Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Heroes Discussion => Topic started by: Ivo Stas on October 30, 2014, 05:54:39 PM
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In an interview with Henry Winter in the Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/west-ham/11186527/Sam-Allardyce-West-Hams-owners-are-best-Ive-ever-had-and-deserve-this-success-after-not-sacking-me.html (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/west-ham/11186527/Sam-Allardyce-West-Hams-owners-are-best-Ive-ever-had-and-deserve-this-success-after-not-sacking-me.html)), Sam Allardyce said the following...
“There are two types of coaches. There’s coaches like me who weigh up the opposition and ask the team to adjust. Fergie was similar. Jose [Mourinho] is similar. Then there’s Arsène, who won’t adjust. There’s Brendan [Rodgers], who looks like he won’t adjust. There’s Manuel Pellegrini, who looks like he won’t adjust, even in the Champions League. He seems to favour what he’s got. City are quite open.
“Their [Wenger/Rodgers/Pellegrini’s] philosophy is different to ours. Ours is more about who are we playing against. Their philosophy is more, ‘We always play this way’, and they won’t change, they carry doing on the same thing. That’s why you can beat them.
This got me thinking... which type of manager is Paul Lambert? I know most of you are thinking "a third type, completely useless" but at Norwich Lambert had a reputation for changing tactics and personnel during matches to good effect (so would be an Allardyce, Mourinho, Ferguson). However, with us he seems to always want to play the same players (Weimann) in the same 4-3-3 no matter what (so would be a Wengers, Rodgers, Pellegrini).
I was also wondering... which of our previous managers stood out as glaring examples of one type or another..?
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I thought the two types of managers were the motivators ('Arry, Warnock, Gregory) and the tacticians (Wenger, Martinez, Pocchetino) I'm not sure many of our managers in recent history fit into either of those though.
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I remember Ron Atkinson springing a suprise in the 1994 League Cup final win against Man Utd (Villa's best ever win, in my opinion, in the Premier League era, against a Utd team that would win the double that year) by bringing in Graham Fenton (for his debut?) to do a particular job. I can't recall now what that job was. Or who got left out (Ray Houghton perhaps?).
So that would make BFR a type 1 (Allardyce, Mourinho, Ferguson).
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I hate the idea of "types" - it immediately takes away any possibility of an individual approach, which pundits and their followers criticise with apparent ease, simply showing they're conditioned and ignorant feckers.
re: the article types, and being a total hypocrite in saying this, Lambert is type 2. Without doubt!
(but then perhaps he's just Lambert: a football manager without tactical nous or imagination?)
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Rodgers does adjust tactics and was one of Mourinho's coaches at one point. He's known for playing 4-3-3 but he also played the diamond at times last season. Same with Lambert.
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Yeah, a bit surprised that someone as experienced as Allardyce would say something as general as that.
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One may suspect that the motivation behind Allardyce's quotes is a desire to put himself in the same bracket as Mourinho and Ferguson, rather than to provide a particular insightful analysis of manager "types".
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One may suspect that the motivation behind Allardyce's quotes is a desire to put himself in the same bracket as Mourinho and Ferguson, rather than to provide a particular insightful analysis of manager "types".
Or to explain the change in philosophy at West Ham being his idea rather than enforced by the board
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One may suspect that the motivation behind Allardyce's quotes is a desire to put himself in the same bracket as Mourinho and Ferguson, rather than to provide a particular insightful analysis of manager "types".
This.
Particularly now that WHam have become "challengers" in the last 2 weeks.
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Fat Sam puts himself in the same category as Mourinho and Fergerson. He'd be a good candidate for the Apprentice with that sort of talk.
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Fat Sam puts himself in the same category as Mourinho and Fergerson. He'd be a good candidate for the Apprentice with that sort of talk.
That's exactly what I thought. Talk about having a high opinion of yourself!
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Yeah, all I really took from that article is Allardyce begging to be respected as a football brain because they've strung a few decent results together.
In answer to the question though, I think Lambert is what I would call 'non-reactive'. That is, he tends to need to react to circumstances when his tactics don't work, and then doesn't really do anything to change it. O'Neill was the same.
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In answer to the question though, I think Lambert is what I would call 'non-reactive'. That is, he tends to need to react to circumstances when his tactics don't work, and then doesn't really do anything to change it. O'Neill was the same.
Saw that Monday night. A change was needed around the 60th-65th minute because nothing was happening. 70th minute and it's game over.
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That 94 Final was a one off really, BFR used to say he never normally worried about what other teams were doing, he liked the opposition to worry about his team. We lost the two league games vs United that season despite matching them in the home game and playing fairly ok in the away match. For the Old Trafford game he used Earl Barrett to man mark Cantona which didn't work, it had worked at Highbury when Earl marked Ian Wright. In the Old Trafford game though Cantona saw it as a challenge and raised his game scoring twice. BFR left Cantona unattended in the Final and the Frenchman did fuck all, especially after one tackle on him by Townsend. Generally BFR never really altered his style though. He did try 4-3-3 at the start of 1993-94 to accommodate Saunders, Whittingham and Dalian but it didn't work.
Brian Little never really altered his tactics once he was settled on 5-3-2. Half way through that year it was only by accident that Tommy Johnson become a dangerous striker playing in the hole behind Yorke and Savo whereas before it was a straight three man midfield with Taylor, Draper and Townsend. When BL did change it at the start of 1997-98 to accommodate Collymore with the usual pairing of Milosevic/Yorke it just didn't work.
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PS It would have been between Houghton and Garry Parker as to whom Fenton replaced, most likely Houghton as Parker was injured or out of favour most of that season.
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To be fair, I think some of these tactical masterstrokes stem from happy accidents. There are some players who will never be able to take on a role other than the one they're paid for, but others are utility men who just aren't recognised for it.
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Two types of manager? Those who have been found out and those who will be found out.
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Fat Sam is just bigging himself up like Joey Barton buying books that don't need crayons.
There are two types of managers like there are two types of individuals, namely extrovert and introvert. At the extrovert end if the manager spectrum you have BFR who would lead the singing on the team bus and at the introvert extreme Paul Lambert who (allegedly) had Marc Albrighton dismissed from the team bus and made to return home from Palace on the train.
In our situation it is not rocket science to work out which one would restore collapsing morale.
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You could try and work this out for all PL managers using a venn diagram with different bubbles denoting tactician, motivator etc etc. Lambert would still float away in his own "useless twonk" bubble.
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PS It would have been between Houghton and Garry Parker as to whom Fenton replaced, most likely Houghton as Parker was injured or out of favour most of that season.
He brought Fenton in to play attacking midfield and dropped Houghton. This was to help do a job v Ince and Keane. He pushed both Daly and Atkinson wider to counter the threats of Giggs and Kanchelsis.
BFR wasn't known for tactical nous but got it right in that game
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At Norwich Lambert seemed to use both styles - he would set up in his preferred formation and if it didn't work change it during the match.
Remember the debacle at Palace when the team sheet was leaked (or whatever) and the opposition tactics were to target certain of our players? We never seem to do anything like that so I reckon McMumbles is a "stick not twister" these days.
One of the journos did a piece about team tactics last season and he had us down as trying the same thing until it worked - or didn't.
His tactical inflexibility is compounded by his apparent lapses into panic when he just piles on forwards or alternatively replaces like with like to. equally, little effect.
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PS It would have been between Houghton and Garry Parker as to whom Fenton replaced, most likely Houghton as Parker was injured or out of favour most of that season.
He brought Fenton in to play attacking midfield and dropped Houghton. This was to help do a job v Ince and Keane. He pushed both Daly and Atkinson wider to counter the threats of Giggs and Kanchelsis.
BFR wasn't known for tactical nous but got it right in that game
"I'd seen Arsenal play them with Alan Smith up front and Ian Wright and Kevin Campbell to the sides...I thought we could get away with that if we used Dalian and Tony Daley in a wide and strong, physical midfield. We didn't have anyone who could go man to man with them. So I thought we could take them in numbers, force Cantona deep. I said to the fast lads on the wings, 'If their fullbacks start coming forward, come back with them'."
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Lambert's problem is that he's type one, and this is the point against Fat Sam's simplification - if you spend all your time adjusting to the opposition, what do you do when the onus is on you to make the game? You're stranded without a coherent playing style because that takes time and work to inculcate into a team. Neither one is perfect, despite Allardyce's posturing.
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At the extrovert end if the manager spectrum you have BFR who would lead the singing on the team bus and at the introvert extreme Paul Lambert who (allegedly) had Marc Albrighton dismissed from the team bus and made to return home from Palace on the train.
I thought it was Culverhouse who (allegedly) had Albrighton dismissed from the coach?
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PS It would have been between Houghton and Garry Parker as to whom Fenton replaced, most likely Houghton as Parker was injured or out of favour most of that season.
He brought Fenton in to play attacking midfield and dropped Houghton. This was to help do a job v Ince and Keane. He pushed both Daly and Atkinson wider to counter the threats of Giggs and Kanchelsis.
BFR wasn't known for tactical nous but got it right in that game
I remember that game well. Graham hadn't listened to instructions and BFR was on the sidelines shouting "Fenton... FENTON!!! Jesus Christ!!"
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It's ironic to hear Allardyce say that, given the single biggest criticism of him last season from all sections of West Ham's support was that we only ever played one way - defensive, physical, slow, looking to score from set pieces.
Some might have described it as "shit".
He's certainly making sure he gets the plaudits whilst the team are playing well.
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Not3Bad, the actual punishment meted out to Marc after the Palace game was (allegedly) by Culverhouse but
a) I do not believe for one nano second that Lambert did not know about it and
b) To have such a crushing downer (allegedly) inflicted on one of your team by one of your assistants and to do nothing about it is worse than doing it personally.
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Lambert has become the extremely rigid type, religiously sticking to the same shape and style. Which is the complete opposite of the manager I thought we were getting.
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Surely, the way you set up is determined by how you assess your team against the quality of the opposition. So if you're Villa and you're playing Chelsea or Man City, you'd probably not going to be the favourite there, so you set out to nullify the opposition. But if you're playing Hull or Burnley, you ought to be expecting to win, so you set up according to your strengths.
And if you happen to be playing a weaker team that just happens to have a great individual, then you have a plan to stop him.
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There are 2 types all right, ones that have a clue and Lambert types.
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I also think you can identify a manager as lucky / not lucky.
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Lambert may want to at times change things, but I think a major problem at Villa, is not only is the Manager not very good, but we have a lack of football intelligence in the team, take it from the back, Guzan appears a follower not a leader, Vlaar again to me not a football tactician, Delph may have that missing factor, but I am not sure he is entirely happy with all aspects of his game, Benteke knows what he wants but does not seem to be a major communicator, Westwood to introvert, Gabby , Andi, god have a collection for two brain cells and we would have to have another one to get the second cell.
Chelsea, hate the twat Terry, Drogba and Fabregas all leaders, City Kompany, Silver, Aquero, United had Ferdinand, Vidic and to some extent Rooney.
Lambert has got to go as he is type 3, useless, but I don't think the squad helps and unless tactic A works, there is no one clever enough on the pitch to kick in a tactic B.
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PS It would have been between Houghton and Garry Parker as to whom Fenton replaced, most likely Houghton as Parker was injured or out of favour most of that season.
An abiding memory of that game was Fenton hitting Ince in a 50/50 before standing over him and a poleaxed 'guvnor' looking stunned. By the way Deano you have an excellent recollection of our games from the 90s. Cheers for helping bring back the memories.
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Very interesting reading this thread. It ultimately comes down to successful and unsuccessful managers in professional football.
A manager is as good as his coaching team- he's also helped when he is respected by his players . A manager has to get players on his side by man management or use his coach or captain. A respected or experienced manager in the game already has this and he ll reward loyalty and players with right attitude (to his methods or to the boards insistence) a place in the playing squad every time. Its politics like in any other business, club or society.
One could currently speculate the issue u with Fabian and Ronnie. Both exceptional players and leaders in the team . The captain issue is massive in football as we all know and at this moment the future of both these players is uncertain. Perhaps for another thread but I think that a manager is greatly affected by who his captain is. Thus the link to this h & v discussion would be about that success as a manager who chooses his captain wisely. Delph and Vlaar are essential in the team to have a greater chance of winning and making the manager a success.
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One may suspect that the motivation behind Allardyce's quotes is a desire to put himself in the same bracket as Mourinho and Ferguson, rather than to provide a particular insightful analysis of manager "types".
Or to explain the change in philosophy at West Ham being his idea rather than enforced by the board
He's also had to change his tactics with Carroll being out. Will be interesting to see what happens when he returns.
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Charlie Manson should be up for parole (again soon) he got people to believe all kinds of shit, cant we get him in as manager, with them eyes think he may even stare old Roy in to the ground.
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That league defeat at Old Trafford in Dec '93...I have a vivid memory of watching it in a pub as a kid and we were banging on the door for ages after going 1-0 down before United broke twice to score in quick succession near the end and go 3-0 up to which we immediately replied (Parker?) to get a smart consolation. It seemed that the Villa of that time knew they had it in them to put it up to United when both sides met.
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That league defeat at Old Trafford in Dec '93...I have a vivid memory of watching it in a pub as a kid and we were banging on the door for ages after going 1-0 down before United broke twice to score in quick succession near the end and go 3-0 up to which we immediately replied (Parker?) to get a smart consolation. It seemed that the Villa of that time knew they had it in them to put it up to United when both sides met.
Cox scored at Old Trafford. The home game much earlier in the season we matched them for long spells and is possibly the best game we've ever lost. I mean no game we lose is good but in terms of quality it just might be the best one we ever lost.
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Villa 1-2 United 1993-94
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Lambert is a want to be MON type
Thou he got motivate anything