in the same way and he got a Burnley promoted also on a tiny budget in comparison to us. But we are building for the future right? I hope so...

Definitely worked when Coyle got us relegated didn't it?

How do you know Dyche doesn't?

Some analysis is good but don't go crazy with it.  For example do they play to the wing and cross mostly to a big man or is it played through the middle etc etc.  Who's the real play maker....put a man on him to stuff that and the like. 

But for the most part you should send your best attacking team out there and let them do the worrying.

terenceanne wrote:Some analysis is good but don't go crazy with it.  For example do they play to the wing and cross mostly to a big man or is it played through the middle etc etc.  Who's the real play maker....put a man on him to stuff that and the like. 

But for the most part you should send your best attacking team out there and let them do the worrying.

Just like Owen did!

Sluffy wrote:

terenceanne wrote:Some analysis is good but don't go crazy with it.  For example do they play to the wing and cross mostly to a big man or is it played through the middle etc etc.  Who's the real play maker....put a man on him to stuff that and the like. 

But for the most part you should send your best attacking team out there and let them do the worrying.

Just like Owen did!

Considering we just had our worst season in more than a decade under Doog..... I would not be slamming prior managers just yet.

So you can slam a manager for not getting us promoted, but you can't slam a manager for getting us relegated?

Fascinating.

Could you also define worst season in a decade? Because I seriously doubt it was points was, any other measurement is down to interpretation.

bwfc1874 wrote:So you can slam a manager for not getting us promoted, but you can't slam a manager for getting us relegated?

Fascinating.

No slamming involved.....  Worst season in 10 or maybe 15 years along with morbid football (for the most part) puts doog at the bottom of a poor list of managers of the recent past.

Should we start the season like the last one and Doog is fired after 20 games say......surely he will go down as the worst wouldn't you say?  On the other hand if he turns things around then we can judge at that point.  You can only judge on what you have seen so far not what might be or what we hope.

We all know Coyle was a terrible manager - but he does have one thing over Douglas, he got us to an FA Cup Semi-Final and for a brief period before Holden got injured we were actually a very good team in both end product and in attractive football.

If Holden hadn't got injured and we'd had 3 seasons of his pre-injury form things might have been very different.

I'd still rather get beaten playing Coyle's brand of football than being beaten playing Freedman's.

I've never been more pissed off as a Bolton fan than watching Coyle get us relegated making the same mistakes week in, week out. Dougie's got some way to go before he can beat that for me.

Let's not pretend Coyle got us relegated playing attractive football either, for all his talk of free flowing football there was clearly no system in place and we'd get flooded in midfield every week, meaning not only some of the worst defending I've ever seen but also we couldn't string together any real attacking threat.

From my perspective - and I appreciate that this is the minority, I can at least see what Dougie's trying to do and what system he wants to play. It's also pretty clear he's been left with a lot of shit to sort out. I don't believe the side that started the season were good enough to make the play offs, or that they were shit enough to make such a poor start. He's got 15 games anyway, a poor start and the atmosphere will be so poisonous he'll be gone - in which case whoever comes in will be in a far better position than Dougie was at the start of his tenure.

bwfc1874 wrote:I've never been more pissed off as a Bolton fan than watching Coyle get us relegated making the same mistakes week in, week out. Dougie's got some way to go before he can beat that for me.

I agree Coyle made the same mistakes - but couldn't the same be said of Douglas?

Natasha Whittam wrote:

bwfc1874 wrote:I've never been more pissed off as a Bolton fan than watching Coyle get us relegated making the same mistakes week in, week out. Dougie's got some way to go before he can beat that for me.

I agree Coyle made the same mistakes - but couldn't the same be said of Douglas?

Sort of, he's changed his formations and selections a lot this season, some would call that a mistake in itself although I think the rotation earlier in the season was probably a big contribution to our good run at the end of it. One other thing under Coyle was how poor the fitness of the squad was, how often did we concede late goals?  

Coyle stuck to the same players, substitutions and formations every week regardless of performance.

For me the worst season was the one that finally saw us relegated albeit on goal difference - perhaps because we could all see it coming and yet Coyle refused to play for the extra point that would have saved us. It was a car crash in slo-mo.

I wouldn't "worry" about the opposition but it would be stupid to not to analyse how they play and identify specific threats and opportunities. But whether or not the manager should point that out to the players is another question altogether.
Surely if the manager talks about shape etc. that shape will have been designed to deal with the opposition? E.g. if their no 10 likes to drop off all that's required is to keep the gap between back 4 and midfield tight or put someone in the hole - the shape would deal with the problem.
Threats and opportunities can therefore be handled without actually referring to the opposition (and thereby potentially distracting the players from their jobs in a particular game)
Personally I'd be reticent to do this but I can see how it's possible and why some managers would prefer this approach.

Was it the Birmingham game?  anyway the team that brought that big center forward in..... he was winning everything in the air and I think he scored??? not sure now .....  but where was our biggest defender to cope with that threat........err.....well parked on the bench.  yes sir the mighty Zat came on I believe as a sub after the damage had been done.  That's scouting the opposition in all it's glory.

Or like putting Baptise against a fast wing dribbler....... scout all you want but then you have to make a plan to counter their strengths.

We won the Birmingham game after Knight came on for the last 5. Is that what you mean?

terenceanne wrote:Was it the Birmingham game?  anyway the team that brought that big center forward in..... he was winning everything in the air and I think he scored??? not sure now .....  but where was our biggest defender to cope with that threat........err.....well parked on the bench.  yes sir the mighty Zat came on I believe as a sub after the damage had been done.  That's scouting the opposition in all it's glory.

Or like putting Baptise against a fast wing dribbler....... scout all you want but then you have to make a plan to counter their strengths.

Whereas Dougie brought Zat on 4 minutes after Zigic scored in the last game of this season. Stopped Zigic but Caddis scabbed an equaliser at the death.