Reason for horrible exit: lack of quality or overly-defensive tactics?

[Old Bing]

1 minute ago, Gordon EF said:

As a nation, we hold ourselves to a crippling low expectation.

Well I wouldn't have believed that so readily before, were the worst team at the euros. Breaking records for negativity and shitness, scared to try and play football and a few folk are defending it. It's kind of sad.

[2426255]

7 minutes ago, Gordon EF said:

But the evidence suggests that we cannot move beyond that with the current management. I think we have the players to.

The evidence doesn't suggest that. That's your interpretation of the evidence, your opinion. 

Edited June 25 by 2426255

[Old Bing]

1 minute ago, 2426255 said:

The evidence doesn't suggest that. That's your interpretation of the evidence, your opinion. 

Have a wee look at the group table, the number of shots. The evidence doesn't just suggest that it slaps you right in the face it's so obvious.

[Gordon EF]

4 minutes ago, 2426255 said:

The evidence doesn't suggest that. That's your interpretation of the evidence, your opinion. 

The evidence is that we've had three shots at this and failed spectacularly each time. That is evidence. You might disagree with the conclusion. But it is evidence.

[2426255]

4 minutes ago, Gordon EF said:

The evidence is that we've had three shots at this and failed spectacularly each time. That is evidence. You might disagree with the conclusion. But it is evidence.

It's evidence of something, but you can't say whether it's because of the managers overly defensive tactics, a lack of quality in key positions or because of Hungary's defending. That's just your opinion and interpretation.

Edited June 25 by 2426255

[Gordon EF]

Just now, 2426255 said:

It's evidence of something, but you can't say whether it's because of the managers overly defensive tactics or the quality of players or because of Hungary's defending. That's just your opinion and interpretation.

I've not specifically mentioned overly defensive tactics as the primary or only reason. There are lots of factors going into these three failures. The common denominator is that they were all spectacular failures.

[2426255]

4 minutes ago, Gordon EF said:

I've not specifically mentioned overly defensive tactics as the primary or only reason. There are lots of factors going into these three failures. The common denominator is that they were all spectacular failures.

I was responding to this. It's your interpretation, your opinion. It's not factual. The evidence available doesn't tell us where the blame is to be distributed.

22 minutes ago, Gordon EF said:

But the evidence suggests that we cannot move beyond that with the current management. I think we have the players to.

Look we aren't going to agree on this. Let's just agree to disagree and move on. You can have the last word.

Edited June 25 by 2426255

[Old Bing]

3 minutes ago, Gordon EF said:

I've not specifically mentioned overly defensive tactics as the primary or only reason. There are lots of factors going into these three failures. The common denominator is that they were all spectacular failures.

It wasn't long ago that we were told that mistakes from the last euros had been learned from.

Do folk honestly want us to be here 4 years later discussing wether we can learn from the mistakes. 

[kennie makevin]

7 hours ago, Bing.McCrosby said:

Why do you think tactics are irrelevant is a more pertinent question for me, in which case literally anyone could be the manager.

He's right, you go thru the players and compare them there's a reason why we have more players playing at a higher level, collectively we are better.

We couldn't make our team perform well, that's the job of the manager.

Like let's say for instance you have 2 identical teams one managed by clarke the other by Jurgen Klopp. It's not a coin toss, Klopps team will win. Occasionally Clarkes team may win a penalty or score from a corner and hold on. But mostly they will get beat as he will be out thought and out manoeuvred.

We need someone who can get the team playing as greater than the sum of its parts, not worse which has been the case for quite a while.

The results of the poll are pretty clear its tactics and were not getting the best out of the players, and this is a board full of steve clarke fanatics!

Scotland and Hungary , in my opinion, were not identical teams. They had better players the other night. So there we must differ. We need to address the quality of player coming through. Why can't they pass, move and control a football as well as just about every other nation at the level we aspire to ? Sort that first. 

Edited June 25 by kennie makevin

[Old Bing]

2 minutes ago, kennie makevin said:

Scotland and Hungary , in my opinion, we're not identical teams. They had better players the other night. So there we must differ. We need to address the quality of player coming through. Why can't they pass, move and control a football as well as just about every other nation at the level we aspire to ? 

Well they can, but they cant win without the correct framework to win.

Your suggesting that guys who have won the European cup or played at the business end of the champions league cant control a football.

[Dons_1988]

53 minutes ago, 2426255 said:

.I'm saying we weren't overly defensive against Hungary. I agree the way the game was 'managed' at the end was chaotic and that aspect of the game was poor.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

I think there is outcome bias at play here - the entire discussion wouldn't be happening if we had qualified from the group, therefore it is dependent on that outcome. 

Defensive is probably the wrong word for it. But we sacrificed a lot of attacking threat to protect the defensive structure and minimise risk.

I can almost live with us starting the game that way but there is clearly a fear that disrupting the shape and personnel puts us at risk of losing structure and thus a goal, so we opted to hope that something falls for us through individual quality or maybe a set piece if we just kept doing what we were doing. 

For example, Tony ralston was fine on Sunday night but he poses virtually no attacking threat. That was an obvious area we could have changed to be a bit more aggressive or direct in attacking them, but he is keeping the defensive shape so he stays until we absolutely have to go for it. 

Risk vs reward is a sliding scale and clarke, in my opinion, needed to show more risk earlier in the game but in a controlled manner. He instead went from 0 to 100 with 10 minutes left which caused us more problems. 

[2426255]

1 minute ago, Dons_1988 said:

Defensive is probably the wrong word for it. But we sacrificed a lot of attacking threat to protect the defensive structure and minimise risk. I can almost live with us starting the game that way but there is clearly a fear that disrupting the shape and personnel puts us at risk of losing structure and thus a goal, so we opted to hope that something falls for us through individual quality or maybe a set piece if we just kept doing what we were doing. 

For example, Tony ralston was fine on Sunday night but he poses virtually no attacking threat. That was an obvious area we could have changed to be a bit more aggressive or direct in attacking them, but he is keeping the defensive shape so he stays until we absolutely have to go for it. 

Risk vs reward is a sliding scale and clarke, in my opinion, needed to show more risk earlier in the game but in a controlled manner. He instead went from 0 to 100 with 10 minutes left which caused us more problems. 

We disrupt our own shape and move between formations depending on the situation in game. That's why the argument moved from having a problem with the back-3 to starting 3 'clunky' centre-backs. It's simplistic to say taking off a centre-back and putting on an attacker is the silver bullet. 

I'd need to watch it back to really try and understand if we did try to ratchet it up as the game progressed to the later stages, you can miss a lot just watching a game live. I agree in principle with that aspect of what you're saying, but will try to look into it before September. 

[Old Bing]

2 minutes ago, 2426255 said:

We disrupt our own shape and move between formations depending on the situation in game. That's why the argument moved from having a problem with the back-3 to starting 3 'clunky' centre-backs. It's simplistic to say taking off a centre-back and putting on an attacker is the silver bullet. 

I'd need to watch it back to really try and understand if we did try to ratchet it up as the game progressed to the later stages, you can miss a lot just watching a game live. I agree in principle with that aspect of what you're saying, but will try to look into it before September. 

Indeed it is to simple to say that, the team would still need to be coached to a good standard and have a game plan as to how they would attack as well as defend.

You've never once had any come back when questioned how long it takes players to get to different positions in transitional phases. I think it's because you know your wrong.

As I've said players don't teleport from defence to attacking positions. The run to them, we couldn't do this as the players were too deep. You shouldn't need to rewatch the game to be able to see this.

And even if you could teleport Scott Mckenna into midfield, you wouldn't want him there.

It's over mate, Steve's a busted flush. You can come on day and night and produce tables and reference other irrelevant matches. But it's futile, people watched the game.

 

[PSJ.84]

2 hours ago, Dons_1988 said:

Clarkes in-game management of Sunday night was poor, I don’t think there can be any debate about that. I’m not sure if he was honest that he would even debate that fact. 

It really doesn’t matter which team was more defensive, the game was played on Hungary’s terms. They wanted us to have the ball, they wanted to hit us on the break and that’s what was happening. They weren’t good enough to cause us huge problems throughout but only one team was troubling the others goal throughout the 90 minutes. 

The kamikaze approach of throwing attackers on and abandoning all structure with 10 minutes to go, without really trying to pose Hungary any different questions beforehand was as silly as allowing the game to be played on their terms for 85 mins. 

 

 

Agreed. It always felt to me like whichever team had more of the ball throughout that game would end up on the losing side, and so it proved. Keeping the ball and breaking teams down is something we’ve been trying to get better at in the months since qualifying, but we’re still not great at it. 

The approach of trying to keep it tight and build our way into the game as it wore on was the right way to do it, however, to be tight one minute and throwing everything at it the next isn’t really doing that. Much like the Switzerland game, although it’s a bit more understandable in that one, the changes came too late.
 

There really wasn’t that much in it - a win either way would’ve been unfair on the other team imo. Calls for his head are a bit premature but questions can certainly be asked. 

 

Edited June 25 by PSJ.84

[2426255]

36 minutes ago, Bing.McCrosby said:

You've never once had any come back when questioned how long it takes players to get to different positions in transitional phases. I think it's because you know your wrong.

Sean Dyche explained that quite well on the Coaches Voice that it's just a matter of yardage. He can explain it better than I can.

Quote

We're talking about yardages. You drop a player in here and that becomes a #10, but it's literally 5 yards. So you drop a player in here and then adjust that player there and that becomes a big difference and yet literally, you're virtually on this anyway: it's a matter of yardage.

Sean Dyche

https://youtu.be/o3YY7PY-IH0?si=IwkkaX-3YvkJYo7n&t=56

Changing from a back-3 to a back-4 is just similar - all it involves is a single rotation of the back-5, simple as that. That's the logic.

Edited June 25 by 2426255

[Piehutt]

I think there's a number of issues at play. We simply couldn't get the ball up the park and create chances or even put other teams under pressure. 

That in it's simplest form is why we are sitting here typing a post mortem and not looking forward to Saturday night. And even then, we were pretty close to nicking a goal if we'd got the penalty. 

The main problem is our lack of suitable players. All our best players are central midfielders. Even the likes of Albania, Slovenia, Serbia are playing with either 3 up front (similar to how Arsenal, City, Liverpool etc.) play or at least with 2 wide midfielders are part of a midfield 4 or 5. 

Sure, you could make a case for changing things. Playing Tierney as a traditional full back in a back 4 and Robertson as a more advanced winger. Playing Forrest on the right which probably makes you a bit more comfortable playing Shankland as centre forward (at least for more than a few mins each game). 

Consequences of that are leaving out McGinn or McGregor (or Gilmour, which he did in the 1st game in order to play Christie). 

However having gotten to the Euros, with games to spare, I can see why you wouldn't want to change the system 'on the hop'. But probably a squad of professional players are more capable of adapting to a new system at short notice, assuming they are given good direction and everyone does their bit. 

[Jacksgranda]

1 hour ago, kennie makevin said:

Scotland and Hungary , in my opinion, we're not identical teams. They had better players the other night. So there we must differ. We need to address the quality of player coming through. Why can't they pass, move and control a football as well as just about every other nation at the level we aspire to ? Sort that first. 

Correct.

[Gordon EF]

It's not all some geeky Four Four Two / Tifo Football / Football Manager type stuff. Everyone knows formations aren't a silver bullet.

It's aboutmoving towards a system that allows as many of our best players to play in their strongest positions as possible.

The argument against the 5-4-1 is that it's too heavily reliant on Tierney, Hickey, and Robertson being available and on it. Without Tierney, we struggle to get enough players forward. The wing backs have enormous responsibility on this system and it just doesn't work when you don't have two top players on each side.

Circumstances have changed since we adopted the 5-4-1. It took us from a shambles to a competent, often hard to beat side, who could get a big result now and again.

We have better players available in forward positions now, we have full backs on both sides who're good enough to be trusted to be full backs, without needing an extra centre half to cover for them.

Our system needs to evolve to reflect where we are now, not stick with where we were 5 years ago.

[2426255]

12 minutes ago, Gordon EF said:

The argument against the 5-4-1 is that it's too heavily reliant on Tierney, Hickey, and Robertson being available and on it. Without Tierney, we struggle to get enough players forward. The wing backs have enormous responsibility on this system and it just doesn't work when you don't have two top players on each side. Our system needs to evolve to reflect where we are now, not stick with where we were 5 years ago.

The existing system is capable of shifting between shapes depending on the situation. We can see that.

Spoiler

The video I posted isn't from an amateur hobbyist. It's a current professional football manager. It says changing shape is just a question of yardage. That's why the argument moved on from the shape to three 'clunky' centre backs. As we've already discussed it's a simplistic take to think swapping a centre-back for an attacker is a silver bullet. So that's where we are.

Quote

We're talking about yardages. You drop a player in here and that becomes a #10, but it's literally 5 yards. So you drop a player in here and then adjust that player there and that becomes a big difference and yet literally, you're virtually on this anyway: it's a matter of yardage.

Sean Dyche

Edited June 25 by 2426255

[Old Bing]

25 minutes ago, 2426255 said:

Sean Dyche explained that quite well on the Coaches Voice that it's just a matter of yardage. He can explain it better than I can.

https://youtu.be/o3YY7PY-IH0?si=IwkkaX-3YvkJYo7n&t=56

Changing from a back-3 to a back-4 is just similar - all it involves is a single rotation of the back-5, simple as that. That's the logic.

It's as simple as that, but we were unable to do it?? It's really not that simple it involves most of the players moving, nobody can make up that yardage instantaneously. And the chance to counter had to be done immediately, hence the term counter. 

Do you think the Hungary players will wait on the spot while we reorganise?

So moving from a back 5 to a 4 isn't just a simple switch that will always work. We can see evidence of that quite clearly the other night. We were unable to get up the pitch, we were unable to support our forward players, we were unable to create chances.