Its easy to see why Keane and Souness are failed managers
I think that is down to personality traits rather than football awareness .
It’s grand saying City systems are so good that it’s too much for an individual to take blame, but both City goals were very preventable.
For the second one Fred gave the ball away, then didn’t try a leg to get back and recover it. None of the United midfield tracked Sterling or Sane back. Darmain & Smalling never communicated and both ended up chasing Aguero leaving an acre for Sane and then De Gea fluffed a very savable shot.
For the first one, Shaw came into the tackle flat rather than showing Silva one side or the other, then was easily wrong footed. He shouldn’t have dived in and ran up to get close, but he should have shown him away from goal. You learn that when you are about 12.
Systems are important and Liverpool and City are undoubtedly unbelievably well organised, but systems are made up of individuals and to exonerate individuals from criticism for basic errors is just silly.
He makes some good points about the changing nature of the game though to be fair to him.
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That the game has evolved seems to be a revelation to some lads here who needed Ken Early to break it down for them.
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A Jonathan Wilson or Michael Cox article would melt some lads heads.
The game has never not been evolving.
Philip Lahm ran more with the ball at his feet in the 2014 World Cup semi-final than any player ran in total in the 1970 World Cup final.
Pitches have a lot to do with how English football in particular has evolved. Systems like that of Klopp and Guardiola wouldn’t have been possible on the bogs of Elland Road and Old Trafford of the 70s and 80s. As late as 1995 Blackburn won the league playing their home matches in a mud bath. Now they’re all snooker tables and have been for 15-20 years.
To make a Giles-esque point, however, certain fundamental principles don’t change. You can’t allow players to take shots unmolested like Manchester United allowed Manchester City do. But a large part of the reason they did this is because United’s system, or rather lack of one, is stuck in the dark ages, with much less running than the top teams. Neither, to reference a point made above, is putting a player on a post when defending a corner incompatible with modern systems. Manchester City are out of the Champions League because when that ball hit off Llorente’s hip there was no defender on the post to stop it going into the goal. Neither do systems eliminatee individual errors - Laporte made two catastrophic ones. There’s your three Tottenham goals in the second leg explained.
The top three coaches in European football are Klopp, Guardiola and Pochettino. All three are like cult leaders and they have be to play the systems they play. Guardiola’s system wins in a league format because over 38 games that extraordinarily large percentage of ball possession and furious, pre-programmed movement tends to overwhelm pretty much every team which isn’t top 3 or 4. Like, yesterday with an hour gone, you knew Burnley couldn’t hold out because in the remaining 33 or 34 minutes, you knew they would have to defend up to 50 separate attacks. But in the Champions League, his failure since 2011 has been startling. In the long run, systems win, but in cup football, they can be beaten.
Liverpool v Barcelona is going to be fascinating because it’s a battle of systems based thinking against a team who used to be the masters of systems based thinking and furious movement - but have increasingly departed from that in favour of relying on the world’s greatest individual talent.
The World Cup and the hilarious lack of tactical coherence of teams showed how club football has moved beyond international football in leaps and bounds - but that’s been the case for at least three decades now.
6 days on simpletons like Ken early and epl heads like @the_man_himself @anon78624367 and @Sidney haven’t realised than man United threw the game.
Pep and klopps rush style is very suited to the epl. Lunatics running at full pelt unsettles the average epl player due to the low level of technical ability. In Italy or Spain the players would simply take a touch and pass it around. In the epl they balloon it into the stand.
united have resorted to throwing football matches.
The fall is complete.
Klopp won 2 Bundesligas and a German cup at Dortmund. He hasn’t won a thing at Liverpool.
Guardiola has dominated every league he has been in. He won 5 domestic trophies out of 6 at Munich. He won 3 leagues out of 3 in Germany. He won 3 out of 4 in La Liga.
Bayern were the best side in Europe when pep took them over and turned them into a rabble for a finish and still haven’t recovered. He only won at Barca because of Messi and some refereeing decisions.
Why do you do this to yourself? Its like debating with an 11 year old.
I don’t know the answer to this.
sometimes the chap can be reasonable and have a discussion. This isn’t one of those times
Yes I already said that
They’ve both won more than most managers ever will. Sure Mourinho is now a failed manager having once been an absolute genius tactian and man manager.
I think Klopp needs to win stuff this year as players can only sustain his style of play for a few years. And if the belief of players goes, the system drops.
If Liverpool don’t win the League with 97 points you have to say financial fair play and well done to City.
Be interesting to see how Liverpool deal with Barcelona and Messi in the semi final. Team does seem to have matured a lot since last year’s final when once Salah went off injured the bolt was shot.
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You can’t compare Souness and Keane with Mourinho. They both make good points at times but its easy to see why the modern game left them behind in terms of coaching
Klopp did seven years with Dortmund and only in the final year did it begin to fall apart
Guardiola has done four years max anywhere
Mourinho never did more than three
Intensity of personality tends not to have a massive shelf life