Nuno Espirito Santo on large squads

[Dullmoan Tone]

Great interview published today about effective motivation and keeping players as a tight cohesive group.

He limits his squads to 18. "I truly believe you can narrow a squad more. When you look at statistics of players being used in different teams, no matter which countries, you see the highest percentage is around 14 or 15 players [with a high % of minutes played].  At the same time you don't have to worry so much about competition because all the players are involved. You have nobody switched off. If you leave three or four players behind, these three or four are not in the same dynamic as the others. So there is a clash, even between best friends. The training sessions of the players that are not involved are the worst ones. And dangerous."

With yesterdays stat that only Charlton have made more starting changes to their line-up than us. You sort of wish LJ would settle on his core [hopefully with Kasey] and coach them; not keep swapping in an out. Perhaps this will be much more effective than hoping we stumble on a great formation (when so many other uncontrollable things affect the performance on the day).

Sorry can't post the whole extract as it's behind a paywall.But you can't argue with how effective it's been at Wolves - even if they do have a massive budget and premium connections.

[Sir Geoff]

I made the same point a couple of months ago re Pep at Man City keeping and using a core of 18 players. Got shot down on here by people saying "How well is that going with their injury crisis"

I happen to totally agree with the philosophy of a core of 18. Keeps everyone motivated, they all know their role etc, etc

[Davefevs]

@Dullmoan Tone great find, thanks

@Sir Geoff indeed, Hassenhutl the same.

Draw your own conclusions from this?  Includes Brownhill but not Moore (because of my filters).

[ohhhshauntaylor]

It was the basis of what we had when we came up- and that group we had clearly bonded. 

[NickJ]

Been saying this for years. You don't need 28 average players, just 18 good ones and a manager with the ability to recruit 18 good ones and bond them.

 

[BobBobSuperBob]

Add Bielsa to the work with a core list

 

Lee thinks he can coach a massive squad in numerous roles in numerous systems amongst constant changes in selection

He can’t 

Not only a team game but football is built on partnerships , or small group relationships , which I themselves then form a team

Knowing the player who normally plays in front of you , to your left , right , behind you , their strengths , weaknesses , their traits , and how you need to adapt your own game to work cohesively with them

Imagine being a player in this side not knowing what role you are likely to be playing next week (if you are actually playing) in what formation and alongside or in front of / behind who , and then being expected to produce and perform to their maximum

 

Hmmmmm good luck with that

 

[Spud55]

4 minutes ago, BobBobSuperBob said:

Add Bielsa to the work with a core list

 

Lee thinks he can coach a massive squad in numerous roles in numerous systems amongst constant changes in selection

He can’t 

Not only a team game but football is built on partnerships , or small group relationships , which I themselves then form a team

Knowing the player who normally plays in front of you , to your left , right , behind you , their strengths , weaknesses , their traits , and how you need to adapt your own game to work cohesively with them

Imagine being a player in this side not knowing what role you are likely to be playing next week (if you are actually playing) in what formation and alongside or in front of / behind who , and then being expected to produce and perform to their maximum

 

Hmmmmm good luck with that

 

Exactly and there lies my whole issue with LJ, you can coach a small set of players to be far beyond the sum of their individual parts, like his old man, that squad we had in 2008 was not particularly big and did not change a great deal from week to week, and they were far better as a unit then their ability as individuals. 

But as soon as he started adding "clubs in the bag" it slowly began to go tits up. Lee is the same, he more than has the ability to coach a small squad of players to perform beyond their ability, as he did in the league Cup half season, it went a bit wonky for the second half of that season, but the balance was ever so slightly out on the small size of the squad, so they did get tired and ran out of steam, and the 12-18/20 were probably not quite of the quality required to continue the momentum.

What Johnson should have taken was that he was very very close to having it nailed, replace Bobby and Joe, and improve the 12-20 positions and away we go. 

But he didn't he went the same way as his old man and decided "clubs in the bag" was the way forward, and it will cost him. 

[Davefevs]

15 minutes ago, BobBobSuperBob said:

Add Bielsa to the work with a core list

 

Lee thinks he can coach a massive squad in numerous roles in numerous systems amongst constant changes in selection

He can’t 

Not only a team game but football is built on partnerships , or small group relationships , which I themselves then form a team

Knowing the player who normally plays in front of you , to your left , right , behind you , their strengths , weaknesses , their traits , and how you need to adapt your own game to work cohesively with them

Imagine being a player in this side not knowing what role you are likely to be playing next week (if you are actually playing) in what formation and alongside or in front of / behind who , and then being expected to produce and perform to their maximum

 

Hmmmmm good luck with that

 

 

5 minutes ago, Spud55 said:

Exactly and there lies my whole issue with LJ, you can coach a small set of players to be far beyond the sum of their individual parts, like his old man, that squad we had in 2008 was not particularly big and did not change a great deal from week to week, and they were far better as a unit then their ability as individuals. 

But as soon as he started adding "clubs in the bag" it slowly began to go tits up. Lee is the same, he more than has the ability to coach a small squad of players to perform beyond their ability, as he did in the league Cup half season, it went a bit wonky for the second half of that season, but the balance was ever so slightly out on the small size of the squad, so they did get tired and ran out of steam, and the 12-18/20 were probably not quite of the quality required to continue the momentum.

What Johnson should have taken was that he was very very close to having it nailed, replace Bobby and Joe, and improve the 12-20 positions and away we go. 

But he didn't he went the same way as his old man and decided "clubs in the bag" was the way forward, and it will cost him. 

[italian dave]

It makes a lot of sense, and there's also plenty of evidence that teams using the fewest players during a season do well. (Slightly harder nowadays to demonstrate that when sides deliberately rotate, esp for cup games.

I think LJ has said in the past that his ideal squad is 22, with two players for each position. 18/22 - is there much in that?

Looking a @Davefevs list, I feel that overstates our real, genuine first team, squad. Personally I wouldn't see Hinds or Janneh (and probably not Vyner) in that: realistically they aren't going to get near the bench even unless we have a horrendous run of injuries, or nothing to play for. We know the reason for 4 goalkeepers: Gilmartin himself sees his principal role as coach, and Woolacott is there as the home grown player. And we arguably wouldn't have Williams or Wells had it not been for our injury problems this season (tho' I'd accept that we probably didn't need to bring Williams in either). So, to me, that's looking closer to the 22 man LJ ideal.

But it's the point @Bob Bob Super Bob makes that's the biggest concern: there doesnt seem to be the balance in there. We've got players who aren't direct or obvious replacements for the same role in the same system. Eliasson, Palmer, Diedhiou, Afobe, all require different formations to be built around them. We've got two players for each full back position, but in both cases one's a defensive, 442, full back and the other is better as a 352 wingback. What Bielsa (and Nunes) do well is the build both the squad, and the team every week, around a consistent formation and style of play (even if that means leaving a player like Nketiah on the bench).

I hope that our transfer activity this summer will be more about getting players out and in that will mean that - even if its a squad of 22 - we can play to a consistent formation and style and rotate around that. And less about the money. Eliasson might potentially help with both, otherwise I'm not sure

 

[wayne allisons tongues]

Our best results seen to be when we have an injury crisis and basically the team picks itself.

As soon as players come back from injury we normally go on an awful run of results for LJ isn’t prepared to stick to a core of 12 to 15 players and always has to find a scapegoat.

[Davefevs]

9 minutes ago, italian dave said:

It makes a lot of sense, and there's also plenty of evidence that teams using the fewest players during a season do well. (Slightly harder nowadays to demonstrate that when sides deliberately rotate, esp for cup games.

I think LJ has said in the past that his ideal squad is 22, with two players for each position. 18/22 - is there much in that?

Looking a @Davefevs list, I feel that overstates our real, genuine first team, squad. Personally I wouldn't see Hinds or Janneh (and probably not Vyner) in that: realistically they aren't going to get near the bench even unless we have a horrendous run of injuries, or nothing to play for. We know the reason for 4 goalkeepers: Gilmartin himself sees his principal role as coach, and Woolacott is there as the home grown player. And we arguably wouldn't have Williams or Wells had it not been for our injury problems this season (tho' I'd accept that we probably didn't need to bring Williams in either). So, to me, that's looking closer to the 22 man LJ ideal.

But it's the point @Bob Bob Super Bob makes that's the biggest concern: there doesnt seem to be the balance in there. We've got players who aren't direct or obvious replacements for the same role in the same system. Eliasson, Palmer, Diedhiou, Afobe, all require different formations to be built around them. We've got two players for each full back position, but in both cases one's a defensive, 442, full back and the other is better as a 352 wingback. What Bielsa (and Nunes) do well is the build both the squad, and the team every week, around a consistent formation and style of play (even if that means leaving a player like Nketiah on the bench).

I hope that our transfer activity this summer will be more about getting players out and in that will mean that - even if its a squad of 22 - we can play to a consistent formation and style and rotate around that. And less about the money. Eliasson might potentially help with both, otherwise I'm not sure

 

I wasn’t listing it to show numbers of players in our squad (that’s a very different debate), but to show the minutes spread across many players....against the OP saying the vast majority of minutes are shared by 14/15 players.  In our squad, we have 2 players over 3000 minutes, Josh would’ve made it 3.  That’s the point I was failing to make.  Injuries will be a mitigation.

Bob’s point is a concern.

Your point re transfers in the summer is what I would like to see too.

[intercity]

8 minutes ago, wayne allisons tongues said:

Our best results seen to be when we have an injury crisis and basically the team picks itself.

As soon as players come back from injury we normally go on an awful run of results for LJ isn’t prepared to stick to a core of 12 to 15 players and always has to find a scapegoat.

Exactly this. It would be interesting to see the correlation between number of injuries and results. I think it would absolutely show Lee Johnson is able to manage a more limited number of players better.

Almost criminal he is allowed to mismanage such a large squad. If he stays, he shouldn't be allowed any more players. That's on SL.

 

[East End Old Boy]

1 hour ago, ohhhshauntaylor said:

It was the basis of what we had when we came up- and that group we had clearly bonded. 

And during our best days in the 1970’s.