Difficult to comment!

[baggieal]

It’s this growing sense of naivety from these so called modern young managers in today’s football. Anyone else see this? They are either stubborn or not adaptable - or basically they don’t have the skills and knowledge. Amorim for instance is one and he was in his 30s.. just wtf they think they are.. Pep/Mourinho? Football is about adapting.

Not rocket science is it. A new manager could walk into any work place and look at the staff and think - oh s hit! You get staff to work to their strengths and encourage them and give confidence. You mention Amorim who did not adapt and then in comes Carrick and with the same players he gets them to play Man City off the park with brilliant attacking football.

I hear there are demonstrations taking place at Derby about Nestor. Good!

[regis80]

Not rocket science is it. A new manager could walk into any work place and look at the staff and think - oh s hit! You get staff to work to their strengths and encourage them and give confidence. You mention Amorim who did not adapt and then in comes Carrick and with the same players he gets them to play Man City off the park with brilliant attacking football.

I hear there are demonstrations taking place at Derby about Nestor. Good!

Makes you wonder what sort of questions Nestor asks at the interview Al.

Nestor: What will you bring to WBA? And how do you overcome some setbacks during a game when your few goals down.

Ramsay: I’ll bring consistency and insist my team are playing as instructed and out of place.

Nestor: Welcome to West Bromwich Albion, golden handshake and 2 years.

I’m always intrigued what questions are asked.

[Omegstrat6]

It’s this growing sense of naivety from these so called modern young managers in today’s football. Anyone else see this? They are either stubborn or not adaptable - or basically they don’t have the skills and knowledge. Amorim for instance is one and he was in his 30s.. just wtf they think they are.. Pep/Mourinho? Football is about adapting.

Sadly, Regis, I think Ramsay would take your last sentence and say that is exactly what he is trying to do, that previous selections/formations haven't worked so he is getting them to adapt to a new system that he believes will 😁

I do agree with you however that too many managers are not flexible in their thinking and persist with selections/ tactics even when they are not working and seem devoid of any Plan B, let alone a Plan C or D.

At root, football is a simple game with (generally&#128513 straightforward rules, each side has 11 players and you utilize these as best you can to score as many goals as you can while working to concede as few as possible. Over time, various formations and tactics have evolved which have been tried and tested including playing out from the back, the long ball, high press, low press, wide play etc. Like chess gambits, managers should surely be aware of most, if not all, of these and make sure that their players are also aware of them so that they have the flexibility to switch between them depending on the opponent or how the game is progressing.

Of course this is an ideal and not only takes time to train in but is also very dependent upon the abilities of the players available and most teams will therefore have a preferred way of playing that they are best at so tend to stick with it. The danger is then that opponents become wise to this and can then better set up to compete (think how our early success and reliance upon Fellows or Mikey getting to the byline to put balls into the box was soon found out). Full flexibility where players are proficient in all styles is obviously hard to attain, but you're dead right in pointing out that lack of flexibility will ultimately cost teams.

An analogy might be guitar players. There have been, and continue to be, brilliant players who excel in one genre (e.g. Segovia in classical music, Wes Montgomery in jazz, Buddy Guy in blues or Eddie Van Halen in rock for example) but whilst some stick solely to their preferred style and can be very successful one-trick ponies, many more explore the instrument to become proficient across a range of styles. They may not have the scope of top session musicians whose livelihood depends on their versatility of course, but they can at least more than hold their own across a few genres. I believe that the old saying "Jack of all trades, master of none" generally holds true but as professional footballers, surely we should expect them to be similarly proficient with the main formations and tactics used in the game?

Unfortunately, however, we are now in increasing danger of finding ourselves in a relegation scrap and if these players are not already proficient in certain tactics/ formations there is now no time to try and learn them. The best option is surely to then play to our strengths with a formation that the players are happy with and are very clear about their own roles within. None of us are privy to what goes on on the training ground but-as Leics and others point out- if we all pick roughly the same starting eleven and formation as being our "best", surely we cannot all be wrong?

After the total shambles and capitulation of Tuesday, it is hard to remember but this group of players are still capable of far more- they just urgently need some leadership to instill belief, competitiveness and desire. This seems far more important to me than experimenting with new systems. Derby will show it Ramsay can learn lessons and whether he can be that leader.