Unai Emery

[paul_e]

Bailey fulfills a role in the side that nobody else quite does. Traoré isn't as fast off the ball and Big Jhon is a bit green.

Bailey's the one who runs the right channels, is available for the outballs, attacks at the right angles. It's just a shame that he can't do anything with it, anything at all, ever.

Agreed, what he's trying to do is a great fit for the team, the problem is that he's not doing it well enough.

As with most of our tactical choices players are being given jobs to do that create space (this should be a fundamental basic of football but sadly isn't). As another example Ramsey plays on the left but drifts in field which forces the fullback to either come narrow and mark him, pass him to another player or leave him unmarked. Which choice he makes we have a plan for it. Against West Ham the fullback was tucking in, and Moreno was allowed space to create our goal and make 3-4 other very good chances. If he'd held his space we'd have had Ramsey running into the gap between him and his centre back, or Rice might have drifted over and left space for Buendia and McGinn to move into.

Tactics are all about controlling the choices teams have and then exploiting the decisions they make. Smith understood this but struggled to implement the 'exploiting' part, Gerrard and Bruce didn't get it and failed to control the choices teams had, that's the difference between a modern manager and a dinosaur.

[paul_e]

I still think Bailey is better on the left than right. I know he’s scored a couple from the right, but I find on that side he’s always trying to control the ball and then cut inside the LB, and he invariably fucks up the first bit and rarely if ever getting to the second.

True I think, but all his other attributes best fit the set-up of the team coming in from the right, where he inevitably messes up. He's a bit stuck, basically - and so are we!

The biggest problem with him being super left-footed but playing on the right is that it takes his pace out of the game. There are regular comments on here suggesting his pace is a myth but every now and then he gets a chance to rinse someone and you see how dangerous it could be.

[VILLA MOLE]

I still think Bailey is better on the left than right. I know he’s scored a couple from the right, but I find on that side he’s always trying to control the ball and then cut inside the LB, and he invariably fucks up the first bit and rarely if ever getting to the second.

True I think, but all his other attributes best fit the set-up of the team coming in from the right, where he inevitably messes up. He's a bit stuck, basically - and so are we!

The biggest problem with him being super left-footed but playing on the right is that it takes his pace out of the game. There are regular comments on here suggesting his pace is a myth but every now and then he gets a chance to rinse someone and you see how dangerous it could be.

Bailey does not seem strong enough for this league ,  he gets bounced off the ball too easily

[Monty]

The big thing at the minute is the 'formations are dead' idea, which is a bit exaggerated as there are still starting positions and, anyway, formations have always been oversimplistic so in that sense it's not totally new.

The difference is that, unlike the Pep military-style positional stuff, players are trained to exploit space in a much freer and improvised way, learning to cover for the guy whose right it is to go for the gap because at some point it'll be your turn, etc. At its best, it's Napoli right now, so I'm pretty pleased to see us at the cutting edge of something that actually works for once.

The biggest problem with him being super left-footed but playing on the right is that it takes his pace out of the game. There are regular comments on here suggesting his pace is a myth but every now and then he gets a chance to rinse someone and you see how dangerous it could be.

I'd rather say it limits his opportunities to show top speed, but I basically agree yeah. Sometimes the best interests of the player and those of the team conflict, obviously to the detriment of both in a sense, but of course the alternative would throw everything off-balance and so isn't exactly a solution. One of those ironies.

[LeeB]

The big thing at the minute is the 'formations are dead' idea, which is a bit exaggerated as there are still starting positions and, anyway, formations have always been oversimplistic so in that sense it's not totally new.

The difference is that, unlike the Pep military-style positional stuff, players are trained to exploit space in a much freer and improvised way, learning to cover for the guy whose right it is to go for the gap because at some point it'll be your turn, etc. At its best, it's Napoli right now, so I'm pretty pleased to see us at the cutting edge of something that actually works for once.

The biggest problem with him being super left-footed but playing on the right is that it takes his pace out of the game. There are regular comments on here suggesting his pace is a myth but every now and then he gets a chance to rinse someone and you see how dangerous it could be.

I'd rather say it limits his opportunities to show top speed, but I basically agree yeah. Sometimes the best interests of the player and those of the team conflict, obviously to the detriment of both in a sense, but of course the alternative would throw everything off-balance and so isn't exactly a solution. One of those ironies.

Bailey is sort of the antihesis of 'formations are dead' thing isn't he? I mean that requires players to be tactically flexible, intelligent and selfless, characteristics that seem to missing from the Leon the footballer*


*He may well be an intelligent and generous young man outside of football

[Monty]

He does strike me as the kind of player who'd be better suited to being given a specific role in which he has, like, eight exact things to do. He's not the first to struggle adapting from simple to complex roles and he won't be the last - I mean, look at Grealish or Mahrez struggling under Guardiola.

[paul_e]

The big thing at the minute is the 'formations are dead' idea, which is a bit exaggerated as there are still starting positions and, anyway, formations have always been oversimplistic so in that sense it's not totally new.

The difference is that, unlike the Pep military-style positional stuff, players are trained to exploit space in a much freer and improvised way, learning to cover for the guy whose right it is to go for the gap because at some point it'll be your turn, etc. At its best, it's Napoli right now, so I'm pretty pleased to see us at the cutting edge of something that actually works for once.

The biggest problem with him being super left-footed but playing on the right is that it takes his pace out of the game. There are regular comments on here suggesting his pace is a myth but every now and then he gets a chance to rinse someone and you see how dangerous it could be.

I'd rather say it limits his opportunities to show top speed, but I basically agree yeah. Sometimes the best interests of the player and those of the team conflict, obviously to the detriment of both in a sense, but of course the alternative would throw everything off-balance and so isn't exactly a solution. One of those ironies.

Bailey is sort of the antihesis of 'formations are dead' thing isn't he? I mean that requires players to be tactically flexible, intelligent and selfless, characteristics that seem to missing from the Leon the footballer*


*He may well be an intelligent and generous young man outside of football

In all honesty I don't know who Bailey is as a player, he has a great touch, he's quick and he's got a good shot on him. He's also a decent crosser and plays some very dangerous passes. All in he should be really dangerous in that 2nd striker role where he can be quite free to play wherever he finds space but that's just not what happens. Instead he doesn't use his pace, he holds on to the ball too long and misses chances to pass/cross and he snatches at his shots far too often, either scuffing them or in some cases completely missing his kick.

I think it has to be a mental thing and I wouldn't be surprised to find out that he is a completely different player in training. I think he's a confidence player who is just too desperate to prove himself and it's manifesting in a lot of negative ways.

[Drummond]

Playing him on the right takes away a lot of his qualities. it's tougher to control the ball when it's on your foot nearest the opposition player.

When it's on the outer side it's easier and allows the ability to run and hit a cross.

[LeeB]

I keep saying he looks like he spent his formative years honing his skills alone in the garden and then has been suddenly thrust into 11 a side football with no concept of it.

[Risso]

It was only a short sample of course, but Traore looked to fit the team much better than Bailey in the last match. Bert has his downsides of course, but he appeared to be a connected part of the team, capable of being involved in the build up of play much more than Bailey. We looked more balanced with him in the team. Bailey does provide the potential for an out ball as others have said, but if the end result is that he loses it 95% of the time, then really there's not an awful lot of point.

[Risso]

I keep saying he looks like he spent his formative years honing his skills alone in the garden and then has been suddenly thrust into 11 a side football with no concept of it.

It's like we were discussing at the Palace match, he's that lad who looks brilliant at six-a-side with a load of step overs and a dead hard shot, but put him on a full size pitch with good defenders who know how to keep him out and all of that talent just seems to evaporate. He still reminds me of Bolasie, skill to burn but very little actual end product.

[paul_e]

He does strike me as the kind of player who'd be better suited to being given a specific role in which he has, like, eight exact things to do. He's not the first to struggle adapting from simple to complex roles and he won't be the last - I mean, look at Grealish or Mahrez struggling under Guardiola.

I think something like this would be the best way to address the trying to do too much/lacking confidence thing by giving him very specific instructions as you suggest.

On the complex or simple thing I suspect that really depends on what you mean by complex. I'm going to use some coding examples because it explains things really neatly here.


For me the difference between Emery and someone like Gerrard or Bruce is that Emery might give you lots of different instructions but each one will be simple statements ("if X then Y else Z" style). Gerrard would have far few instructions but the individual statements are far more vague ("if X then {magic code block 1} or {magic code block 2} or ... else {fuck knows}").

The former, whilst a lot to get your head around and needing time to embed, is setting very specific tasks and becomes things that just happen over time. The latter is moving all of the decision making from the training ground and forcing it into the moment so you don't see progress because there is no end state where everyone knows their role and delivers exactly what is asked.

[pauliewalnuts]

As someone else said, with Bailey it is very noticeable that if something doesn't go for him early on in the game, that's it, he might as well not be on the pitch for the rest of it.

It's mentality with him, and he just doesn't have it at this level.

[paul_e]

I keep saying he looks like he spent his formative years honing his skills alone in the garden and then has been suddenly thrust into 11 a side football with no concept of it.

The only problem here is that most of these problems don't seem to have existed when he was in Germany so I don't think it's due to him just not getting it. Maybe he's reverting to playing like a school kid because it's the only way he can feel like he's in control of his performances, but that's a bit self-destructive when that naivety is a big part of the problem.

[paul_e]

As someone else said, with Bailey it is very noticeable that if something doesn't go for him early on in the game, that's it, he might as well not be on the pitch for the rest of it.

It's mentality with him, and he just doesn't have it at this level.

Yep, I think a few people have suggested this and it's clearly played a part. The other thing (which Footy doesn't like) is that I suspect premier league defenders are fitter, stronger and quicker than he's used to and once they out-muscle him/keep with him in a race/recover after he's got away from them he gets a bit intimidated and loses confidence.