The changes in tactics

[RedNight]

Don't worry. This is not a hysterical post.

We've gone for different tactics, why?

Well for the last 3 months, Johnson has persisted with how he wants us to play. Rightly or wrongly, he has been waiting for us to get back to the way we were playing pre chridtmas. 

There is absolutely no way Johnson would have changed things or the philosophies thst had proved so successful for the first 4 months of the season. 

So why have the players not given Johnson we he wants, and what we all want as fans. 

Well, it's either they can't be arsed. Or we simply have nothing left in our legs. 

Eithee way, Johnson has had no choice to try something different. And quite frankly, we look absolutely dreadful. 

Johnson has referred to how he has reluctantly changed our approach because of our recent form. 

People will obviously jump at the throat of the manager when it comes to poor tactics.

But I feel a bit for LJ. He has showed us in the 3 months how he wants our club playing football, and we were absolutely loving it. For some reason, the players have not been giving him what he wants. And I personally don't think it's a lack of care.

But unfortunately, since that high tempo football has stopped, our lack of quality has been exposed and we simply look quite average. 

I find it hard to hammer Johnson, because this is not what he wanted, and for the last 3 months is not how he wants us to play. 

And like I said before, he gave us all an insight into how he wants us to play and his philosophy. And there is absolutely no way he would of wanted to change this. But has had to! 

 

[LondonBristolian]

I feel for LJ and agree with  your thoughts. But, at the same time, part of football management has to be motivating players and getting sustained performances out of them.

Whether it is exhaustion or confidence - I also agree that I think the players do care - that has not been working and LJ has to work out why and put it right. If he ultimately cannot do that, he will never become as successful a manager I am sure he would like to be.

It might be this is ultimately a valuable experience for LJ - if he is able to learn. But, as a supporter, if I am going to maintain my confidence in him as a manager, he has to show over the summer that he has got an understand of what went wrong after Christmas and that he is able to fix it so we can put in sustained performances all season next time around.

[Davefevs]

Nice post RK.

The bit we don’t know is whether the players are at fault, LJ, or a combo of both.  We can only guess.  You’re one of the few on here who’ve lumped on the players being the problem / cause.  Most just launch straight into LJ.

I wish I knew.  Without supporting or dismissing your view, I can only offer a potential reason.  With the injuries it all got too cosy, same 11 most weeks whether they played well or not, some players never gonna get a sniff.  Perhaps it became a clique.  Players in the 11 making Engvall, Woodrow, Eliasson, etc look bad in training, so LJ wouldn’t contemplate picking them.

Ok, that sounds far fetched, but it’s possible.

Why do you think it’s the players?  Why weren’t they left out if they failed to carry out his instructions?

[Hello Dave]

Why has he had to change it? If certain players aren't playing the way he wants, then drop them and bring someone else in. You cant tell me every player isn't performing to his instructions.

[Super]

Just now, Davefevs said:

Nice post RK.

The bit we don’t know is whether the players are at fault, LJ, or a combo of both.  We can only guess.  You’re one of the few on here who’ve lumped on the players being the problem / cause.  Most just launch straight into LJ.

I wish I knew.  Without supporting or dismissing your view, I can only offer a potential reason.  With the injuries it all got too cosy, same 11 most weeks whether they played well or not, some players never gonna get a sniff.  Perhaps it became a clique.  Players in the 11 making Engvall, Woodrow, Eliasson, etc look bad in training, so LJ wouldn’t contemplate picking them.

Ok, that sounds far fetched, but it’s possible.

Why do you think it’s the players?  Why weren’t they left out if they failed to carry out his instructions?

Def both. The players performances have been awful this year but certainly not helped by some baffling decisions from LJ. 

[Cowshed]

22 minutes ago, RedNight said:

Don't worry. This is not a hysterical post.

We've gone for different tactics, why?

Well for the last 3 months, Johnson has persisted with how he wants us to play. Rightly or wrongly, he has been waiting for us to get back to the way we were playing pre chridtmas. 

There is absolutely no way Johnson would have changed things or the philosophies thst had proved so successful for the first 4 months of the season. 

So why have the players not given Johnson we he wants, and what we all want as fans. 

Well, it's either they can't be arsed. Or we simply have nothing left in our legs. 

Eithee way, Johnson has had no choice to try something different. And quite frankly, we look absolutely dreadful. 

Johnson has referred to how he has reluctantly changed our approach because of our recent form. 

People will obviously jump at the throat of the manager when it comes to poor tactics.

But I feel a bit for LJ. He has showed us in the 3 months how he wants our club playing football, and we were absolutely loving it. For some reason, the players have not been giving him what he wants. And I personally don't think it's a lack of care.

But unfortunately, since that high tempo football has stopped, our lack of quality has been exposed and we simply look quite average. 

I find it hard to hammer Johnson, because this is not what he wanted, and for the last 3 months is not how he wants us to play. 

And like I said before, he gave us all an insight into how he wants us to play and his philosophy. And there is absolutely no way he would of wanted to change this. But has had to! 

 

But he did.

Unless collectively the team wilfully ignored instruction. 

Two games Cardiff away and Wednesday at home. The team played with entirely differing tactics.

The shape offensively and defensively altered from Feb onwards. Passing patterns altered in favour of creating contested aerial balls and hitting balls into zones v playing to feet.

The team now plays as many long balls in a game as Cardiff or Millwall. That started months ago. 

This was not the players going against instruction. 

 

[Mr Popodopolous]

It's his lack of ability to devise a proper coherent Plan B that pisses me off.

Plan A had hit the buffers for whatever reason. Fair enough, it happens as we all know it can.

He has tried lots, but almost always has got it wrong .

We could have played a cohesive 4-3-3, and given it a chance to work.

Or maybe a Wolves type set up, 3-4-1-2/3-4-3 type system. Have the personnel to give it a go IMO.

Or even Plan A, with Walsh behind Reid instead of Paterson if we think the latter had run out of steam.

Instead he devises weird shit like Reid on the left, the setup at Cardiff and to a lesser extent, Paterson out wide.

He's lacking badly in a tactical sense IMO.

[Trueredsupporter]

16 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

It's his lack of ability to devise a proper coherent Plan B that pisses me off.

Plan A had hit the buffers for whatever reason. Fair enough, it happens as we all know it can.

He has tried lots, but almost always has got it wrong .

We could have played a cohesive 4-3-3, and given it a chance to work.

Or maybe a Wolves type set up, 3-4-1-2/3-4-3 type system. Have the personnel to give it a go IMO.

Or even Plan A, with Walsh behind Reid instead of Paterson if we think the latter had run out of steam.

Instead he devises weird shit like Reid on the left, the setup at Cardiff and to a lesser extent, Paterson out wide.

He's lacking badly in a tactical sense IMO.

Its unsettled and unsettling. Do Wolves Cardiff, Fulham etc go through so much change???

[Super]

Tactics were wrong but not marking from corners isnt down to tactics. 

[BobBobSuperBob]

4 hours ago, LondonBristolian said:

I feel for LJ and agree with  your thoughts. But, at the same time, part of football management has to be motivating players and getting sustained performances out of them.

Whether it is exhaustion or confidence - I also agree that I think the players do care - that has not been working and LJ has to work out why and put it right. If he ultimately cannot do that, he will never become as successful a manager I am sure he would like to be.

It might be this is ultimately a valuable experience for LJ - if he is able to learn. But, as a supporter, if I am going to maintain my confidence in him as a manager, he has to show over the summer that he has got an understand of what went wrong after Christmas and that he is able to fix it so we can put in sustained performances all season next time around.

You are a level headed poster LB who I always read with interest

Whats your view re the above and the horrific run of last season and , it may sound harsh , but any sign that he’s learnt anything 

I have had  a feeling both last season and this that the players hold the power - bucked their ideas up last season when they decided to get their asses in gear last season when relegation suddenly looked a real likelihood (After the post Preston ‘meeting’) (The ‘outing’ of Tomlin a likely factor)

This season Whilst all was rosy and the Cup run and plaudits were overwhelming things more or less took care of themselves

Once out the cup and the bloody nose at Villa something changed and it appears to most that the players as a collective , not necessarily individually have to some degree thrown the towel in , or at least not played with anywhere near the spirit we saw pre Christmas

There going to be some obviously disgruntled players who havnt had a look in , around the squad and the January Recruitment and the attempts to shoehorn the three signings in I believe was totally counter productive , tactically and IIMHO likely to have caused some tension or consternation within the squad

 

Does LJ actually have much sway in the overall mood / belief/willingness /performances in/of the squad ? 

Or is it the players , or maybe some of them , that have the sway  ?

 

 

[joe jordans teeth]

3 hours ago, Super said:

Tactics were wrong but not marking from corners isnt down to tactics. 

No that is done on the training ground so the defensive coach should take some of the blame for that

[Ivorguy]

20 minutes ago, joe jordans teeth said:

No that is done on the training ground so the defensive coach should take some of the blame for that

And the captain, or lack of one

[roddy-d]

Tactics was predictable 

[LondonBristolian]

8 hours ago, BobBobSuperBob said:

You are a level headed poster LB who I always read with interest

Whats your view re the above and the horrific run of last season and , it may sound harsh , but any sign that he’s learnt anything 

I have had  a feeling both last season and this that the players hold the power - bucked their ideas up last season when they decided to get their asses in gear last season when relegation suddenly looked a real likelihood (After the post Preston ‘meeting’) (The ‘outing’ of Tomlin a likely factor)

This season Whilst all was rosy and the Cup run and plaudits were overwhelming things more or less took care of themselves

Once out the cup and the bloody nose at Villa something changed and it appears to most that the players as a collective , not necessarily individually have to some degree thrown the towel in , or at least not played with anywhere near the spirit we saw pre Christmas

There going to be some obviously disgruntled players who havnt had a look in , around the squad and the January Recruitment and the attempts to shoehorn the three signings in I believe was totally counter productive , tactically and IIMHO likely to have caused some tension or consternation within the squad

 

Does LJ actually have much sway in the overall mood / belief/willingness /performances in/of the squad ? 

Or is it the players , or maybe some of them , that have the sway  ?

 

 

To be honest, I really don’t know. I think LJ has learned, to a degree, in so far as that last season it was honestly unclear to me how he wanted the team to play football whereas this season - at least when it was going well - it was much clearer what the optimal style of football was that he was trying to impose on the team and the team were delivering that.

At the same time, it is pretty evident that we have a team whose heads quickly drop when things go against them and LJ has clearly struggled to influence that or - if he is influencing it - it is in a detrimental sense and not a positive one.

Obviously I don’t know what is going on behind the scenes. Certainly I have been in enough workplace situations to know how one or two moody individuals who are negative when things go against them can spur the mood of the whole group, and I do wonder if there are a couple of players who are not the best influence on the whole group. I could very happily speculate on this but it would only be speculation. 

But it does seem pretty likely to me something has happened to damage the team spirit at the club. The question has to be why this has happened and why it has happened two seasons in a row.

That might be because LJ has not learned from last season, or that he did learn but things have reverted back, or that LJ put a plaster over the cracks and it has not sustained over the season, or that LJ learned from last season but a whole new problem has emerged.

Whatever it is, it needs fixing and anyone who is not contributing to a strong, resilient team spirit needs to be moved on, whoever that is and whatever their role in the team or at the club.  The bottom line is that something has gone wrong at this club two years in a row and both times it has derailed our season. For me, LJ has made enough progress this season for me to feel he deserves another chance to put things right over the summer but he has to prove next season he can get the team spirit back on track and produce consistent performances from the off. I personally do not think LJ is the problem in terms of our team spirit but he has yet to show he can be the solution.