Wilkins....

[Liquidshokk]

No ones really commented on Dean Wilkins and his abilities to run the club for the foreseeable future as far as I can tell, so thought we could discuss him...

 

I'm not to up on Wilkins as a manager, coach or whatever so maybe someone could fill me in?

 

All I would say is I was in no way in agreement with him about the Swindon JPT game and Ive just noticed an article by him on the OS, which sounds to me like there is a lot of denial, arse licking and false optimism coming from him.... Do however correct me if i'm wrong and discuss.....

 

http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10280~2143088,00.html

Edited 2 September, 2010 by Liquidshokk

[buctootim]

No ones really commented on Dean Wilkins and his abilities to run the club for the foreseeable future as far as I can tell, so thought we could discuss him...

 

I'm not to up on Wilkins as a manager, coach or whatever so maybe someone could fill me in?

 

All I would say is I was in no way in agreement with him about the Swindon JPT game and Ive just noticed an article by him on the OS, which sounds to me like there is a lot of denial, arse licking and false optimism coming from him.... Do however correct me if i'm wrong and discuss.....

 

http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10280~2143088,00.html

 

Well thought of at Brighton. Did well with very little money or resources. Its stupid to accuse him arse licking/ false optimism etc. Its his job to make the players believe they can and should win the next game.

[Huffton]

DOn't see anything wrong with his comments? Trying to get the fanbase onside, and why not, we all know that negativity from the stands finds its way onto the pitch, and to be fair what he says is 100% true, we can moan and ***** and argue all we like during the week, but when that whistle goes we need to be 100% behind the team.

[Liquidshokk]

The arse licking comment was more refferring to the way he was almost too scared to say we were absolutely **** on Tuesday, incase he upset a certain person. Pardew would have said we were poor.

[MarkSFC]

Saying nothing different to every other caretaker manager ever does. All of a sudden they are in the spotlight so have to make an impression either to get the job full-time ( not in this case I pray!), stay on under the new manager, or get another job elsewhere!!

 

At least he has been a manager before

[Whitey Grandad]

Not on Tuesday's performance, if that is the correct word for it.

[derry]

Not on Tuesday's performance, if that is the correct word for it.

 

Leaving out Dickson, Barnard and Martin was dumb with Lambert suffering from a groin strain and immobile. Playing an unbalanced side was plain stupid. De Prado was brought in as a central/right attacking midfielder, he has no left foot and playing him at left midfield was naive. The continuation of the left footed Puncheon on the right compounded the error. Allowing the central midfield to stagnate and then not change it when 0-2 down meant the changes made were inneffective. Not up to the job, this is possibly another Dodd/Gorman results scenario. I hope the players can rise above the managerial selection stupidity.

[Block 5]

Bring back 'Jan the Man'.

[Clifford Nelson]

Leaving out Dickson, Barnard and Martin was dumb with Lambert suffering from a groin strain and immobile. Playing an unbalanced side was plain stupid. De Prado was brought in as a central/right attacking midfielder, he has no left foot and playing him at left midfield was naive. The continuation of the left footed Puncheon on the right compounded the error. Allowing the central midfield to stagnate and then not change it when 0-2 down meant the changes made were inneffective. Not up to the job, this is possibly another Dodd/Gorman results scenario. I hope the players can rise above the managerial selection stupidity.

 

I was just going to say that, Dave, when you got in eight minutes ahead of me. To start with DW needs to get left footed players on the left and right footed on the right. Lallana is a special case, since you can't argue with his 20 goals coming in from the left, but I would have thought that he would be 'sussed' by now and steered on the outside by the fullback on every occasion, which would rather nullify him. Do Prado belongs in the middle, and if he didn't know it he should have seen it in about five minutes. He showed talent in working the defense when he had the chance, and with 39 games for Cesena last season he must have qualities. Schneiderlin was exceptionally week on tuesday night, and ought to have been replaced.

 

I'd love to change the whole way we play, but in DW's shoes, and waiting for the next gaffer to come in, I would resist to make radical changes, and just limit my input into putting the right shaped pegs in the holes, which he should well know how to do with his experience.

[derry]

I was just going to say that, Dave, when you got in eight minutes ahead of me. To start with DW needs to get left footed players on the left and right footed on the right. Lallana is a special case, since you can't argue with his 20 goals coming in from the left, but I would have thought that he would be 'sussed' by now and steered on the outside by the fullback on every occasion, which would rather nullify him. Do Prado belongs in the middle, and if he didn't know it he should have seen it in about five minutes. He showed talent in working the defense when he had the chance, and with 39 games for Cesena last season he must have qualities. Schneiderlin was exceptionally week on tuesday night, and ought to have been replaced.

 

I'd love to change the whole way we play, but in DW's shoes, and waiting for the next gaffer to come in, I would resist to make radical changes, and just limit my input into putting the right shaped pegs in the holes, which he should well know how to do with his experience.

 

On the other hand Bert, a really confident coach seeing how unbalanced and static the whole thing was would be radical on the grounds he had little to lose and if he made changes which moved things on, the management might just say 'hang on a minute this guy is good, let's give him time to see what he can do', It's what the good managers do, whatever the level.

Edited 2 September, 2010 by derry

[Andy_Porter]

Why do people keep on making out that playing wingers on their 'wrong' side is some sort of tactical phenomenon that only happens at Southampton? It doesn't unbalance the side, we still score a shed load of goals and look just as strong defensively. It really is ridiculous.

 

As for the Lallana getting 'sussed' do you actually watch him play? he's got far more to his game than cut inside shoot, repeat. Again ridiculous.

[JackFrost]

I don't get why people criticise the sheer concept of playing right footers on the left wing and vice versa.

 

Of course it depends on the level and the individual player's ability but anyone who criticises the sheer concept just needs to watch Arjen Robben in last year's Champions league

[Bourno]

He should have played Bart in the cup game.

[Andy_Porter]

Holland, Barcelona, Fulham, Man City, Real, Athletico, Bayern etc all played wingers on their 'wrong' side last season and all done very well.

 

Strange?!

[The Kraken]

I don't get why people criticise the sheer concept of playing right footers on the left wing and vice versa.

 

Of course it depends on the level and the individual player's ability but anyone who criticises the sheer concept just needs to watch Arjen Robben in last year's Champions league

 

There's countless examples of it happening at the top level of football. Take the Premier League; Joe Cole at Chelsea; Ashley Young at Villa; Rosicky at Arsenal; Duff at Fulham; Adam Johnson at Man City; Milner at Man City; Modric at Spurs......I could go on (and on), but it's clearly prevalent at the top level of fottball so to not entertain it ourselves would be a refusal to adapt to modern football.

[derry]

I don't get why people criticise the sheer concept of playing right footers on the left wing and vice versa.

 

Of course it depends on the level and the individual player's ability but anyone who criticises the sheer concept just needs to watch Arjen Robben in last year's Champions league

 

The problem was , it wasn't Arjen Robben it was De Prado who was totally lost at left midfield, and Puncheon was negated by two static midfielders and the injured Lambert. The only movement came from Connolly. It's alright with Johnson/Milner who go either way but only Puncheon can go both ways but rarely this season choosing to go across the field. In addition it can work well in 4-3-3 with a holding central midfielder and two runners through the channels. It needs the full backs to overlap as soon as the wide man comes inside to maintain the width and allow the ball to be fed wide if the run is blocked. Lallana scored most of his goals when he drifted in late to the edge of the box rarely when he stayed inside he nearly always checked back looking for support from behind rarely getting to the line. I will say that he is a unique talent that is getting better both from a physical point of view and skill, I personally think the time may have come to play him on the right side of central midfield with a strong partner.

[derry]

It needs players that understand the demands not just any old player stuck on the wrong side as we did with De Prado on Tuesday. It is wrong to compare skilled high class sides playing with wrong footed players in highly mobile top class teams, with third division players copying the system without either them or their colleagues having the organisation, intelligence or mobility to make it work. Top class sides find a way to maintain their width but mostly when our players are narrow, then we usually have no wide option, which is probably the reason we are unable to break down packed defences, as we rarely get round behind them but persist in trying to break the door down with frontal attack which doesn't work. When it comes down to breaking down defensive set ups at home it is the wrong footed wide midfield that contributes most to our inability to figure it out and outflank it and create an overload at the back post.

Edited 2 September, 2010 by derry

[eesti matty]

There's countless examples of it happening at the top level of football. Take the Premier League; Joe Cole at Chelsea; Ashley Young at Villa; Rosicky at Arsenal; Duff at Fulham; Adam Johnson at Man City; Milner at Man City; Modric at Spurs......I could go on (and on), but it's clearly prevalent at the top level of fottball so to not entertain it ourselves would be a refusal to adapt to modern football.

 

People never seem to quite grasp it. It's the same when Fernandes played for us as people used to wonder why he didn't play on the left. When he did play on the left, he was rather ineffective. Another example of a left footed player who played on the right - Chris Waddle. Now he was some player and what a 'footballing brain' he had!

[derry]

People never seem to quite grasp it. It's the same when Fernandes played for us as people used to wonder why he didn't play on the left. When he did play on the left, he was rather ineffective. Another example of a left footed player who played on the right - Chris Waddle. Now he was some player and what a 'footballing brain' he had!

 

The main reason these players are inneffective on their natural side is that they lack the pace to go outside and struggle to come inside on their weak foot so they adapt to playing on the wrong side and can be very effective, however all the examples mentioned are playing at the top level not many have the skill to do it further down the leagues nor have the support skills and mobility levels in their colleagues to make it work.

[CanadaSaint]

People never seem to quite grasp it. It's the same when Fernandes played for us as people used to wonder why he didn't play on the left. When he did play on the left, he was rather ineffective. Another example of a left footed player who played on the right - Chris Waddle. Now he was some player and what a 'footballing brain' he had!

 

Included on the list of people who didn't "seem to quite grasp it" was Fernandes himself, along with a number of the players around him at that time. When he cut inside, which was common, the exercise for teammates became one of getting out of his way - in the mistaken assumption that he knew where he was going. Yes, he had some good games but all too often he destroyed our width and the supply line to Beattie. I think Anders was doing much the same thing on the other side at that time.

 

Fernandes didn't become know as "crop circle" for nothing. The fact that he disappeared from view soon after leaving us can probably be attributed to him suffering the fate that many predicted for someone who does ever-decreasing circles.

 

Put me down as someone else who thinks that you can only make lefty-on-right and righty-on-left work if you have very, very talented players - including overlappers.

[Herne Hill Saint]

Agree with CanadaSaint. Fernandes played on wrong side because he was to weak on the ball and got dispossed when played on the other flank. But main problem is that it's slows delivery of crosses allowing central defenders time to set themselves to defend crosses. Even Dean Wilkins has said we need to be faster getting ball into box. A player who can pull back from the deadball line is the most effective means of breaking dowm packed defences at SMS. Just being able to make the runs will win more penalties.

[Smirking_Saint]

Holland, Barcelona, Fulham, Man City, Real, Athletico, Bayern etc all played wingers on their 'wrong' side last season and all done very well.

 

Strange?!

 

I do thoroughly agree, but sometimes you need to just get to the byeline and swing some crosses in. Getting the wide men to swap around would be a good tactic to have, and if we played 4-5-1 the three behind the front man could be more fluid which would draw the defence out and cause lots of holes to appear.