Eddie’s tactics

[toptoon]

I was wondering if there’ll come a time when the other PL managers will ‘work Eddie out’ in terms of his tactics.
The more games we win and the more time that passes I would say ‘no’ and I think we’re already passed the stage where other teams have started to respect us and look for a point only at St James’.
Of course the football Gods will conspire against us soon and we will lose but the team looks very well drilled and confident.

Thoughts?

[ex_pat_magpie]

I was wondering if there’ll come a time when the other PL managers will ‘work Eddie out’ in terms of his tactics.
The more games we win and the more time that passes I would say ‘no’ and I think we’re already passed the stage where other teams have started to respect us and look for a point only at St James’.
Of course the football Gods will conspire against us soon and we will lose but the team looks very well drilled and confident.

Thoughts?

I think you've hit the nail on the head TopToon, but the tactics are very simple but very effective.

Total fitness, ability to cover more than one position, intense pressure while attacking and ability to spring out of defence at speed and counter attack after breaking up the opposition attacks.

That is where a strong midfield with the likes of Bruno and BigJoe give us a huge advantage.

[Zippity]

Howe makes a mockery of that useless arse Bruce with every single thing he does. To think we used to have a manager who said "I don't really do tactics".

Well now we have a proper student of the game whose tactics have seen us go from second bottom to second top in the space of a year. The man's a genius.

Where we will slip up, I think, is on squad depth when injuries to key players happen. Currently, as any good team is, we're greater than the sum of our parts. Our replacement parts weaken us more than they would the teams around us. Give it another couple of windows and, if we continue to go about our recruitment as astutely as we have done so far, we'll be in ppretty good shape.

[Jammy89]

Agree with that Zip, it'l be squad depth that hurts us most of all.

[Ragatino]

Just wanted to echo TT & Zipp's comments.

The pressure and press that we put on other teams nullifies opposition tactics. We've seen in the early part of the season (as Zip eluded to) that we weren't up to required squad fitness (coupled with a few key injuries) to be able to get the wins early on. As we have progressed with Howe & we've seen the development of the tactical base and instilled the high standards required to play the way we play.

As for being found out. There has been a few matches, Wolves, Bournemouth & Palace where we weren't able to control and dictate. Now, months on, with total buy in from the full squad we are formidable!

Away from home we have teams who are not completely defensive and our high press is indomitable. We've seen teams try and mark Bruno out of the game but J7 comes across and smashes his opposite number. At home, we play against the low block in 9/10 matches. We are more equipped to find ways through the defense and get the goals we need.

Howe's obsessive nature and the whole team's attention to detail puts us in an exciting and unique situation. We have a club/team that will go after every opponent, hunt them, harass them, pressure them into making mistakes. Bringing in more top quality players and maxing out the 25 man squad of Isak, Bruno, Botman, Tripz calibre our ability to maintain the levels will be easier. It will be amazing when we can rotate the squad with like-for-like players. So exciting!

The spectacular rise has been faster & stronger than expected. We've shocked a lot of people and rattled the establishment. We're delighted of course. I for one am not surprised. Remember the Keegan era, we went from Championship to challenge for the title. The issue is sustainability. We are a different club now. We have the backing financially and our board/owners are committed to maintaining our club as a Champions League regular.

With more quality elite players added to the squad our chances of succumbing to the early season form. We won't win every match, we will suffer major injuries and have to adapt. However as we have all commented so many times, we now have a manager who analyses each opponent, find the weakness and develop tactics to exploit that weakness.

Ain't it wonderful!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to all on the board. God bless you all, David