Everything Lyle and Scott has ever made in every size and every colour.
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The flagship Lyle and Scott store, with a personal shopper. And a platter of Tunnock’s Caramel’s and all the Irn Bru he can drink.
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A Scot he is not. Unless you meant for Lowry, Henderson, Harvie and Captain Jack?
I’m referring to his love of Lyle and Scott.
I’m aware he’s a Northern Irishman.
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Very good interview.
Sam goes straight in about OG and Dodds. And Mike states he has met ML ‘here’…
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Perhaps as an apparition conjured up by his spiritual representative, Dan Rice?
I think I’ve now got to the stage where I would weep if Mr Duff left.
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Agreed. I also refer to my earlier post…
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That is a fantastic interview. The most interesting one we’ve had. Huge credit to Sam Avery. What a thoroughly astute, intelligent and well researched bloke. Really like him. He seems to have built a strong rapport with Duff - especially if he’s created a bond and environment where Duff willingly gives such detailed and honest responses to him. Love it.
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great interview - and an important point about style from Duff. Despite what you might think from reading some stuff on here, we are not a wildly different team from the start of the season. He’s concentrated on the errors, made us slightly more pragmatic but many of the principles Dodds introduced over the summer are still being utilised, just more effectively.
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I think it’s more nuanced than that. The idiocy of the Dodds approach was summed up in the sentence “There is no plan B, we just have to make plan A work better”. Duff specifically makes the point in the (agreed excellent) interview that you have to adapt and adjust to what’s in front of you, from week to week and during the game. To put it another way, the foundations of our style are very similar, but, critically, we’re much more prepared to mix it up.
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It definitely helps that we’re not trying to build out in some weird narrow diamond midfield shape. Duff’s empowered Leahy and Henderson to explore space with freedom of expression and it’s really helping us break through lines up the pitch with great speed. Duff might play it down in the interview and suggest “the possession stats have barely changed”, but he knows what he’s doing. We are miles away from Dodds ball now.
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Dodds stated several times that results weren’t important. He must be the only manager in the history of football who believed that. Deluded or what.
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I personally believe that that comment was completely misunderstood by a lot of people
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no - he said that analysis of performances wasn’t result-driven
Michael Duff has more or less said exactly the same thing himself
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yeah it was wildly misunderstood (albeit he should prob have phrased it better). Dodds clearly wasn’t comfortable with the approach in the final months of last season (and nor, let’s be honest, were the fans - the playoff semis were brutal but it was an attempted means to an end). No Plan B meant: we’re committed to this style of football (the one Duff has largely carried on) and we’re not going to go back to April.
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I’m sorry @oilysailor and @eric_plant but I don’t agree. Of course, none of us is a mind reader, but what I thought he meant and still think he meant is that we were totally committed to this brand of playing-it-out-from-the-back football. The evidence on the pitch supports this. We would look good for the first 15 to 20 minutes of every game then the oppostion would realise that there was no jeopardy in a high press because we always played it out from the back.
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Football really isn’t rocket science. If you aim to play the same way no matter how the opponent plays, you will be predictable and easier to play against. It will only be successful if you have absolutely exceptional players for the level (Guardiola’s Barcelona would be a great example)
As @Oakwood_Exile says, playing out from the back on every occasion make it easy for the opposition to press very high and force errors without needing to worry about the opposition catching you with a fast break. Playing out for the majority of the time, while also retaining that long pass/fast break option is so much more effective. If you ever get a chance to re-watch the Stockport game, it was the best example of that at our level that I have ever seen. We drew them on and hit them with pace and power. They sat back and we passed them off the pitch. We kept switching it up the whole game, Stockport were a good side and they were completely baffled and just couldn’t cope with it. Sigh.
Duff is absolutely trying to do a similar thing as Bloomfield had us playing so perfectly. Obviously with not quite as good players currently. He is not playing the same way as Dodds, anyone who thinks that is blinded by stats and not watching the ACTUAL game.
Given time (and 1 or 2 real quality additions, Morley + 1) I think we could get there again. Duff is just the perfect fit for Wycombe, and he needs to be given what he needs to build the team/club over the next few years.
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Especially when he gets us into the playoffs then leaves for Oxford and keeps them up in the Championship
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Agreed. I’m no student of the game, but the idea the current Duff team is playing similarly to the Dodds team has got me completely baffled.
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It is completely incorrect to suggest always playing from the back can’t work because it allows the opposition to press high. You expect to be pressed and trust your ability with the ball to beat it, in doing so, opening up more space to play further up the pitch. Besides that, we definitely did play long at times anyway.
Dodds obviously had his faults but Duff has said on more than one occasion that strong fundamentals were in place when he came in. Winning games doesn’t always equal “back to Bloomfield-ball”.
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