One thing that has struck me is that we have got into the habit of signing quite scrawny players - Lowry, Berry and Tilley in particular, but neither Westergaard or Hagelskjær struck me as particularly powerful. I’m sure the data says they have great skill and panache but they’ll only get the opportunity to show that if there are some bruisers in the team willing to make the hard tackles to give them space. When we were up against teams full of tall, muscular players like Charlton we really struggled to exert control. Hopefully we’ll balance it out in future signings but one thing the data on individual players can never really show us is what they’ll be like in isolation, taken out of context of the team they were playing for alongside players with complementary skills.
Westerguadd must be over 6ft and very heaftily built for a midfielder.
And Hagelskajer was also well over 6 ft.
I think the lack of sightings of the Danes has you imagining they are built like Jesper Olsen and John Jensen.
I can do a few (or at least my understanding of them and equivalent terms people have used)
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High Block - defending from the front. Striker(s) chasing down the defenders as they try and piss about at the back. Midfielders push up in support. This is what we struggled against when playing 3/5 at the back as they forced the team towards our own goal and left Kone isolated. We didn’t have a decent out to break the high block.
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Mid block - winning the midfield battle in old parlance. Striker’s will allow the back line to have the ball but when it’s played into midfield everyone gets close and defending increased.
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Low block - everyone drops back deep. Allows the opposition to come at you leaving gaps behind. You aim to block them in and around your box by compacting the play and aim to counter attack quickly.
Edit; you might ask what the difference is about a high block and your striker closing players down is. The older way was for individuals to run around at 400mph trying to close everyone down. With a high block, the whole team is primed to chase the defenders down and apply pressure. Everyone is moving as one with the goal of turning the ball over in their 1/3 rather than just pressuring the one guy on the ball.
- Trigger. A specific action the opposition make that “triggers” your defensive action. Typically after you force them into a specific action. Or if a team plays a certain way you set up with “when they do X, we do Y”.
For example, vs Peterborough in the cup final last year, Kone was tasked with carrying out a bit of a high block so their defence passed it to a CB. The rest of the team picked up a player stopping a simple pass into midfield. The trigger was when the ball was at the feet of that cb and they made a forward into midfield. That was the trigger as we then tried to swarm that player to get the ball.
- 1st and 2nd phases of an attack.
1st phase is your initial attack. Your forward is running at the defence but the defence make a good job and slowing it up/not giving you an option. What happens? “Just whip the ball in ffs, Bayo/vokes/Kone is right in the box it’s his job to score” even if there’s three players on them and 5% chance of success. So:
- The 2nd phase.
Either: Your attacker stops the attack and turns back retaining possession. Your deeper midfielders, your full backs/ wing backs and maybe a CB (think Taylor for us but even Grimmer) are triggered to make the forward run and get into attacking positions to create overloads/overlapping runs. You’re safely in their third and so the risk of counter is reduced as you have possession. Your attacking midfield join with your strikers so if you get the ball in the box now, you have more players for the defence to worry about. We were excellent at this under Blooms imo with Harvie. Not so the latter half of the season
Or, you do try and cross the ball in but it’s defended. The 2nd phase then is for your players that got forward is to stay forward and the players on there way up to get the ball that’s defended and push forward and deliver the ball from deep.
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Overloading - forcing a 2vs 1 situation in your favour in attack.
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Transition - moving from defending to attack. Formation goes from defensive modes 5231, for example to a 3413 or even a 3233 depending on what your wingbacks and att midfielders do.
This is what that statement was about in regards to Tilley. They are saying Tilley is good at understanding it and carrying it out. We will be the judge of it.
- Pivot - key guy in the formation that the team know where they will be and can play the ball to them when you transition. typically sits in front of the defence as he has everything attacking in front of him.
Double pivot? There’s two of them rather than one so that there are two options incase your single pivot is tightly marked out the game.
I remember a trusted source (can’t remember who) suggesting during a trailing off period in Sunderland’s impressive early season results (and one or two unexpected defeats) that they lacked one important factor. He didn’t specify what that factor was but I watched Sunderland struggling against a very physical Watford side and concluded that size, build and physicality of players was what he had in mind.
Apart from Luke O’Nien - himself fairly lightweight but canny of course - most of the Sunderland players were in their early twenties and quite slight. Didn’t stop them in the playoffs of course but I think @aloysius has put his finger on an important issue.
Excellent analysis, thx for that.
A concern I have with the ability of those implementing the fluid flex rotation, players and head coaches, is being about to spot when it’s appropriate. Otherwise it just becomes chasing the ball and running about like a headless chicken.
It would appear as if Tom Stockwell is having a major role in transfers - with some kind of strategy aligned to the head coach.
Which may be better than Dan Rice’s transfer policy of getting rid of the manager and then signing several random players while playing Championship Manager while no manager/head coach in place as per January.
Absolutely. The concern is the abilities of players at this level to carry out what managers/head coaches want to do.
I think this is where a lot of the criticism lower league players trying to play like a Man City comes from when they try and playing around at the back. No offence to L1 players but (shock) they just aren’t as good as premier league players so they make more mistakes.
The Tony Adams effect I’d call it. Wanting to play a certain way but you don’t have the ability in the players to do what you want and ultimately, everyone failing.
The irony here is that everyone wants to prove they could play at the highest level so they try and set up in the way they do at that level, but fall short because they aren’t actually good enough (yet) to be there.
I also think this is why clubs want to move to a head coach model. A head coach job is to implement and train the 1st squad. Make sure they are 100% across maximising his squad and its abilities to carry out what is needed and so it’s not running around like a headless chicken.
You remove every other responsibility from them (from doctors, to transfers and scouting etc etc - notice a theme to what’s gone on here in the last 12 months🤔) so they focus singularly on the squad.
There will be,I believe, opportunities for MD to say what positions he wants strengthening in and even a preference on players that are proposed, but he won’t be as involved as a manager would be.
I would say he is the clubs Scott Mitchel.
Data Dan has his scouting program https://www.scoutmission.com/ which no doubt he’ll insist is being used at the club and he may well have been more hands on in January because of the situation he was instrumental in creating, but I have always said that anyone thinking Dan was going to be running things long term in a Football Manager style was going to be well away from the truth.
Scott Mitchell wasn’t good because of one window. I don’t think we should judge the club going forward based on the last window. It was a cluster fuck, sure. But that doesn’t mean this one will be.
Facebook is a poor quality social media platform. Unambitious. Lowest Common denominator stuff. Just pictures and ill informed comments often from people seeking attention. Some people on here might settle for that but not Gasroomers
Yes most of you are deluded on here
If this is the case it’s an encouraging development. Dan Rice can’t be unaware that the last window was a disaster, and handing off that responsibility is a good sign.
As for Tilley, I’m impressed by his high number of goals/assists from a non-forward. And losing Dan Harvie last season illustrated how badly we need quality in depth.
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What exactly is wrong with it?
Jargon is technical language which means little or nothing to the average man. Accountancy speak, for example.
‘Versatility’ and ‘rotation’ are not what I’d call jargon.
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For me it just hit the funny bone because it’s like a plumber - who just clumsily broke a water line - going into great detail about the wonderful rare alloys that will be in the replacement plumbing, while the floodwater reaches your ankles.
Probably best for your mental health to stay off here then.
That’s a decent signing…
This is shit
This manager is great
This is shit
That manager is awful
This is shit
Good result
This is shit
We were unlucky there
This is shit
Poor performance
This is shit
Can you stop just saying this is shit?
You’re deluded.
Top work @thedancingyak - I’ve learned something and bookmarked it too.
New signing incoming…
hoping for an exciting one
Last night was nice.
— Wycombe Wanderers (@wwfcofficial) June 14, 2025
So we're doing it twice. pic.twitter.com/DgimPAEZmQ
Dan Casey signa…played for Motherwell, not sure how i feel about this …Sutton hardly turned out well
Well, fortunately he isn’t Sutton. So you could just not compare him to someone else if you don’t know anything about him. Especially when Sutton was here * checks notes* 17 years ago.
Christ that’s along time ago.