Is Jurgen Klopp Overrated? - Topic

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Feb 4 2016 09:16am

Quote (WNxIrvine @ 4 Feb 2016 16:37)

So why don't these most excellent and gifted European managers fix these problems with unlimited cash?

Using villas boas, one of the biggest premier league managerial flops as an example is probably a stupid idea too.

I'm not disagreeing with you. But the premier league has some of the best European managers around. Why, if they have such amazing tactical nous, are they not changing things?

Englishmen can't be educated, its a known fact.

It's like training a monkey, regardless of how good the training is the monkey will still go for a tree.

aneas

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#182

Feb 4 2016 09:26am

Quote (WNxIrvine @ 4 Feb 2016 15:37)

So why don't these most excellent and gifted European managers fix these problems with unlimited cash?

Using villas boas, one of the biggest premier league managerial flops as an example is probably a stupid idea too.

I'm not disagreeing with you. But the premier league has some of the best European managers around. Why, if they have such amazing tactical nous, are they not changing things?

I really think the answer to that question is highly complex, but I can imagine at least a few reasons:

You cannot compete that instantly with years of English/British tradition and a specific mindset that has manifested itself over such a long time. It's not half a season's work to turn things around completely, yet it seems like everybody is expecting said work to be done within a few months.
Especially when at the same time you have to deal with a demanding club owner (who of course also ignores all of these aspects in favor of a simple eqation: money = wins), ever-demanding supporters and players who are simply not used to or dubious about most of the training methods that are standard practice in other countries (it often seems like training in BPL consists of at least 75% individual and physical drills).
Players openly revolting (like in Villas-Boas' case) because they couldn't cope with that much of change were the result. At that point it's usually much easier to just sack a coach than to replace a whole squad or successfully alter their mindesets.

(there have been examples for that in Bundesliga as well; just look at Guardiola with Bayern in his first UCL season: team-leading players like Schweinsteiger or Lahm hadn't come to fully trust in his system and ideas yet when they were about to face Real Madrid. The result saw Madrid demolish a Bayern squad who mixed up older ideas and more classical tactics and only implemented Guardiola's style.. well... half-assed... that might have even been one of the reasons Pep was so happy to get rid of Schweinsteiger, although he was one of the club's real icons...)

But there's another problem I could imagine:

So far, the great TV deals and the financial status of BPL allowed it to cover many weaknesses by keeping its teams at least close to European competition, even while obviously losing ground (take the UEFA 5-year ranking or the National Team's / National Youth Team's latest displays during tournaments as examples).
That's why the fact that BPL was falling behind in many key aspects of the game never got the media attention it needed to be relevant enough in order for clubs, owners, etc. to re-think and re-structure various things. As I said, we're talking about a time when clubs were already underperforming in UCL and tactical flaws were obvious to almost everyone, yet English experts were still blaming it all on weak individual defending.

This post was edited by aneas on Feb 4 2016 09:32am

ampoo

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#183

Feb 4 2016 09:27am

Quote (aneas @ 4 Feb 2016 15:29)

Kind of funny that you'd keep making such hilarious excuses and unbacked claims when in reality your first squad (logically better than your youth players) can't even get a victory over a team like Watford starting with 3 players who all failed more or less completely in Bundesliga and already have or will be replaced by their former German teams' own younger talents, like Jurado was by 18-year-old Draxler at Schalke 04.

Don't get me wrong. BPL might be on the right track to catch up with the rest of Europe and their teams have all the tools (i.e. money) to do so, but right now even the greatest of BPL's young talents couldn't hold a candle to their Spanish, German or Portuguese counterparts.

Again, it's not a coincidence that Positional Play and Gegenpressing had been well-known ideas almost all around the European football community, yet BPL had to wait for foreign coaches like Laudrup, Villas-Boas or Klopp to introduce and explain those tactical variations, before media even coined a term for them.
To this day, neither Chelsea, nor Manchester United (let alone Manchester City) are able to either cope with opponents decently executing those playstyles or try to play such styles themselves.
Funny how for example a guy like Jonathan Wilson tries to explain Gegenpressing/counter-pressing in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbkUqUkuQPM and doesn't get a single aspect of it right.

Until recently, for years and years you've watched people like Martin Keown and Gary Neville ask (on expert panels) why BPL clubs were defending so badly and - as a conclusion - reduce those weaknesses to individual mistakes, individual lack of talent or individual lack of ceoncentration, while completely ignoring the behaviour of the rest of the team in the situations leading up to those mistakes. Players in BPL are always only seen as and evaluated for their individual skills and seemingly only assigned 1 or 2 very specific tasks, while the team's organization as a whole group and players' positioning in relation to others is almost completely forgotten... that's why offensive players in general - and especially foreign ones with high individual class - are getting more and more attention and are able to really shine in BPL and score more and more goals each season. Individual quality is growing from year to year, while defensive problems are ignored or misinterpreted. And that's also a reason for many foreign coaches struggling when they first come to BPL. Their teams are totally under-developed in many key aspects of the game.

dont mind orian, he wont get it anyway :lol:

very good post, contains lot of the stuff i try to tell our premier league fans here, but of course the ideas are dismissed

the video is hilarious indeed, this guy has no idea what pressing and defending as a team means
decent german amateur teams are more advanced there :rofl:

the main problem is the following: if a coach tries to implement his new ideas in england and it does not work in the beginning (and it will not like you already mentioned) the media will be all over him with accusations
players need to run more, fight more, hit more balls forward, you name it
that will eventually lead to the guy getting fired or he adopts that rustic playstyle like the rest

leicester is one the few teams that have organisation in defense when they defend with their 442 block and try to counter
with a lot weaknesses though, especially when losing the ball on the attack

but yeah most of the time the players are scattered across the pitch, defense is still parking at their own box when the forwards are attacking on the other side
so many games run permanently from box to box

its exciting to watch and because of that most people believe its a strength, but it is not xd

Quote (aneas @ 4 Feb 2016 16:26)

(there have been examples for that in Bundesliga as well; just look at Guardiola with Bayern in his first UCL season: team-leading players like Schweinsteiger or Lahm hadn't come to fully trust in his system and ideas yet when they were about to face Real Madrid. The result saw Madrid demolishing a Bayern squad who mixed up older ideas and more classical tactics and only implemented Guardiola's style.. well... half-assed... that might have even been one of the reasons Pep was so happy to get rid of Schweinsteiger, although he was one of the club's real icons...)

the players were right to revolt against peps bullshit, because it just doesnt work
his crappy line up did the rest...

you have to see it this way
2014: no trust in peps approach, mixed tactics and we got raped by real
2015: fully trusted peps 1on1 vs MSN tactics and got slaughtered by barca

just wait, pep will have his share of trouble in england

This post was edited by ampoo on Feb 4 2016 09:32am

WNxIrvine

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Feb 4 2016 09:42am

Quote (B4al @ Feb 4 2016 03:16pm)

Englishmen can't be educated, its a known fact.

It's like training a monkey, regardless of how good the training is the monkey will still go for a tree.

That would be an excellent point if the majority of players were English.

B4al

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#185

Feb 4 2016 10:17am

Quote (WNxIrvine @ 4 Feb 2016 17:42)

That would be an excellent point if the majority of players were English.

That's why they aren't. Any half decent manager pretty much has to look abroad for talent.

I can't name out of the top of my head 2 tactically decent players england had. Lampard ? Defensively he was utter shit, although he scored more than your average midfielder, tactically he gaves us the giggles.
Gerrard-the-slipper ?

WNxIrvine

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Feb 4 2016 11:06am

Quote (B4al @ Feb 4 2016 04:17pm)

Yes. So they get talent abroad. So why are the teams not improving?

Not talking about English players. Everyone knows the problems there. Talking about why English teams aren't improving when they can attract the best european managers and the best European talent.

Odell

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#187

Feb 4 2016 11:06am

Bro umad

aneas

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Feb 4 2016 11:12am

Quote (B4al @ 4 Feb 2016 17:17)

I get your point and you're probably right with England not having a tactically decent player in years.

But I really don't think it's about (individually) being a decent tactical player.
It seems to add to my reasoning when you point out Lampard's defensive weakness or his above-average scoring, when your evaluation (based on what modern football ooffers or demands) should actually really center around other things:

1. his abilty to direct the players surrounding him
2. his ability to position his whole squad efficiently on the pitch in relation to ball position or opponents' runs and possibe through-balls
3. his ability to "pause" the game when necessary to allow for his own players to create spaces
4. his ability to "pause" the game in order to lure opponents into making a move, again to allow spaces to open
5. his ability to control and retain the ball under high pressure even in his team's own half of the pitch
6. his ability to find the right balance between retracting and direct counter-pressing after a ball is lost, depending on distance to the ball or first touch of the opposing player

Just to name a few key abilities that have been sought-after in players by teams across the rest of Europe, while being completely ignored by many managers, supporters, theorists and experts related to BPL.
But given that there is a general lack of tactical education and basic understanding spread through all parts of BPL football that is not a surprise.

Take Schweinsteiger as an example:

Since he moved to Manchester, he seems to be (and is openly criticized for) underperforming. Again, that is no surprise considering the fact that his best traits and abilities (they called him the BOSS for a reason when he led his respective teams to World Cup + UCL titles) are completely overlooked by critics and supporters and rendered useless by teammates not being used to the style of play he brought along from Bundesliga. In Germany, he was a leader, a general commanding whole squads and enabling them to convert the coaches' instructions into a flowing group tactic on the pitch. In England he is confronted by a style of play that mostly consists of through-balls to and 1vs1 dribblings by the wingers who then proceed to cross in, trying to find their forwards.

This post was edited by aneas on Feb 4 2016 11:13am

aneas

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Feb 4 2016 11:16am

Quote (WNxIrvine @ 4 Feb 2016 18:06)

Take Chelsea as an example... when Villas-Boas started to coach them, it was icons like Lampard & Terry, other English players like Cole as well as foreign players from even less-developed football nations in Africa (where coincidentally there is also a great emphasis on physical and individual development) that were most resistant to his ideas and made his life miserable. From there, it is much easier for supporters and officials/owners to lose confidence in a single person than in wide parts of their squad.

This post was edited by aneas on Feb 4 2016 11:17am

chelsea11

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#190

Feb 4 2016 01:27pm

Holy shit this aneas guy :rofl:

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