LJ's style of play...

[spudski]

....I read this article and thought it relevant to how we have developed 'our style of play'....and that LJ said he needed transfer windows to get players in to implement that style of play.

It makes a lot of sense to me...and certainly makes a mockery of changing your manager every year or so.

For anyone interested, it's a bit long, but if you are in to this kind of stuff, worth a read....

The common myth: Football coaches can change/learn new styles.

How do we learn a thing? If you are in any normal pursuit, you probably read a book, or take a course. Maybe you check out some peer-reviewed journal articles, should you have access to materials at a university. Possibly, what you want to learn has some expert sites on the internet, so you trawl through their material to get up to speed. In a few rare cases, maybe you are lucky enough to have access to a subject matter expert and you ask them for information.

That’s for normal subjects, which covers the vast spectrum of all things humans need to know.

Now… how do you learn if you are a coach?

This is a question that has fascinated me since I started working inside of football, not least because I needed to figure out the best ways for me to impart my knowledge to coaches for them to use. So I started studying the problem inside of our clubs, and also took the English FA Level 2 Coaching Course to see how new coaches learn from a personal point of view.

What I figured out is this:

How coaches learn is

1. an unbelievably important thing for people who work high up in football to know.
2. horribly misunderstood by almost every decision maker I have encountered.

It’s not really anyone’s fault – it’s just that picking up coaching knowledge is so different than how humans learn almost anything else, it’s easy to make assumptions that seem natural, but are quite clearly wrong.

The issue here is that unlike almost every modern profession in the world, coaching is really an apprenticeship. Instead of learning via reading or attending lectures, the vast majority of knowledge you need to do the job comes via observing and doing. Theory is still important, but the practical element is dominant.

Before we carry on, let’s break the job down further – what do coaches actually do?

Choose a style of play for their team.
All the potential styles of play under the sun are possible, both in attack and defense.

Design training sessions to impart knowledge to their players about the style of play and specific tactics.
Once you have chosen how you want your team to play, you need to teach that to the players through training.

Teach. Communicate.
These elements are huge. If you can’t teach and communicate your ideas in a clear and effective manner, then you aren’t likely to be a good coach. And the subjects you need to teach to players are potentially vast and hugely different, but cover all areas of technique, tactics, phases of the game, and dynamic situation analysis of yourself, your teammates, and the opposition.

Football is complicated. That’s one of the things that makes it so captivating.

Interventions.
So much of what a coach actually does in training is correcting things that are not quite right, or teaching players about the options they had available. A teachable moment occurs, the coach stops training, rewinds to what they want to discuss, and then corrects actions to how they want it done in the future.

Conduct meetings.
These meetings can cover a variety of topics including reviewing training, reviewing games, what to expect from upcoming opponents, teaching new tactics, etc. You only get so much time on the pitch each week as a coach, and then everything else you need to give your players comes outside that area, typically through video review. That means meetings, and at the professional level, potentially lots of them.

These are just the basic elements of the job, but there are plenty additional responsibilities I have skipped over for the sake of brevity.

Right, so now we know what coaches do – the next step is learning how to do it. In order to teach the material to players at an elite level, you have to master the material yourself.

Where does that mastery come from?

• Playing the game.
  It’s possible you picked up some coaching basics via osmosis when your brain and body were busy learning how to play.
• Learning from past coaches you played under.
  Most of these will not be role models for the modern game, especially if you played in England.
• Coaches you apprentice under as a lower level, or assistant coach.
  Most new coaches land at their early jobs not based on what those jobs can teach them, but based on the fact that those were the jobs they could get. How many of those will be great learning environments?
• Coaching courses and licenses.
  In many cases, you are required to go on these to maintain your licenses. Like many courses in other pursuits, some are useful, some are not.
• Internet resources.
  Useful, but a mixed bag of material and rarely comprehensive.
• Watching other teams play?
  With regard to this one, how do you go about seeing tactics in game situations and turning them into training sessions for players?

Without belaboring the point too much, coaching is a knowledge-based profession that is also a practical apprenticeship, and it’s incredibly hard to find a good place to learn how to do it well.

Let’s step away from coaching as a whole, and make this simpler… Say I want to learn how to train a single tactical element from top to bottom, and do that well.

Pick one item from the following list:

• Defensive pressure like Jurgen Klopp
• Generate great shots like Arsenal
• Execute set pieces like Atletico Madrid

Awesome, we have a topic… now what?

Uh… I don’t know?

You can’t exactly walk up to The Jurgen Klopp School of Football Coaching and get a degree in Rock and Roll Gegenpressen. And as far as I am aware, there is no Arsene Wenger MBA of Elite Attacking on offer at any university in England, nor Cholo Simeone’s Science of Set Pieces anywhere at all.

This is unfortunate, because as a student of the game and someone who actually needs to know a lot of this stuff to be better at his job, I would enroll in this as an Executive MBA program in a heartbeat.

It sounds like I am joking, but this is serious stuff – if you are a young British coach that wants your team to learn German-style defensive pressure, how do you do it? Where do you do it?

The basic unit of coaching is a training session. Where can I find 10 or 20 or 30 training sessions strictly on imparting the knowledge of zonal defensive pressure and gegenpressing, explained in detail?

And more importantly, where can I find the video of those training sessions, so that I can learn what right and wrong look like in training, and be able to make crucial interventions? Because that is what you need to have in order to learn the material well enough to teach it to players who are unfamiliar with the concepts. You need example after example of what is right and wrong, and an expert pointing these things out and explaining the difference.

This isn’t just a personal lament – I’m writing about it because it explains one of the incredible oddities of the football world: coaches almost never change styles.

This is weird, right? Coaches are typically smart, and football is a dynamic game that changes tactically on a regular basis. So why do so few coaches go on to incorporate other styles or develop new ones over the course of their career?

• As noted above, it’s hard to learn a new style in the first place.
• Where and when are they going to test out that style while learning it?

Successful learning environments are low pressure, where students can make and learn from mistakes while getting feedback. Making mistakes (and reviewing them) is fine because that is how we learn, especially in a hands-on, process-oriented job like coaching.

All first team coaching jobs in pretty much every professional league in the world are high pressure environments. You’re a first team coach – your job is to win matches. If you don’t win matches, you will be replaced. Period.

These two things are wholly incompatible. Being a first team coach means you exist in a terrible learning environment.

Additionally, when pressure increases, we tend to revert back to what we know and think works best. Which in coaching terms will be the tactics you are most familiar with from your historic learning journey.

Thus is it any wonder that we rarely see professional football coaches learn new things?  For most of them, their job makes for an environment totally inhospitable to experimentation, which is crucial in the pursuit and mastery of new knowledge.

THIS IS A HUGE PROBLEM!

Say you want to hire a new head coach because your old one was too successful and has been poached by a bigger club. You find a new coach whose personality works, who seems open to new things, but his past teams have only exhibited two of the four crucial components to your club’s style of play. What do you do?

“Well, [new coach] can learn what they don’t already know.”

Maybe.

Probably not.

Definitely not if this change is happening in-season, or if the job is a high pressure job – as pretty much all of them are. Even if they want to increase their knowledge, it might not be possible because the learning environment is toxic.

At the end of the day, understanding the problem fundamentally changes how we address it.

Instead of “[new coach] can learn what they don’t already know” decision makers need to ask the following:

“How do we enable [new coach] to learn what we want them to know?”

New coaches are what they are. Do not expect them to fundamentally change on their own – we have an overwhelming amount of evidence that indicates that doesn’t happen. Instead you need to think about empowering them to learn and provide subject matter experts to bolster their knowledge.

So How Can a Coach Learn New Things?

• Spend time interning with coaches who already know these things. This would presumably involve going to watch training with other clubs during the off season. The problem here is that most coaches are secretive about their training and tactical knowledge, and the off season happens at the same time for practically every club in Europe. Where and when would you do this?
• Hire assistant coaches that are subject matter experts. The obvious example here is hiring set piece coaches to coach your set pieces, but it can be true across the whole spectrum of coaching expertise. In American football, there are coaches for each specific football role (Quarterback, Offensive Line, Running Backs, Wide Receivers, etc), as well as coordinators who sit on top of offense, defense, and special teams and who all report to the head coach. These act like coach-analysts I have mentioned in my previous work, and can be more hands on with players about every aspect of their games.

  Want to implement a defensive press? Hire a bright, young defensive coach who has expertise in this area to work inside of your coaching staff. Hopefully the personality and linguistic differences work out fine, and everyone ends up happy. That last bit is tricky, but people need to make it work because it’s one of the only possible ways to add new knowledge to your club.

• Create training programs inside your own club to address these areas. As I noted above, there’s very little public learning material that can turn you into an expert in specific tactical areas, or even to give you the basic paths for learning the information. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible. If a club wanted to, it could go out of its way to create courses that teach the various elements of its style of play, complete with instructional videos, videos of past training, session plans, and written explanations that tie it all together.

  Make no mistake, it’s a lot of work to create something where nothing existed before. But if your club has taken the time to develop a style of play it thinks is important, doesn’t that deserve the investment necessary to make sure every coach inside the club can learn all of the tactical elements inside of that style to an elite level? Including incoming head coaches that may only have parts of the knowledge you need them to have?

It comes back around to this: football is a knowledge-based game. Smarter coaches and smarter players equal smarter results. And yet our ability to increase coaching knowledge is somehow incredibly limited.

Remember, it’s not just book learning we are talking about. It’s learning the material well enough to communicate it to other people. It’s seeing the situations in training and on the pitch, recognizing they are outside the ideal, and then correcting them in a way that the player can understand and that makes them better for the future. And it’s reviewing training and game performance to figure out what is missing, so you can implement and adapt future training sessions to address that.

There’s one more big thing that is missing, even from the points above: reps.

In any new learning, it’s important to be able to practice a skill repeatedly. The more you do it, the more situations you see, the broader the knowledge base you build for what does and does not work in those various situations. If you are a professional coach who wants to add new tactics to their bag of tricks, how do you get the training and game reps to improve your learning and cement the new knowledge?

I don’t actually know the answer to that question, but I do know it’s important.

Head coaches already have too much on their plates at most clubs, but maybe the assistants can also coach academy teams in order to gain experience in tactical evaluation and organization cycles? Regardless of my inability to provide an acceptable answer, it’s noted here because it’s another important element that needs consideration.

Conclusion

• Coaching is a different type of profession than most of the world’s occupations.
• How coaches learn is radically different than how most people learn to do their jobs.
• Decision makers need to understand these facts. If they don’t, they have expectations for what coaches can and cannot do that are unaligned to reality. This gets expensive when teams are constantly firing head coaches and bringing in new ones in attempts to fix perceived inadequacies.
• Resources for learning new tactics and how to teach them to coaches and players alike are scarce. This makes learning new things somewhere between difficult and impossible.
• If you want to have a coherent style of play from one coaching generation to another, then clubs need to make sure they take steps to enable and empower new coaches to learn their style of play at an expert level.

[SuperDziek]

Blimey. Any chance of a summary in a paragraph?

[BobBobSuperBob]

4 minutes ago, SuperDziek said:

Blimey. Any chance of a summary in a paragraph?

Eleven busy bees 

[Son of Fred]

An epic but interesting read...thanks Spudski.

Was it Cloughie or Shanks that thought football was a simple game ?!....

[ZiderEyed]

Superb post as usual Spudski. Thanks a lot.

[deadredfred]

I have a tired thumb. I'll attempt that later. Looks interesting 

[Mr Popodopolous]

16 minutes ago, Robert the bruce said:

An epic but interesting read...thanks Spudski.

Was it Cloughie or Shanks that thought football was a simple game ?!....

Both probably..

Was then perhaps- most certainly not now, above League One let's say!

[Sir Colby-Tit]

50 minutes ago, spudski said:

....I read this article and thought it relevant to how we have developed 'our style of play'....and that LJ said he needed transfer windows to get players in to implement that style of play.

It makes a lot of sense to me...and certainly makes a mockery of changing your manager every year or so.

For anyone interested, it's a bit long, but if you are in to this kind of stuff, worth a read....

The common myth: Football coaches can change/learn new styles.

How do we learn a thing? If you are in any normal pursuit, you probably read a book, or take a course. Maybe you check out some peer-reviewed journal articles, should you have access to materials at a university. Possibly, what you want to learn has some expert sites on the internet, so you trawl through their material to get up to speed. In a few rare cases, maybe you are lucky enough to have access to a subject matter expert and you ask them for information.

That’s for normal subjects, which covers the vast spectrum of all things humans need to know.

Now… how do you learn if you are a coach?

This is a question that has fascinated me since I started working inside of football, not least because I needed to figure out the best ways for me to impart my knowledge to coaches for them to use. So I started studying the problem inside of our clubs, and also took the English FA Level 2 Coaching Course to see how new coaches learn from a personal point of view.

What I figured out is this:

How coaches learn is

1. an unbelievably important thing for people who work high up in football to know.
2. horribly misunderstood by almost every decision maker I have encountered.

It’s not really anyone’s fault – it’s just that picking up coaching knowledge is so different than how humans learn almost anything else, it’s easy to make assumptions that seem natural, but are quite clearly wrong.

The issue here is that unlike almost every modern profession in the world, coaching is really an apprenticeship. Instead of learning via reading or attending lectures, the vast majority of knowledge you need to do the job comes via observing and doing. Theory is still important, but the practical element is dominant.

Before we carry on, let’s break the job down further – what do coaches actually do?

Choose a style of play for their team.
All the potential styles of play under the sun are possible, both in attack and defense.

Design training sessions to impart knowledge to their players about the style of play and specific tactics.
Once you have chosen how you want your team to play, you need to teach that to the players through training.

Teach. Communicate.
These elements are huge. If you can’t teach and communicate your ideas in a clear and effective manner, then you aren’t likely to be a good coach. And the subjects you need to teach to players are potentially vast and hugely different, but cover all areas of technique, tactics, phases of the game, and dynamic situation analysis of yourself, your teammates, and the opposition.

Football is complicated. That’s one of the things that makes it so captivating.

Interventions.
So much of what a coach actually does in training is correcting things that are not quite right, or teaching players about the options they had available. A teachable moment occurs, the coach stops training, rewinds to what they want to discuss, and then corrects actions to how they want it done in the future.

Conduct meetings.
These meetings can cover a variety of topics including reviewing training, reviewing games, what to expect from upcoming opponents, teaching new tactics, etc. You only get so much time on the pitch each week as a coach, and then everything else you need to give your players comes outside that area, typically through video review. That means meetings, and at the professional level, potentially lots of them.

These are just the basic elements of the job, but there are plenty additional responsibilities I have skipped over for the sake of brevity.

Right, so now we know what coaches do – the next step is learning how to do it. In order to teach the material to players at an elite level, you have to master the material yourself.

Where does that mastery come from?

• Playing the game.
  It’s possible you picked up some coaching basics via osmosis when your brain and body were busy learning how to play.
• Learning from past coaches you played under.
  Most of these will not be role models for the modern game, especially if you played in England.
• Coaches you apprentice under as a lower level, or assistant coach.
  Most new coaches land at their early jobs not based on what those jobs can teach them, but based on the fact that those were the jobs they could get. How many of those will be great learning environments?
• Coaching courses and licenses.
  In many cases, you are required to go on these to maintain your licenses. Like many courses in other pursuits, some are useful, some are not.
• Internet resources.
  Useful, but a mixed bag of material and rarely comprehensive.
• Watching other teams play?
  With regard to this one, how do you go about seeing tactics in game situations and turning them into training sessions for players?

Without belaboring the point too much, coaching is a knowledge-based profession that is also a practical apprenticeship, and it’s incredibly hard to find a good place to learn how to do it well.

Let’s step away from coaching as a whole, and make this simpler… Say I want to learn how to train a single tactical element from top to bottom, and do that well.

Pick one item from the following list:

• Defensive pressure like Jurgen Klopp
• Generate great shots like Arsenal
• Execute set pieces like Atletico Madrid

Awesome, we have a topic… now what?

Uh… I don’t know?

You can’t exactly walk up to The Jurgen Klopp School of Football Coaching and get a degree in Rock and Roll Gegenpressen. And as far as I am aware, there is no Arsene Wenger MBA of Elite Attacking on offer at any university in England, nor Cholo Simeone’s Science of Set Pieces anywhere at all.

This is unfortunate, because as a student of the game and someone who actually needs to know a lot of this stuff to be better at his job, I would enroll in this as an Executive MBA program in a heartbeat.

It sounds like I am joking, but this is serious stuff – if you are a young British coach that wants your team to learn German-style defensive pressure, how do you do it? Where do you do it?

The basic unit of coaching is a training session. Where can I find 10 or 20 or 30 training sessions strictly on imparting the knowledge of zonal defensive pressure and gegenpressing, explained in detail?

And more importantly, where can I find the video of those training sessions, so that I can learn what right and wrong look like in training, and be able to make crucial interventions? Because that is what you need to have in order to learn the material well enough to teach it to players who are unfamiliar with the concepts. You need example after example of what is right and wrong, and an expert pointing these things out and explaining the difference.

This isn’t just a personal lament – I’m writing about it because it explains one of the incredible oddities of the football world: coaches almost never change styles.

This is weird, right? Coaches are typically smart, and football is a dynamic game that changes tactically on a regular basis. So why do so few coaches go on to incorporate other styles or develop new ones over the course of their career?

• As noted above, it’s hard to learn a new style in the first place.
• Where and when are they going to test out that style while learning it?

Successful learning environments are low pressure, where students can make and learn from mistakes while getting feedback. Making mistakes (and reviewing them) is fine because that is how we learn, especially in a hands-on, process-oriented job like coaching.

All first team coaching jobs in pretty much every professional league in the world are high pressure environments. You’re a first team coach – your job is to win matches. If you don’t win matches, you will be replaced. Period.

These two things are wholly incompatible. Being a first team coach means you exist in a terrible learning environment.

Additionally, when pressure increases, we tend to revert back to what we know and think works best. Which in coaching terms will be the tactics you are most familiar with from your historic learning journey.

Thus is it any wonder that we rarely see professional football coaches learn new things?  For most of them, their job makes for an environment totally inhospitable to experimentation, which is crucial in the pursuit and mastery of new knowledge.

THIS IS A HUGE PROBLEM!

Say you want to hire a new head coach because your old one was too successful and has been poached by a bigger club. You find a new coach whose personality works, who seems open to new things, but his past teams have only exhibited two of the four crucial components to your club’s style of play. What do you do?

“Well, [new coach] can learn what they don’t already know.”

Maybe.

Probably not.

Definitely not if this change is happening in-season, or if the job is a high pressure job – as pretty much all of them are. Even if they want to increase their knowledge, it might not be possible because the learning environment is toxic.

At the end of the day, understanding the problem fundamentally changes how we address it.

Instead of “[new coach] can learn what they don’t already know” decision makers need to ask the following:

“How do we enable [new coach] to learn what we want them to know?”

New coaches are what they are. Do not expect them to fundamentally change on their own – we have an overwhelming amount of evidence that indicates that doesn’t happen. Instead you need to think about empowering them to learn and provide subject matter experts to bolster their knowledge.

So How Can a Coach Learn New Things?

• Spend time interning with coaches who already know these things. This would presumably involve going to watch training with other clubs during the off season. The problem here is that most coaches are secretive about their training and tactical knowledge, and the off season happens at the same time for practically every club in Europe. Where and when would you do this?
• Hire assistant coaches that are subject matter experts. The obvious example here is hiring set piece coaches to coach your set pieces, but it can be true across the whole spectrum of coaching expertise. In American football, there are coaches for each specific football role (Quarterback, Offensive Line, Running Backs, Wide Receivers, etc), as well as coordinators who sit on top of offense, defense, and special teams and who all report to the head coach. These act like coach-analysts I have mentioned in my previous work, and can be more hands on with players about every aspect of their games.

  Want to implement a defensive press? Hire a bright, young defensive coach who has expertise in this area to work inside of your coaching staff. Hopefully the personality and linguistic differences work out fine, and everyone ends up happy. That last bit is tricky, but people need to make it work because it’s one of the only possible ways to add new knowledge to your club.

• Create training programs inside your own club to address these areas. As I noted above, there’s very little public learning material that can turn you into an expert in specific tactical areas, or even to give you the basic paths for learning the information. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible. If a club wanted to, it could go out of its way to create courses that teach the various elements of its style of play, complete with instructional videos, videos of past training, session plans, and written explanations that tie it all together.

  Make no mistake, it’s a lot of work to create something where nothing existed before. But if your club has taken the time to develop a style of play it thinks is important, doesn’t that deserve the investment necessary to make sure every coach inside the club can learn all of the tactical elements inside of that style to an elite level? Including incoming head coaches that may only have parts of the knowledge you need them to have?

It comes back around to this: football is a knowledge-based game. Smarter coaches and smarter players equal smarter results. And yet our ability to increase coaching knowledge is somehow incredibly limited.

Remember, it’s not just book learning we are talking about. It’s learning the material well enough to communicate it to other people. It’s seeing the situations in training and on the pitch, recognizing they are outside the ideal, and then correcting them in a way that the player can understand and that makes them better for the future. And it’s reviewing training and game performance to figure out what is missing, so you can implement and adapt future training sessions to address that.

There’s one more big thing that is missing, even from the points above: reps.

In any new learning, it’s important to be able to practice a skill repeatedly. The more you do it, the more situations you see, the broader the knowledge base you build for what does and does not work in those various situations. If you are a professional coach who wants to add new tactics to their bag of tricks, how do you get the training and game reps to improve your learning and cement the new knowledge?

I don’t actually know the answer to that question, but I do know it’s important.

Head coaches already have too much on their plates at most clubs, but maybe the assistants can also coach academy teams in order to gain experience in tactical evaluation and organization cycles? Regardless of my inability to provide an acceptable answer, it’s noted here because it’s another important element that needs consideration.

Conclusion

• Coaching is a different type of profession than most of the world’s occupations.
• How coaches learn is radically different than how most people learn to do their jobs.
• Decision makers need to understand these facts. If they don’t, they have expectations for what coaches can and cannot do that are unaligned to reality. This gets expensive when teams are constantly firing head coaches and bringing in new ones in attempts to fix perceived inadequacies.
• Resources for learning new tactics and how to teach them to coaches and players alike are scarce. This makes learning new things somewhere between difficult and impossible.
• If you want to have a coherent style of play from one coaching generation to another, then clubs need to make sure they take steps to enable and empower new coaches to learn their style of play at an expert level.

Quoted for annoyance 

[AppyDAZE]

1 hour ago, SuperDziek said:

Blimey. Any chance of a summary in a paragraph?

:laugh:   Some of us have jobs

[spudski]

5 minutes ago, AppyDAZE said:

Some of us have jobs

The secret is to have two laptops open. One for work...one for pleasure. ;-) Bit useless if you are a Brickie though :-)

[Guest Benjam!n Ultra]

[archie andrews]

1 hour ago, spudski said:

....I read this article and thought it relevant to how we have developed 'our style of play'....and that LJ said he needed transfer windows to get players in to implement that style of play.

It makes a lot of sense to me...and certainly makes a mockery of changing your manager every year or so.

For anyone interested, it's a bit long, but if you are in to this kind of stuff, worth a read....

The common myth: Football coaches can change/learn new styles.

How do we learn a thing? If you are in any normal pursuit, you probably read a book, or take a course. Maybe you check out some peer-reviewed journal articles, should you have access to materials at a university. Possibly, what you want to learn has some expert sites on the internet, so you trawl through their material to get up to speed. In a few rare cases, maybe you are lucky enough to have access to a subject matter expert and you ask them for information.

That’s for normal subjects, which covers the vast spectrum of all things humans need to know.

Now… how do you learn if you are a coach?

This is a question that has fascinated me since I started working inside of football, not least because I needed to figure out the best ways for me to impart my knowledge to coaches for them to use. So I started studying the problem inside of our clubs, and also took the English FA Level 2 Coaching Course to see how new coaches learn from a personal point of view.

What I figured out is this:

How coaches learn is

1. an unbelievably important thing for people who work high up in football to know.
2. horribly misunderstood by almost every decision maker I have encountered.

It’s not really anyone’s fault – it’s just that picking up coaching knowledge is so different than how humans learn almost anything else, it’s easy to make assumptions that seem natural, but are quite clearly wrong.

The issue here is that unlike almost every modern profession in the world, coaching is really an apprenticeship. Instead of learning via reading or attending lectures, the vast majority of knowledge you need to do the job comes via observing and doing. Theory is still important, but the practical element is dominant.

Before we carry on, let’s break the job down further – what do coaches actually do?

Choose a style of play for their team.
All the potential styles of play under the sun are possible, both in attack and defense.

Design training sessions to impart knowledge to their players about the style of play and specific tactics.
Once you have chosen how you want your team to play, you need to teach that to the players through training.

Teach. Communicate.
These elements are huge. If you can’t teach and communicate your ideas in a clear and effective manner, then you aren’t likely to be a good coach. And the subjects you need to teach to players are potentially vast and hugely different, but cover all areas of technique, tactics, phases of the game, and dynamic situation analysis of yourself, your teammates, and the opposition.

Football is complicated. That’s one of the things that makes it so captivating.

Interventions.
So much of what a coach actually does in training is correcting things that are not quite right, or teaching players about the options they had available. A teachable moment occurs, the coach stops training, rewinds to what they want to discuss, and then corrects actions to how they want it done in the future.

Conduct meetings.
These meetings can cover a variety of topics including reviewing training, reviewing games, what to expect from upcoming opponents, teaching new tactics, etc. You only get so much time on the pitch each week as a coach, and then everything else you need to give your players comes outside that area, typically through video review. That means meetings, and at the professional level, potentially lots of them.

These are just the basic elements of the job, but there are plenty additional responsibilities I have skipped over for the sake of brevity.

Right, so now we know what coaches do – the next step is learning how to do it. In order to teach the material to players at an elite level, you have to master the material yourself.

Where does that mastery come from?

• Playing the game.
  It’s possible you picked up some coaching basics via osmosis when your brain and body were busy learning how to play.
• Learning from past coaches you played under.
  Most of these will not be role models for the modern game, especially if you played in England.
• Coaches you apprentice under as a lower level, or assistant coach.
  Most new coaches land at their early jobs not based on what those jobs can teach them, but based on the fact that those were the jobs they could get. How many of those will be great learning environments?
• Coaching courses and licenses.
  In many cases, you are required to go on these to maintain your licenses. Like many courses in other pursuits, some are useful, some are not.
• Internet resources.
  Useful, but a mixed bag of material and rarely comprehensive.
• Watching other teams play?
  With regard to this one, how do you go about seeing tactics in game situations and turning them into training sessions for players?

Without belaboring the point too much, coaching is a knowledge-based profession that is also a practical apprenticeship, and it’s incredibly hard to find a good place to learn how to do it well.

Let’s step away from coaching as a whole, and make this simpler… Say I want to learn how to train a single tactical element from top to bottom, and do that well.

Pick one item from the following list:

• Defensive pressure like Jurgen Klopp
• Generate great shots like Arsenal
• Execute set pieces like Atletico Madrid

Awesome, we have a topic… now what?

Uh… I don’t know?

You can’t exactly walk up to The Jurgen Klopp School of Football Coaching and get a degree in Rock and Roll Gegenpressen. And as far as I am aware, there is no Arsene Wenger MBA of Elite Attacking on offer at any university in England, nor Cholo Simeone’s Science of Set Pieces anywhere at all.

This is unfortunate, because as a student of the game and someone who actually needs to know a lot of this stuff to be better at his job, I would enroll in this as an Executive MBA program in a heartbeat.

It sounds like I am joking, but this is serious stuff – if you are a young British coach that wants your team to learn German-style defensive pressure, how do you do it? Where do you do it?

The basic unit of coaching is a training session. Where can I find 10 or 20 or 30 training sessions strictly on imparting the knowledge of zonal defensive pressure and gegenpressing, explained in detail?

And more importantly, where can I find the video of those training sessions, so that I can learn what right and wrong look like in training, and be able to make crucial interventions? Because that is what you need to have in order to learn the material well enough to teach it to players who are unfamiliar with the concepts. You need example after example of what is right and wrong, and an expert pointing these things out and explaining the difference.

This isn’t just a personal lament – I’m writing about it because it explains one of the incredible oddities of the football world: coaches almost never change styles.

This is weird, right? Coaches are typically smart, and football is a dynamic game that changes tactically on a regular basis. So why do so few coaches go on to incorporate other styles or develop new ones over the course of their career?

• As noted above, it’s hard to learn a new style in the first place.
• Where and when are they going to test out that style while learning it?

Successful learning environments are low pressure, where students can make and learn from mistakes while getting feedback. Making mistakes (and reviewing them) is fine because that is how we learn, especially in a hands-on, process-oriented job like coaching.

All first team coaching jobs in pretty much every professional league in the world are high pressure environments. You’re a first team coach – your job is to win matches. If you don’t win matches, you will be replaced. Period.

These two things are wholly incompatible. Being a first team coach means you exist in a terrible learning environment.

Additionally, when pressure increases, we tend to revert back to what we know and think works best. Which in coaching terms will be the tactics you are most familiar with from your historic learning journey.

Thus is it any wonder that we rarely see professional football coaches learn new things?  For most of them, their job makes for an environment totally inhospitable to experimentation, which is crucial in the pursuit and mastery of new knowledge.

THIS IS A HUGE PROBLEM!

Say you want to hire a new head coach because your old one was too successful and has been poached by a bigger club. You find a new coach whose personality works, who seems open to new things, but his past teams have only exhibited two of the four crucial components to your club’s style of play. What do you do?

“Well, [new coach] can learn what they don’t already know.”

Maybe.

Probably not.

Definitely not if this change is happening in-season, or if the job is a high pressure job – as pretty much all of them are. Even if they want to increase their knowledge, it might not be possible because the learning environment is toxic.

At the end of the day, understanding the problem fundamentally changes how we address it.

Instead of “[new coach] can learn what they don’t already know” decision makers need to ask the following:

“How do we enable [new coach] to learn what we want them to know?”

New coaches are what they are. Do not expect them to fundamentally change on their own – we have an overwhelming amount of evidence that indicates that doesn’t happen. Instead you need to think about empowering them to learn and provide subject matter experts to bolster their knowledge.

So How Can a Coach Learn New Things?

• Spend time interning with coaches who already know these things. This would presumably involve going to watch training with other clubs during the off season. The problem here is that most coaches are secretive about their training and tactical knowledge, and the off season happens at the same time for practically every club in Europe. Where and when would you do this?
• Hire assistant coaches that are subject matter experts. The obvious example here is hiring set piece coaches to coach your set pieces, but it can be true across the whole spectrum of coaching expertise. In American football, there are coaches for each specific football role (Quarterback, Offensive Line, Running Backs, Wide Receivers, etc), as well as coordinators who sit on top of offense, defense, and special teams and who all report to the head coach. These act like coach-analysts I have mentioned in my previous work, and can be more hands on with players about every aspect of their games.

  Want to implement a defensive press? Hire a bright, young defensive coach who has expertise in this area to work inside of your coaching staff. Hopefully the personality and linguistic differences work out fine, and everyone ends up happy. That last bit is tricky, but people need to make it work because it’s one of the only possible ways to add new knowledge to your club.

• Create training programs inside your own club to address these areas. As I noted above, there’s very little public learning material that can turn you into an expert in specific tactical areas, or even to give you the basic paths for learning the information. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible. If a club wanted to, it could go out of its way to create courses that teach the various elements of its style of play, complete with instructional videos, videos of past training, session plans, and written explanations that tie it all together.

  Make no mistake, it’s a lot of work to create something where nothing existed before. But if your club has taken the time to develop a style of play it thinks is important, doesn’t that deserve the investment necessary to make sure every coach inside the club can learn all of the tactical elements inside of that style to an elite level? Including incoming head coaches that may only have parts of the knowledge you need them to have?

It comes back around to this: football is a knowledge-based game. Smarter coaches and smarter players equal smarter results. And yet our ability to increase coaching knowledge is somehow incredibly limited.

Remember, it’s not just book learning we are talking about. It’s learning the material well enough to communicate it to other people. It’s seeing the situations in training and on the pitch, recognizing they are outside the ideal, and then correcting them in a way that the player can understand and that makes them better for the future. And it’s reviewing training and game performance to figure out what is missing, so you can implement and adapt future training sessions to address that.

There’s one more big thing that is missing, even from the points above: reps.

In any new learning, it’s important to be able to practice a skill repeatedly. The more you do it, the more situations you see, the broader the knowledge base you build for what does and does not work in those various situations. If you are a professional coach who wants to add new tactics to their bag of tricks, how do you get the training and game reps to improve your learning and cement the new knowledge?

I don’t actually know the answer to that question, but I do know it’s important.

Head coaches already have too much on their plates at most clubs, but maybe the assistants can also coach academy teams in order to gain experience in tactical evaluation and organization cycles? Regardless of my inability to provide an acceptable answer, it’s noted here because it’s another important element that needs consideration.

Conclusion

• Coaching is a different type of profession than most of the world’s occupations.
• How coaches learn is radically different than how most people learn to do their jobs.
• Decision makers need to understand these facts. If they don’t, they have expectations for what coaches can and cannot do that are unaligned to reality. This gets expensive when teams are constantly firing head coaches and bringing in new ones in attempts to fix perceived inadequacies.
• Resources for learning new tactics and how to teach them to coaches and players alike are scarce. This makes learning new things somewhere between difficult and impossible.
• If you want to have a coherent style of play from one coaching generation to another, then clubs need to make sure they take steps to enable and empower new coaches to learn their style of play at an expert level.

bullshit baffles brains again....

[spudski]

14 minutes ago, archie andrews said:

bullshit baffles brains again....

The thicko at the back of the class kept repeating that when at school...he's still flipping burgers ;-)

[DaveF]

Why do people insist on quoting the OP for one line? Especially when its THAT long!

[Always Believesham]

Coaches don't change their style (often). New managers have to learn their own proffered style and professional football is a toxic environment to cut your teeth in. There are various ways of making it less disjointed; assistants that are SMEs, On the job learning & repetition in training to speed up knowledge transfer to players.

One thing I did take from that; McAllister working in the academy and then the first team seems to have helped. Given him time to learn and LJ a more compatible coach' - no matter how popular Pembo was, it's possible his area of expertise wasn't what LJ needed and this could have been undermining Holden's coaching as well.

I don't think we've found our 'average level of performance' yet, I hope this is it and last winter was just a massive blip, but I doubt it. 

[Guest]

Interesting stuff.

I heard LJ say a few weeks ago that he had come up with some pressing patterns that he was trying to implement.

Didnt really understand what he was talking about, but presumably there are different ways of playing a pressing game, who to press and when, and by which player, and in which area, depending on the opposition.

Football is a really simple game, 1 ball, at least two  players and one or more goal, jumpers optional. I can't be the only one who has scored going in off a jumper.

[reddoh]

6 minutes ago, Countryfile said:

Interesting stuff.

I heard LJ say a few weeks ago that he had come up with some pressing patterns that he was trying to implement.

Didnt really understand what he was talking about, but presumably there are different ways of playing a pressing game, who to press and when, and by which player, and in which area, depending on the opposition.

Football is a really simple game, 1 ball, at least two  players and one or more goal, jumpers optional. I can't be the only one who has scored going in off a jumper.

problem is in real life you would have bureaucrats stating what colour and size the jumpers have to be, and have far apart they should be it was far simpler when I was a lad but we only had to stop the game when a big green bus came along.

[spudski]

10 minutes ago, Countryfile said:

Interesting stuff.

I heard LJ say a few weeks ago that he had come up with some pressing patterns that he was trying to implement.

Didnt really understand what he was talking about, but presumably there are different ways of playing a pressing game, who to press and when, and by which player, and in which area, depending on the opposition.

Football is a really simple game, 1 ball, at least two  players and one or more goal, jumpers optional. I can't be the only one who has scored going in off a jumper.

Most definitely....when pressing, it's like herding sheep or cattle.

Either press the opposition into a mistake, or direct them into a position you want them.

Watch Reid when he's pressing....he'll often go outside the player...'ushering' him in to a more congested area where his team mates can take advantage.

It's something that's been implemented...it's subtle, but it's little things like that, that can make so much difference.

The players who are offensive, also press at angles and not directly.

It is a simple game in theory...but to do the simple things, you have to understand certain things, otherwise it's just hoof football. It's not just give and go....go where? Give to who etc?

Chess is a simple game in theory...but you have to have a plan, to pit your wits against someone doing exactly what you are as well. Use your knowledge...make plans, make them make mistakes etc. Football is the same....as is war in many respects.

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, reddoh said:

problem is in real life you would have bureaucrats stating what colour and size the jumpers have to be, and have far apart they should be it was far simpler when I was a lad but we only had to stop the game when a big green bus came along.

Or a policeman, one who your dad new (not from being arrested), and who used to WALK  around the streets.

[Always Believesham]

6 minutes ago, spudski said:

Watch Reid when he's pressing....he'll often go outside the player...'ushering' him in to a more congested area where his team mates can take advantage.

It's something that's been implemented...it's subtle, but it's little things like that, that can make so much difference.

I had that down as something Taylor's done right from the joining as well - he'll often chase a goalkeeper down onto his weak foot but let him play long if it's on his strong foot

[Trueredsupporter]

40 minutes ago, Countryfile said:

Interesting stuff.

I heard LJ say a few weeks ago that he had come up with some pressing patterns that he was trying to implement.

Didnt really understand what he was talking about, but presumably there are different ways of playing a pressing game, who to press and when, and by which player, and in which area, depending on the opposition.

Football is a really simple game, 1 ball, at least two  players and one or more goal, jumpers optional. I can't be the only one who has scored going in off a jumper.

He was trying it last season but players didn't get it and sometimes were screening while other looked to press. The press follows  the trigger which can be the ball it a zone or player moving into the zone to press ball and team then slides across over in unison. 

[Mr Popodopolous]

We have an interesting split here.

@spudski way the game is..ultra modern, tactical, quite complex. 

@archie andrews Presumably a different approach? Simpler, perhaps older school. One I actually think could work up to a point...probably top end League One, lower end Championship.

Honestly doubt we'd get much further with that tbh. Coaches, managers should always be looking to learn IMO.

Not unrealistically like suddenly trying to make us a tikitaka side in a year for example, but I do wonder how many particularly old school coaches look/looked to broaden their horizons, learn more, analyse other tactics etc.

Likes of Gary Megson? Busted flush- lower Championship at best. Just one example. David Moyes? Have major doubts about his bouncing back.

[reddogkev]

Spudski, I'd love to listen to you talk coaching / tactics with LJ at length, it would be truly fascinating.

Although isn't there a risk of making a 'simple' game far too complex?

 

[spudski]

25 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

We have an interesting split here.

@spudski way the game is..ultra modern, tactical, quite complex. 

@archie andrews Presumably a different approach? Simpler, perhaps older school. One I actually think could work up to a point...probably top end League One, lower end Championship.

Honestly doubt we'd get much further with that tbh. Coaches, managers should always be looking to learn IMO.

Not unrealistically like suddenly trying to make us a tikitaka side in a year for example, but I do wonder how many particularly old school coaches look/looked to broaden their horizons, learn more, analyse other tactics etc.

Likes of Gary Megson? Busted flush- lower Championship at best. Just one example. David Moyes? Have major doubts about his bouncing back.

 

9 minutes ago, reddogkev said:

Spudski, I'd love to listen to you talk coaching / tactics with LJ at length, it would be truly fascinating.

Although isn't there a risk of making a 'simple' game far too complex?

 

It's a necessary evil lads.... teams are so organised and fitter these days. You have to keep finding ways of breaking them down.

Football looked simple in the past, because it was.

Players weren't as fit, less disciplined, less of an athlete, and because of that made mistakes. It was the mistakes, or imperfections that made I actually aesthetically more pleasing and entertaining to watch.

It happens in all sport.

It's almost become too perfect. Perfect defence....perfect offence. Both nullify one another and make it less enjoyable in many ways.

I'd love to know if their was a scientific equation that showed what percentage of 'perfection' and 'errors' made for most entertaining.

I'm interested in tactics etc....but also infuriated by them.

[Shtanley]

2 hours ago, spudski said:

Most definitely....when pressing, it's like herding sheep or cattle.

Either press the opposition into a mistake, or direct them into a position you want them.

Watch Reid when he's pressing....he'll often go outside the player...'ushering' him in to a more congested area where his team mates can take advantage.

It's something that's been implemented...it's subtle, but it's little things like that, that can make so much difference.

The players who are offensive, also press at angles and not directly.

It is a simple game in theory...but to do the simple things, you have to understand certain things, otherwise it's just hoof football. It's not just give and go....go where? Give to who etc?

Chess is a simple game in theory...but you have to have a plan, to pit your wits against someone doing exactly what you are as well. Use your knowledge...make plans, make them make mistakes etc. Football is the same....as is war in many respects.

My favourite element of pressing is "setting traps" fascinating tactics by allowing a team to think they've got somewhere and suddenly they're surrounded. 

[Davefevs]

50 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

We have an interesting split here.

@spudski way the game is..ultra modern, tactical, quite complex. 

@archie andrews Presumably a different approach? Simpler, perhaps older school. One I actually think could work up to a point...probably top end League One, lower end Championship.

Honestly doubt we'd get much further with that tbh. Coaches, managers should always be looking to learn IMO.

Not unrealistically like suddenly trying to make us a tikitaka side in a year for example, but I do wonder how many particularly old school coaches look/looked to broaden their horizons, learn more, analyse other tactics etc.

Likes of Gary Megson? Busted flush- lower Championship at best. Just one example. David Moyes? Have major doubts about his bouncing back.

Much of the game is simple, but there are a number of subtle complexities.  Most players need a level of footballing intelligence to take in the tactical instructions and apply them and understand what is going on in the game.

It would be interesting to see how many of us would set up City for an away trip to Norwich.

[Sparkz 76]

I was raving about Lee this time last year before the horrendous run started. Don't get me wrong Lee is doing a fantastic job at present but I'm not getting too carried away yet and he has my full support I'm reserving judgement till the end of the campaign. You can have all the coaching badges methodology in the world but doing it on a consistent basis is what makes a coach great. 

 

Coyr forever

[Mr Popodopolous]

2 hours ago, Davefevs said:

Much of the game is simple, but there are a number of subtle complexities.  Most players need a level of footballing intelligence to take in the tactical instructions and apply them and understand what is going on in the game.

It would be interesting to see how many of us would set up City for an away trip to Norwich.

Tend to agree. Footballing intelligence is definitely needed.

Would say though, the higher a team goes, up levels etc the more complex, details, looking at minutiae it will get.

[BCFC Rich]

Remembered some interesting stuff from Brendan Rodgers when he was 1st at Liverpool that explained the high press really well/clearly and managed to find some of it:

Quote

 

"The only time we fully rest is when we have the ball. When we haven’t got the ball is the moment for intense pressure to get the ball back. But you can’t go for 90 minutes, so in order to recuperate and conserve energy, we’ll pass backwards and sideways but its purely tactical. Sometimes you need to recycle the ball for long periods in order to recover. Other times, it’s to create angles for passes, and to dominate the opposition. When going forward, the best way to move the ball up the field is to create angles of diagonal passes.

We have triggers for when to press with intensity for example when a player regains or receives possession he is at that moment, or for 5 or 6 seconds, vulnerable to being dispossessed. But, and this is crucial, if you cannot win the ball back within those 5 or 6 seconds then you must recognize as a team that you can’t run around pressing the ball for 90 minutes. It’s just not physically possible. So you retreat, regain your defensive shape, and wait for the ‘signs’ to start pressing again.

Why is a player vulnerable to losing possession immediately after he receives the ball? Well his overview of the entire pitch becomes limited due to him having to make a tackle, interception or other to win the ball back. If he receives the ball from a stray pass then he may also need to look down at the ball to control it, and again lose his overview of the pitch. This is one of the precise moments when you should apply your pressing game.

A further trigger to start pressing; if the opposition player with the ball needs to turn back towards his own goal. His options become very limited, he can’t pass forward to a teammate, and his vision of the field ahead of him becomes obscured, so it’s at that moment you apply intense zonal pressure on the vulnerable player.

Not only is the player who receives the ball vulnerable, but also the entire team. It is the transition phase of the ball: the opposition’s defensive shape has not been set. Thus they are, for maybe 5 or 6 seconds susceptible to intense zonal pressure from the opposition.

And by pressing higher up the field we win the ball closer to the opponents goal. You win it back, and you decide on whether there is a route to goal, if not, you pass it back, recycle possession, and start all over again or use the time to recover from an extended spell of intense pressing."

 

The bold bit at the end there is something we have been much better at this season and consequently we seem to be seeing games out better - we have taken opportunities to recover and thus don't burn through our stamina in the first 60 mins or so.

[hoxton casual]

I am not convinced about the pleading of a special case for how coaches gain experience. Surgeons were traditionally taught in a see one, do one, teach one basis.

Also the other major gap over coaching theory is leadership and instlling confidence in a team, especially in a near dest spiral like last season.

Great post. Has got me thinking. 

[BobBobSuperBob]

5 hours ago, RichardEdd said:

Remembered some interesting stuff from Brendan Rodgers when he was 1st at Liverpool that explained the high press really well/clearly and managed to find some of it:

The bold bit at the end there is something we have been much better at this season and consequently we seem to be seeing games out better - we have taken opportunities to recover and thus don't burn through our stamina in the first 60 mins or so.

Interesting piece that - thanks

The press is a great tactic operated well 

We seem to be employing it pretty efficiently and effectively this season

I know that there were times that the players didn't believe they could maintain the press for 90 mins last season but we seem to have it off quite well atm

Wolves was an interesting one for me as the fear is better sides with better technical players will pick you off and play through your press if they're good enough and there are any flaws in the press

I feared that Wolves may be such a danger time but none the goals we conceded did not appear to be as a result of Wolves playing through us or in particular pass a press

On the face of it we seemed to have passed a test that night in that respect 

If there's anyone who went to Wolves can comment on whether we pressed that night and if we did whether Wolves managed to pass through it very often I'd be really interested

 

[Red Army 87]

10 hours ago, Shtanley said:

My favourite element of pressing is "setting traps" fascinating tactics by allowing a team to think they've got somewhere and suddenly they're surrounded. 

A clear example of that against stoke the other night was in the first half. Defender had the ball and our front 2 weren't near him, then as he took a touch towards the touch line marlon pack came sprinting out of midfield and Eliasson closed off the route out. From comfortable possession to under pressure in a second and we won the ball back. It's not just pressing for pressing sake, it's tactical and timed.

[spudski]

6 hours ago, RichardEdd said:

Remembered some interesting stuff from Brendan Rodgers when he was 1st at Liverpool that explained the high press really well/clearly and managed to find some of it:

The bold bit at the end there is something we have been much better at this season and consequently we seem to be seeing games out better - we have taken opportunities to recover and thus don't burn through our stamina in the first 60 mins or so.

Thanks for posting that mate...had read it before, but couldn't find it again. It's very simply put, for anyone to understand.

Perhaps when people start moaning at the ground, when we play it sideways after a high tempo intensive pressing session, they'll understand that we may be recovering, not just looking for an opening.

[Cowshed]

13 hours ago, Countryfile said:

Interesting stuff.

I heard LJ say a few weeks ago that he had come up with some pressing patterns that he was trying to implement.

Didnt really understand what he was talking about, but presumably there are different ways of playing a pressing game, who to press and when, and by which player, and in which area, depending on the opposition.

Football is a really simple game, 1 ball, at least two  players and one or more goal, jumpers optional. I can't be the only one who has scored going in off a jumper.

 

 

This may interest you.

[Bar BS3]

15 hours ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

Both probably..

Was then perhaps- most certainly not now, above League One let's say!

Nail on head!

I think this is why we've always (in my lifetime) struggled to progress beyond where we are now. 

Weve not had such a modern & detailed approach before. GJ got us close, but that was on the crest of a wave.

This looks & feels different. Hopefully..! 

[Mr Popodopolous]

1 hour ago, BobBobSuperBob said:

Interesting piece that - thanks

The press is a great tactic operated well 

We seem to be employing it pretty efficiently and effectively this season

I know that there were times that the players didn't believe they could maintain the press for 90 mins last season but we seem to have it off quite well atm

Wolves was an interesting one for me as the fear is better sides with better technical players will pick you off and play through your press if they're good enough and there are any flaws in the press

I feared that Wolves may be such a danger time but none the goals we conceded did not appear to be as a result of Wolves playing through us or in particular pass a press

On the face of it we seemed to have passed a test that night in that respect 

If there's anyone who went to Wolves can comment on whether we pressed that night and if we did whether Wolves managed to pass through it very often I'd be really interested

 

I've read a few pieces, and the gist of it is that as you say the press is a great tactic when applied correctly.

Based on what I've read, and more importantly what I see- talking generally now, not necessarily about City- a press is great when:

• The whole team does it in unison.
• It is done in some key areas- e.g. for a rapid turnover for a quick counter.

Where it falls down and badly is when half the team press and half sit, or the defence presses but the midfield sits off. Definitely drops off then, and vs good sides can  make a side very easy to pick off. Also with older players, not necessarily the way forward.

Would likewise be highly interested to the Wolves game.

[spudski]

36 minutes ago, Cowshed said:

 

 

This may interest you.

Their videos are very good. Easily understood for any fan. In Layman's terms.

[Davefevs]

2 hours ago, BobBobSuperBob said:

Interesting piece that - thanks

The press is a great tactic operated well 

We seem to be employing it pretty efficiently and effectively this season

I know that there were times that the players didn't believe they could maintain the press for 90 mins last season but we seem to have it off quite well atm

Wolves was an interesting one for me as the fear is better sides with better technical players will pick you off and play through your press if they're good enough and there are any flaws in the press

I feared that Wolves may be such a danger time but none the goals we conceded did not appear to be as a result of Wolves playing through us or in particular pass a press

On the face of it we seemed to have passed a test that night in that respect 

If there's anyone who went to Wolves can comment on whether we pressed that night and if we did whether Wolves managed to pass through it very often I'd be really interested

 

I think we’ve been able to keep the press because we’ve been able to rotate our midfield. A bit of early season conservatism playing a lopsided 4 with Brownhill wide to give extra energy, but evolving to perming 2 from Pack, Smith and Brownhill in the centre to mixing Pato, O’Dowda and Leko of late in the wide positions. Eliasson getting cup minutes to give breathers. 

We might all have our favoured starters, but I sense (from early season match threads) that we are becoming less negative to changes game to game. 

52 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

I've read a few pieces, and the gist of it is that as you say the press is a great tactic when applied correctly.

Based on what I've read, and more importantly what I see- talking generally now, not necessarily about City- a press is great when:

• The whole team does it in unison.
• It is done in some key areas- e.g. for a rapid turnover for a quick counter.

Where it falls down and badly is when half the team press and half sit, or the defence presses but the midfield sits off. Definitely drops off then, and vs good sides can  make a side very easy to pick off. Also with older players, not necessarily the way forward.

Would likewise be highly interested to the Wolves game.

Not pressing as a team - see Fulham at home last season. A classic example of 4 defenders marking 2 Fulham forwards and allowing overloads against us in the middle, further exploited by them then getting their fullback into advanced positions creating overloads there. 

[BobBobSuperBob]

10 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

I think we’ve been able to keep the press because we’ve been able to rotate our midfield. A bit of early season conservatism playing a lopsided 4 with Brownhill wide to give extra energy, but evolving to perming 2 from Pack, Smith and Brownhill in the centre to mixing Pato, O’Dowda and Leko of late in the wide positions. Eliasson getting cup minutes to give breathers. 

We might all have our favoured starters, but I sense (from early season match threads) that we are becoming less negative to changes game to game. 

Don't know whether I mentioned Dave but one of coaching staff (Q&A after) explained to me that the pitch was narrowed to help the press 

No great shock but explained they thought it was more of a mind set of players that at times they didn't believe they could keep the press going for whole game and by narrowing the pitch they've convinced / psyched the players to believe they can (The pitch has only come in by a couple of yards  - helps but more how it helps the psyche ) 

Clever

[Davefevs]

5 minutes ago, BobBobSuperBob said:

Don't know whether I mentioned Dave but one of coaching staff (Q&A after) explained to me that the pitch was narrowed to help the press 

No great shock but explained they thought it was more of a mind set of players that at times they didn't believe they could keep the press going for whole game and by narrowing the pitch they've convinced / psyched the players to believe they can (The pitch has only come in by a couple of yards  - helps but more how it helps the psyche ) 

Clever

Yes, LJ mentioned it pre-season too. 

As a bunch of individuals there are far better elevens than ours, I see the high press for City as our way of competing. It’s a much easier on the eye tactic than route-one and effective if done well. 

Closing Down the opposition at pace and springing into attack gets the crowd off their seats and helps the overall atmosphere. Interestingly the Millwall game was the exception because they played long and didn’t spend any time on the ball the engage our press. 

[BCFC101]

2 hours ago, BobBobSuperBob said:

Interesting piece that - thanks

The press is a great tactic operated well 

We seem to be employing it pretty efficiently and effectively this season

I know that there were times that the players didn't believe they could maintain the press for 90 mins last season but we seem to have it off quite well atm

Wolves was an interesting one for me as the fear is better sides with better technical players will pick you off and play through your press if they're good enough and there are any flaws in the press

I feared that Wolves may be such a danger time but none the goals we conceded did not appear to be as a result of Wolves playing through us or in particular pass a press

On the face of it we seemed to have passed a test that night in that respect 

If there's anyone who went to Wolves can comment on whether we pressed that night and if we did whether Wolves managed to pass through it very often I'd be really interested

 

From what I remember, we didn't press as hard as we had done against, say, Derby, and rightly so. Like you just did, LJ and the team correctly identified that pressing players like Cavaleiro would be far too dangerous, as they will just pick us off. Instead, when defending, we opted for a more narrow, compact tactic when defending, which worked well. Unsurprisingly, Wolves were well aware of our pressing style of play, and were quick to notice when we did it at the wrong time, which allowed them to get in behind, but we did well at avoiding doing this too often. I think the idea was then to spread out wide when we got the ball back, and try to take advantage of the fact that they had a bigger gap between midfield and defence. The problem was that Wolves themselves were doing very well at pressing us when we had the ball, and we often struggled to get it forward for the first half an hour, so LJ changed it up by bringing Reid into the middle, with Leko and Diediouh up top, with Brownhill going out wider, into Leko's position. This, for me, was the moment that LJ ensured we didn't lose the game for a couple of reasons. For one, everyone appeared to know what the role of each position is, so when LJ switched players around, from a defensive point of view, we were still doing the exact same things, making it difficult for Wolves to break us down. Secondly, with Reid more in the middle, we suddenly had someone in there to pick the ball up when we got it back, and run at them. This change meant that Wolves had to drop back 5-10 yards more, which gave us more time and space to do something with the ball ourselves. This remained the case for pretty much all of the other 60 minutes.

Went a bit off topic maybe there, but in answer to your questions, we didn't seem to press as hard, and it was the right thing to do as it minimised the amount of times we were picked off.

[Davefevs]

@BCFC101 

Secondly, with Reid more in the middle, we suddenly had someone in there to pick the ball up when we got it back, and run at them. This change meant that Wolves had to drop back 5-10 yards more, which gave us more time and space to do something with the ball ourselves. This remained the case for pretty much all of the other 60 minutes

i wasn’t there but makes perfect sense. That little 5-10 yards space can make a big difference. 

[BobBobSuperBob]

1 hour ago, BCFC101 said:

From what I remember, we didn't press as hard as we had done against, say, Derby, and rightly so. Like you just did, LJ and the team correctly identified that pressing players like Cavaleiro would be far too dangerous, as they will just pick us off. Instead, when defending, we opted for a more narrow, compact tactic when defending, which worked well. .......

..........Went a bit off topic maybe there, but in answer to your questions, we didn't seem to press as hard, and it was the right thing to do as it minimised the amount of times we were picked off.

Thankyou

Fascinating post 

Really interesting , well explained and appreciated

[Kid in the Riot]

1 hour ago, BCFC101 said:

From what I remember, we didn't press as hard as we had done against, say, Derby, and rightly so. Like you just did, LJ and the team correctly identified that pressing players like Cavaleiro would be far too dangerous, as they will just pick us off. Instead, when defending, we opted for a more narrow, compact tactic when defending, which worked well. Unsurprisingly, Wolves were well aware of our pressing style of play, and were quick to notice when we did it at the wrong time, which allowed them to get in behind, but we did well at avoiding doing this too often. I think the idea was then to spread out wide when we got the ball back, and try to take advantage of the fact that they had a bigger gap between midfield and defence. The problem was that Wolves themselves were doing very well at pressing us when we had the ball, and we often struggled to get it forward for the first half an hour, so LJ changed it up by bringing Reid into the middle, with Leko and Diediouh up top, with Brownhill going out wider, into Leko's position. This, for me, was the moment that LJ ensured we didn't lose the game for a couple of reasons. For one, everyone appeared to know what the role of each position is, so when LJ switched players around, from a defensive point of view, we were still doing the exact same things, making it difficult for Wolves to break us down. Secondly, with Reid more in the middle, we suddenly had someone in there to pick the ball up when we got it back, and run at them. This change meant that Wolves had to drop back 5-10 yards more, which gave us more time and space to do something with the ball ourselves. This remained the case for pretty much all of the other 60 minutes.

Went a bit off topic maybe there, but in answer to your questions, we didn't seem to press as hard, and it was the right thing to do as it minimised the amount of times we were picked off.

Would agree with that. Was interesting to see in the final 10 or so minutes Korey Smith being pretty much the furthest man forward tasked with closing down the ball, whereas Reid was sat in front of the back 4. It was like they had reversed roles but was obviously a deliberate tactic.

[wendyredredrobin]

Wow, I hope the oppositions management are not reading this thread.  For me, it's all about being just 1% better than the opposition, like the horse that won the national by a nose.

1% fitter, 1% quicker, 1% stronger, 1% more confident, etc.  You have to keep going forward ekeing out the extra % improving little by little, bit by bit.

Really excited about the way we are playing this season and I'm sure that Lee and his team won't sit on their laurels, so looking forward to even more excitement as the season progresses.

Improve all these things by 1% a week and see how we will look by the end of the season.

[chinapig]

23 hours ago, spudski said:

Thanks for posting that mate...had read it before, but couldn't find it again. It's very simply put, for anyone to understand.

Perhaps when people start moaning at the ground, when we play it sideways after a high tempo intensive pressing session, they'll understand that we may be recovering, not just looking for an opening.

This struck me watching Man City beat Liverpool recently. City spent periods doing exactly what you describe. It looked planned, as if somebody had given a signal that it was time to take a breather.

I do hope we are finally seeing the end of the 'get rid of it' mentality. It's been the bane of English football for years, Ashton Gate not excepted.

[Guest]

On 21/09/2017 at 16:51, SuperDziek said:

Blimey. Any chance of a summary in a paragraph?

Thatch didn’t like it 

[downendcity]

9 hours ago, wendyredredrobin said:

Wow, I hope the oppositions management are not reading this thread.  For me, it's all about being just 1% better than the opposition, like the horse that won the national by a nose.

1% fitter, 1% quicker, 1% stronger, 1% more confident, etc.  You have to keep going forward ekeing out the extra % improving little by little, bit by bit.

Really excited about the way we are playing this season and I'm sure that Lee and his team won't sit on their laurels, so looking forward to even more excitement as the season progresses.

Improve all these things by 1% a week and see how we will look by the end of the season.

If the opposition management are reading this thread then it is good to see the way we use the hoof long ball so effectively, getting the ball forward quickly by cutting out the midfield completely, as using short passing increases the risk of losing possession in dangerous positions.

 

 

[Ian M]

1 hour ago, downendcity said:

If the opposition management are reading this thread then it is good to see the way we use the hoof long ball so effectively, getting the ball forward quickly by cutting out the midfield completely, as using short passing increases the risk of losing possession in dangerous positions.

 

 

And when we don't have the ball we just back off, back off, back off knowing that sooner or later our opponents will make a mistake and gift us another opportunity to kick it long.

[reddoh]

8 hours ago, downendcity said:

If the opposition management are reading this thread then it is good to see the way we use the hoof long ball so effectively, getting the ball forward quickly by cutting out the midfield completely, as using short passing increases the risk of losing possession in dangerous positions.

 

 

Nice post but that is the reason Gerry Gow left us :-(