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Plan B needed or not?


Half fan

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7 minutes ago, brady1993 said:

What makes it even sillier is that he did have a plan B. It's just people overlook it because wasn't a distinct formation change. Plan A was to play through the centre and off Martin, plan B was to stretch the games out wide to the full backs. He made more than a few references to games being a "full back games". Hell it's almost certainly why he went and bought Christie and probably why he sought players who could act as deep lying playmakers.

Another example of plan A done better, in the circumstances the game dictated.

If anything Mac's way was more flexible than any plan B, because it didn't involve throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but a tactical change that all the players were already well versed in, and had trained for.

Maybe a plan A.2?

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5 minutes ago, Andicis said:

But again, you cite two more world class teams. Tell me a team in the Championship with a valid approach to two strategies, not teams with shed loads of world class talent at their disposal. 

I couldn’t tell you because I don’t watch much other championship football apart from Derby if I’m honest.

The point was that not having a plan B can cost a team in crucial high pressure moments, especially if the opponents are perfectly set up to restrict the opponents, I.e Liverpool’s high pressing made it easier for them to play against City because of City’s failure to have a plan B. 

 

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1 minute ago, McLovin said:

I couldn’t tell you because I don’t watch much other championship football apart from Derby if I’m honest.

The point was that not having a plan B can cost a team in crucial high pressure moments, especially if the opponents are perfectly set up to restrict the opponents, I.e Liverpool’s high pressing made it easier for them to play against City because of City’s failure to have a plan B. 

 

But surely if you play plan A well enough, a plan B is useless? Wolves didn't have a plan B last season, yet were comfortably promoted. We should focus on one plan, and perfect that before worrying about anything else.

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4 minutes ago, McLovin said:

Disagree mate, they change their tactics depending who they play against, which is why they have been dominating European football for years because opponents can’t predict how they will line up. I’m not suggesting us to go that far and change our tactics game by game , but to simply have a plan B or C. 

What happens if we play against a high pressing team but we are continue insist on playing the ball out from the back? Rosler’s Wigan team at Pride Park showed that Plan A and variants of Plan A can be stopped.

But again that was one team. And it's hard to tell how much of that was them "figuring us out" or us just being off our game. 

You can make tactical changes. You can even have other plans. But the more you do it and the more drastic the changes the more you risk disrupting the flow of your side and it can stifle you. Madrid can do it because they can afford to have a massive squad full of world class players that can adapt more readily to other styles of play. 

We don't. 

Personally I'd rather see us establish our identity and what we are about first and get the squad to a manageable core. 

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4 minutes ago, Andicis said:

Wolves didn't have a plan B last season, yet were comfortably promoted.

It is true - we didn't.  When it didn't work - it really didn't work - 5 of our 7 defeats were by 2 or more goals.

Thankfully Plan A was quite good :)

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1 minute ago, brady1993 said:

But again that was one team. And it's hard to tell how much of that was them "figuring us out" or us just being off our game. 

You can make tactical changes. You can even have other plans. But the more you do it and the more drastic the changes the more you risk disrupting the flow of your side and it can stifle you. Madrid can do it because they can afford to have a massive squad full of world class players that can adapt more readily to other styles of play. 

We don't. 

Personally I'd rather see us establish our identity and what we are about first and get the squad to a manageable core. 

The manageable core bit is the most important now.

We're carrying a squad numbers wise which is more suited to a champions league campaign than a championship one, I wouldn't like to see additions now without a decent number leaving the building, to use manager speak.

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1 hour ago, Half fan said:

I still recall watching us beat Wolves 5 nil in 2014.

Me too :(

Lunchtime game wasn't it.  I got all my timings wrong - and by the time I worked out what was going on the score was already 4-0.

Doherty the only survivor that regularly featured in our starting XI.

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5 minutes ago, Molinstu said:

It is true - we didn't.  When it didn't work - it really didn't work - 5 of our 7 defeats were by 2 or more goals.

Thankfully Plan A was quite good ?

Thanks, proved my point. 

Do plan A well enough, and plan B is redundant. 

I bet you still had fans calling for a Plan B, though.

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Just now, Molinstu said:

Me too ?

Lunchtime game wasn't it.  I got all my timings wrong - and by the time I worked out what was going on the score was already 4-0.

Doherty the only survivor that regularly featured in our starting XI.

Since then, you made the Premier League, and we regressed for 4 years! Hopefully we can catch up with you for next season...

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13 minutes ago, Andicis said:

But surely if you play plan A well enough, a plan B is useless? Wolves didn't have a plan B last season, yet were comfortably promoted. We should focus on one plan, and perfect that before worrying about anything else.

Plan B isn’t intended to be used a lot is more so as a contingency plan or against opponents who are perfectly equipped to deal with your plan A , having a plan B would be ideal in such a situation and make us less predictable

Let’s say we play against Rowett’s Stoke or Pulis’ Boro, two teams who are at best counter attacking but poor when they have to be the ones to create. Perhaps an option could be to let them have possession and to play in a more pragmatic manner to take them out of their comfort zone , which would leave spaces in behind for our fast players to exploit on the counter.

Alternatively, against a team who have very good crossers of the ball from open play, an option could be to play 3 centre backs to provide more height and negate the opposition’s strengths from heading.

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2 minutes ago, McLovin said:

Plan B isn’t intended to be used a lot is more so as a contingency plan or against opponents who are perfectly equipped to deal with your plan A , having a plan B would be ideal in such a situation and make us less predictable

Let’s say we play against we play against Rowett’s Stoke or Pulis’ Boro, two teams who are at best counter attacking but poor when they have to be the ones to create. Perhaps an option could be to let them have possession and to play in a more pragmatic manner to take them out of their comfort zone , which would leave spaces in behind for our fast players to exploit on the counter.

Alternatively, against a team who have very good crossers of the ball from open play, an option could be to play 3 centre backs to provide more height and negate the opposition’s strengths from heading.

The thing is, can our players adapt to all these different formations? Isn't it being slightly over technical? Top teams of course will do this, because it's required. But in the Championship, do you really need to do this? If you play your own style well enough, and don't worry about the opposition you can beat anybody. I just don't think it's necessary, particularly because if plan A was the style we played earlier, any team will struggle against it.

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With quick players throughout the team, it's more about tweaking the defensive line and winger placements than any plan B.  i don't worry about being predictable either.  Predictability is fine, as long we perform our setup well, the team can't be so easily stopped.

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2 minutes ago, McLovin said:

Plan B isn’t intended to be used a lot is more so as a contingency plan or against opponents who are perfectly equipped to deal with your plan A , having a plan B would be ideal in such a situation and make us less predictable

Let’s say we play against we play against Rowett’s Stoke or Pulis’ Boro, two teams who are at best counter attacking but poor when they have to be the ones to create. Perhaps an option could be to let them have possession and to play in a more pragmatic manner to take them out of their comfort zone , which would leave spaces in behind for our fast players to exploit on the counter.

Alternatively, against a team who have very good crossers of the ball from open play, an option could be to play 3 centre backs to provide more height and negate the opposition’s strengths from heading.

But by doing either one of those your not playing to your strengths and you risk being a poor imitation of another side.

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14 minutes ago, Andicis said:

But surely if you play plan A well enough, a plan B is useless? Wolves didn't have a plan B last season, yet were comfortably promoted. We should focus on one plan, and perfect that before worrying about anything else.

 

14 minutes ago, brady1993 said:

But again that was one team. And it's hard to tell how much of that was them "figuring us out" or us just being off our game. 

You can make tactical changes. You can even have other plans. But the more you do it and the more drastic the changes the more you risk disrupting the flow of your side and it can stifle you. Madrid can do it because they can afford to have a massive squad full of world class players that can adapt more readily to other styles of play. 

We don't. 

Personally I'd rather see us establish our identity and what we are about first and get the squad to a manageable core. 

I think we need to establish what we mean by ‘ plan B’ to avoid any confusion. My idea of a plan B is if in the game ‘plan A’ isn’t working and tactics need to change within the game itself if the opposition have completely hindered our plan A . Plan A would still be used  most of the time but let’s say in a game where we play against one of those pesky annoying lower sides or even a side like Pulis’ Boro who are parking the bus and there are no gaps for us to create anything. One solution could be to say, ok  then, we will let you have possession and force them to be the ones to create and to take them out of their comfort zones, which could potentially leave gaps for us to exploit on the counter.

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13 minutes ago, McLovin said:

Plan B isn’t intended to be used a lot is more so as a contingency plan or against opponents who are perfectly equipped to deal with your plan A , having a plan B would be ideal in such a situation and make us less predictable

Let’s say we play against we play against Rowett’s Stoke or Pulis’ Boro, two teams who are at best counter attacking but poor when they have to be the ones to create. Perhaps an option could be to let them have possession and to play in a more pragmatic manner to take them out of their comfort zone , which would leave spaces in behind for our fast players to exploit on the counter.

Alternatively, against a team who have very good crossers of the ball from open play, an option could be to play 3 centre backs to provide more height and negate the opposition’s strengths from heading.

So your plan B is to give teams you think are poor in possession more of the ball, while ourselves who are hopefully decent in possession stand around watching them struggle to create anything once they lose possession?

Then hit them on the break?

Why not take care of the ball ourselves, and put them on the back door through our attacking play?

As for your second point, how many goals are scored from open play through crosses? Is it enough to change the way we approach games, or not?

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1 minute ago, brady1993 said:

But by doing either one of those your not playing to your strengths and you risk being a poor imitation of another side.

 

5 minutes ago, Andicis said:

The thing is, can our players adapt to all these different formations? Isn't it being slightly over technical? Top teams of course will do this, because it's required. But in the Championship, do you really need to do this? If you play your own style well enough, and don't worry about the opposition you can beat anybody. I just don't think it's necessary, particularly because if plan A was the style we played earlier, any team will struggle against it.

Not necessarily, if the plan B is worked enough in training then it wouldn’t be seen as a weakness. I’d suggest it’s a hell of a lot easier to adapt in game to a counter attacking side anyway so it wouldn’t need as much training if you are a side that’s used to being front foot as it means there would be more gaps to exploit. Lampard referred to this in one of his interviews that he wants his players to be able to play in different positions and to adapt to different formations if the game means that they are required too. 

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51 minutes ago, brady1993 said:

What makes it even sillier is that he did have a plan B. It's just people overlook it because wasn't a distinct formation change. Plan A was to play through the centre and off Martin, plan B was to stretch the games out wide to the full backs. He made more than a few references to games being a "full back games". Hell it's almost certainly why he went and bought Christie and probably why he sought players who could act as deep lying playmakers.

Spot on.

Game. Set. Match

What was he meant to do? Keep Robert Huth and Peter Crouch under the stairs incase Rosler's Wigan (who got relegated because they didn't focus on their other 44 games) come to stop us passing.

If a team sits 10 men behind the ball and are organised and concentrated then they'll be difficult to break down no matter how many plans you have. 

Teams lose games. 

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6 minutes ago, reveldevil said:

So your plan B is to give teams you think are poor in possession more of the ball, while ourselves who are hopefully decent in possession stand around watching them struggle to create anything once they lose possession?

Then hit them on the break?

Why not take care of the ball ourselves, and put them on the back door through our attacking play?

As for your second point, how many goals are scored from open play through crosses? Is it enough to change the way we approach games, or not?

Teams who are poor with possession tend to not like having possession. Sounds strange but it’s true because they don’t tend to know what to do when they have the ball and are more prone to making mistakes. Some teams are more comfortable if they don’t have the ball, which allows them to get in a good defensive shape and reduces the risk of errors. A few managers like Mourinho and Diego Simeone say that you at your most vulnerable when you have possession because you are more prone to making mistakes, as we saw midweek against Mansfield. 

 

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