ATF

This is the system Jones was lauded for tbf. Its bollocks. With these players it’s awful. Could work ok though It's Valeriy Lobanovskyi's setup, except without the right profiles and skillsets in any of the right positions.

Laughed out loud at this. Magnificent.

Fitness broadly falls at the feet of the manager. He's the one that has to plan the season, set out a style of play and the appropriate fitness regime to carry out that style, with planned peaks/drop-offs. Muscle injuries, especially given the recent change in approach when Jones arrived (more pressing = more intensive sprinting), aren't a coincidence, and it's usually down to the one making the big decisions.

This match was between the two most under-coached teams in the league. Man Utd play almost entirely off the cuff and rely on moments from Fernandes, Rashford and, when they actually play, Cavani and Greenwood. Throw in a new challenge for them, like a narrow 4-3-1-2 diamond that pressures high up the pitch, and they don't know what to do. You can see it by just watching them for five or ten minutes. If they were actually coached they'd have had the game sewn up as quickly as Chelsea did the other day.

Here's the section about styles and his development: 'His relationship with Cooper is “possibly the best I’ve had with a manager” but it is the tutelage of Martyn Margetson, the Swansea and England goalkeeper coach, which Woodman has found revolutionary. “Goalkeeping can be so complex — I’m not sure people realise how different and difficult it actually is — but Marge has helped me make more sense of it,” Woodman says. “He has really opened my eyes to a different way of keeping goal, which I’ve seen huge benefits from. “Every coach has different styles. I talked with Rafa on numerous occasions; he loved his goalkeeping and he’d tell me to get low and try and block, like Pepe Reina. I remember going home to my dad and saying, ‘Rafa wants me to do this’ and he was like, ‘No, that’s not proper goalkeeping. You need to dive at their feet’. It made me think, ‘God, there are just so many different styles’. None of them are right or wrong. They’re just different. It’s important to find the one that works for you.” With Margetson, Woodman has discovered a new way, one that he believes suits him more. He watches videos with his dad, before-and-after tapes of how he operated pre-Swansea and how he plays now. “The difference is huge,” he says. Already, Woodman has kept 16 clean sheets in just 27 appearances this season, having managed just 12 in 43 across 2019-20. In what way has he changed, though? “My all-round goalkeeping has improved,” Woodman, who has bulked up physically, says. “Fundamentally, there are three key differences. “First, in my set position for shots, I’m higher in my stance. Under Rafa, I’d be encouraged to get down and do more blocking, but, being higher, I think it helps me protect the goal better. “Also, I played a lot higher under Rafa; I came out of my goal a lot more, sometimes I feel possibly unnecessarily. But now I am a little deeper. “And, because we try to play it out from the back, you’ll see me taking more risks in possession than I would have done before.” Swansea supporters rate Woodman highly but many would argue that distribution remains his weakest attribute. “In terms of retaining possession, that is something I continue to work on,” says Woodman. “Being away with the England sides, playing ‘The England Way’, helped prepare me for that, but so did Chris Terpcou, my goalkeeping coach at Newcastle’s academy. When I was 14, he had me watching videos of Ajax and doing extra distribution sessions. I used to think, ‘Jesus, he’s working the socks off me here’. Now, whenever he rings me, I tell him, ‘Terps, I owe you’. “With playing out from the back, you’ve got to accept that it’s not always going to go right. You’ll give passes away, even if you’d prefer not to. I watch a lot of Ederson (at Manchester City) and he is a wonderful footballer, but sometimes he kicks it long. He watches the other team press, thinks about it, and chooses to kick long. In my eyes, it’s all about good decision-making, which is another component of my goalkeeping I want to keep improving.”'

They should be more cautious during a pandemic.

You'd have to be a complete moron not to understand the difference between this and Rafa or this and Mourinho or even this and Dyche/Allardyce/Hodgson. What are the patterns of play? What's the first pass when the team wins the ball? How does the team close off the space between the lines when they don't have the ball? What are the triggers for closing down? How's the cover arranged? When does the defence push up or hold their line, and when do they drop? There's 'awful' football and then there's AWFUL football. This team looks farcically under-coached. I know you all know this but it's laughable how many pundits don't.

A thread on the circumstances

That's what he said: "The pandemic is still here, for all of us, and supporting our families has been a priority when making this decision."

Coaches like Dyche and Allardyce are levels above Bruce (and Pardew for that matter) for this exact reason. They have an idea, a strategy, a 'philosophy', and they know how to implement it and make sure their players understand and perform it. The patterns of play become automatic which means the foundations are there, regardless of form or opponent. They'll never work at a top club but they can get a promotion, keep a team in the Premier League, and maybe, once or twice, luck will fall their way for a season and they'll get a team into Europe. Managers like Bruce and Pardew have nothing apart from blind faith in their own 'man management'. They float wherever the wind takes them (has to be a slightly stronger wind for Bruce to float obviously). They have no understanding of how to get out of a 'crisis', no genuine trust in their own ability (compare that to Rafa's calmness when things aren't going his way). Eventually they float in so many directions that their players get dizzy and start wondering if there is any purpose, on the football pitch or in life. Unsurprisingly their insecurities start coming to the surface as soon as genuine pressure is heaped on them.

They have to be more careful in possession given the difference in quality between their defence and Liverpool's.

I mean everyone knows that Rafa would like to be Newcastle manager under new owners. Not exactly new info.

It wouldn't be a problem. He's only taken the extra responsibilities when no one else at the clubs (particularly Liverpool and Newcastle) were qualified to make the decisions. As long as the responsibilities are clear, the manager is listened to and gets final yes or no on transfers, Rafa has always said he's happy working with a DoF (or an equivalent setup).

Check this for a stat

He doesn't like a big squad though. He has small squads partly by choice.

Pochettino's a very good coach. Not elite but not to be sniffed at either.

Rafa for most of his career has preferred a pressing style anyway. I know that's not his reputation but he did at Valencia, he did at Liverpool, he was trying to instill that at Inter. Arrigo Sacchi is his idol because of the compactness and pressing of his Milan. That's Rafa's ideal. He's just not an ideologue; if, as has been clearly seen at Newcastle, he thinks his team has to drop off and cut off the space behind, he'll do it. When he can though, the basics of his teams are obvious - an 'elastic' defensive line that moves up and down with the ball, holds the offside line if they can. No space in midfield or between the lines, quick in transition but always organised and balanced. It's definitely not as attacking or aggressive as Klopp or Guardiola - he's more overtly keen on shape and balance, sometimes to a fault. But listen to him talk about coaches like Sacchi or Francisco Maturana; it's all about compactness in midfield, high defensive line when possible, zonal defence and pressing in midfield.

Good article. What the Rafa/Bruce comparisons also miss, amongst many things, is that Rafa was coach for more than one season. So all the "Bruce is doing a better job than Benitez" shouts - well Rafa achieved instant promotion as champions, a top ten finish first season back up on half the reinvestment of Brighton and Huddersfield, and then mid table again the second season after all the teams around Newcastle pushed on. Plus wins over Man City, and much better Arsenal, Chelsea and Man United teams than they've faced this season. He did an excellent job in a stronger league, without the luck of this season, and without the humiliations. He was far, far superior in every significant way.

"7 Reasons Steve Bruce Would Not Have Caught Coronavirus"

Was literally just searching online for a post from a few weeks ago and came across this from today - on xG, the team hasn't won a single game this season.

If you can't be good, be lucky.

Wrong on all counts. Against a shot destined for the top left corner, the keeper can reach higher with his right arm than his left arm which is underneath. And the power on the shot would have made it very difficult for any keeper in the world to tip it round the corner.