Steve Cooper: The Tactics Thread

[Vlad the Fox]

It’s pre season, there’s so much going off, trying different things, different positions, fitness, formations and scenarios that it’s pretty pointless trying to read too much into it until maybe the last game. It’s just an excuse to watch some footy in the sun. 
 

I can remember one pre season match a few seasons back that people were moaning about the players not looking fit and it turned out we’d had a full training session in the morning. 

[Mendi]

Need some more signing.

[Ric Flair]

1 hour ago, Blanchflower78 said:

Cooper is here for next seasons promotion campaign. This is merely the financial top up we needed in between. 

 

 

Yet managers in such scenarios seldom last, nor have the confidence and monetary to field a promotion push. 

 

If we're as crap as I fear we might he'll be long gone.

[Sunbury Fox]

1 hour ago, Blanchflower78 said:

Cooper is here for next seasons promotion campaign. This is merely the financial top up we needed in between. 

 

 

This 100%, sadly. Basically what Luton did last season. Spend as little as possible and bank the dirty PL cash.

[jonthefox]

2 hours ago, Sly said:

I had concerns about Maresca tactics in this league with the crop of players we had.

 

I have more concerns with Coopers tactics and using the likes of Ward and Soumare. 

Surely he needs to take a look at whats available to him. 

[guest123]

12 minutes ago, Vlad the Fox said:

It’s pre season, there’s so much going off, trying different things, different positions, fitness, formations and scenarios that it’s pretty pointless trying to read too much into it until maybe the last game. It’s just an excuse to watch some footy in the sun. 
 

I can remember one pre season match a few seasons back that people were moaning about the players not looking fit and it turned out we’d had a full training session in the morning. 

generally agree with all of that, i'm just slightly concerned, 1 about Ricardo, and 2, not really looking like we have any distinct plans or tactics, it has looked all a little confused. Coady has been a plus though with his leadership and controlling the back line.

I have said plenty of times i'm not confident with cooper 1 bit, but i sincerely hope he proves me wrong 

[kingfox]

43 minutes ago, JimJams said:

I don't particularly like the idea that a coach is "flexible in his approach" because that just says to me that they don't have a clear philosophy of how to play. And watching the 3 friendlies so far, there definitely isn't one.  I think there are only a few things you can pick up from the games and that's that he wants one of the wingers, Mav last night, to come further inside and give support to the striker.  Last night the only threat on goal was Mav because of this, but at the same time he wasn't coming inside to play with Daka, the latter was largely nowhere to be seen when it happened.  And whether it's a personnel thing or a tactics thing we played with an industrious midfield (the nice way of saying it) 3.

 

That midfield can work and work to great effect if they're high energy, pressing and pressuring opponents, when out of possession and when they get the ball they can recycle it out wide and let them do the job of opening up the space and attacking. But we weren't playing with attacking, overlapping fullbacks.  Riccy P stayed back and JJ was high up but doesn't overlap Mav.  So we have not outlet. You're basically giving the ball to a winger and saying "do something magical" or to the frontman and asking him to beat the whole defence.

 

If we're going with the idea of an industrious mid then they need to work on pressing as a unit.  And right now, without this magical 10 or creative player (of which we'd need at least 2 for cover/competition) that's probably what Cooper should be looking to do.  Trouble is he then needs his fullbacks to be able to bomb up and down and provide an attacking threat and the that's pre-ACL Riccy. And JJ maybe for the right?

 

Hopefully this is all just about getting minutes in legs right now, but it doesn't bode well to me.  I'd rather be very good at a one dimensional system than chopping and changing all the time and not really knowing what we're doing from one game to the next.

 

Excellent post mate, thoroughly agree with paragraphs 2 & 3 especially. 
 

History suggests that Cooper likes his midfields to be of the industrious type, his holding duo at Swansea in Grimes and Fulton were of that nature. In his Championship season with Forest, Yates, Garner and Colback all chipped in with good defensive work. 
 

As you say, to make a midfield like that work, you either need good pressers or players who will get stuck in defensively. Harry Winks isn’t the type of midfielder that will go flying into challenges. Soumare isn’t a ball winning midfielder either. We only have Ndidi and Choudhury who can do those jobs, yet Ndidi was yet again played further forward when he should be played alongside Winks. Choudhury will either come in and do a job or run around like an idiotic headless chicken, but of course the last season we were in the Premier League, he was loaned out. 
 

The midfield is in desperate need for some creativity and more energy. 

[davieG]

Hopefully he’s playing Soumare so he’s fit to sell. 

[pmcla26]

Just now, davieG said:

Hopefully he’s playing Soumare so he’s fit to sell. 

Think he might be falling into the trap that Dean Smith was falling into. 
 

Soumare isn’t a bad football player, technically he’s very good. Problem isn’t with the ball, it’s without it. In training it’s probably not so much an issue as you’re not always playing at 100% intensity like in matches where it becomes exposed. 
 

Maybe he’ll have seen enough now. 
 

The other point is maybe he’s just using him as a place holder in pre-season games as we don’t have many options there currently, but wants the rest of the shape to be the same. 

[coolhandfox]

4 hours ago, Ric Flair said:

Why not try one of your creative midfielders from the academy/who you've signed Steve? 

 

I don't think I've been less enthused about a new manager for a long while. 

My thinking is he's working out who he wants and doesn't want, Alves and Golding are already in the want pile.

 

Whether that short or medium term.

 

After watching Alves live at Shrewsbury and Chesterfield I'm starting to come around to your thinking of keeping him around if we can give him 500 plus league minutes.

 

 

[Vlad the Fox]

10 minutes ago, guest123 said:

generally agree with all of that, i'm just slightly concerned, 1 about Ricardo, and 2, not really looking like we have any distinct plans or tactics, it has looked all a little confused. Coady has been a plus though with his leadership and controlling the back line.

I have said plenty of times i'm not confident with cooper 1 bit, but i sincerely hope he proves me wrong 

I hope he does well too, I think he’s got the right personality for the type of manager we usually love so hopefully he succeeds. 
 

We’ve all seen pre seasons where we smash everyone then flop and pre seasons where we’ve looked poor then sailed to promotion or do well, what was the pre-season like before we won the prem? It all comes down to what the management team are working on or looking at.

Edited 27 July by Vlad the Fox

[GingerrrFox]

24 minutes ago, Vlad the Fox said:

It’s pre season, there’s so much going off, trying different things, different positions, fitness, formations and scenarios that it’s pretty pointless trying to read too much into it until maybe the last game. It’s just an excuse to watch some footy in the sun. 
 

I can remember one pre season match a few seasons back that people were moaning about the players not looking fit and it turned out we’d had a full training session in the morning. 

As an example from last night, why’s he bringing on Luke Thomas to play RB? Luke Thomas will never play RB for us in the Premier League so why waste time doing it in pre-season? It’s piss poor, you’ve got to be ruthless as a manager, if Luke Thomas isn’t gonna feature in your plans, **** him off until the Director of football does his job and moves him on. Thats his remit not Cooper’s, Cooper is here to build a coherent, winning football team, that’s what managers do in modern football, the rest is down to the football club to sort out. 

[davieG]

3 minutes ago, coolhandfox said:

My thinking is he's working out who he wants and doesn't want, Alves and Golding are already in the want pile.

 

Whether that short or medium term.

 

After watching Alves live at Shrewsbury and Chesterfield I'm starting to come around to your thinking of keeping him around if we can give him 500 plus league minutes.

 

 

I’ve been a tad disappointed with Alves granted he’s not had many minutes but he seems to have lost his ‘flair’ and is playing a more methodical and neutered style.

[Vlad the Fox]

Just now, GingerrrFox said:

As an example from last night, why’s he bringing on Luke Thomas to play RB? Luke Thomas will never play RB for us in the Premier League so why waste time doing it in pre-season? It’s piss poor, you’ve got to be ruthless as a manager, if Luke Thomas isn’t gonna feature in your plans, **** him off until the Director of football does his job and moves him on. Thats his remit not Cooper’s, Cooper is here to build a coherent, winning football team, that’s what managers do in modern football, the rest is down to the football club to sort out. 

Maybe he played him right back because he doesn’t feature in his plans, maybe  he does, whatever, he still needs to get him fit so players need minutes in their legs even if they may be leaving. There’s no point looking too much into it or getting irate, wait until the season starts and then we can make judgments, getting angry will just spoil your summer. The winters for being miserable  

[Lesta Legend]

2 minutes ago, davieG said:

I’ve been a tad disappointed with Alves granted he’s not had many minutes but he seems to have lost his ‘flair’ and is playing a more methodical and neutered style.

I’d imagine this has been by design over the last couple of years. Rodger’s threatened to pull him for having more than two touches. 

[coolhandfox]

5 minutes ago, davieG said:

I’ve been a tad disappointed with Alves granted he’s not had many minutes but he seems to have lost his ‘flair’ and is playing a more methodical and neutered style.

I think that a trend in modern football unfortunately.

[Gazza M]

Ward is playing for shop window minutes. Mads is obviously number 1 and Jakob 2 when fit. It amazes me how people can't distinguish between the difference of preseason and full competitive matches. 

 

It is Coopers time to try things and see what works and what doesn't tactically. Traditionally the last friendly is the best indicator of what the starting line up will be first proper match. Until then pinch of salt please. 

[cityfanlee23]

Regarding Soumare I’d be fine with Cooper giving him a chance. Was quality in Ligue 1 and then joined us under a massively declining Rodgers and then was quite good in multiple games under a firefighter attempt from Dean Smith. 
 

If Cooper sees something in him I’m willing to give him a proper chance just as I said we should with Ndidi under Enzo. 
Soumare has been disappointing so far, but he joined a club in Freefall, everyone was declining in the 18+ months prior to relegation. 

[Vlad the Fox]

1 minute ago, coolhandfox said:

I think that a trend in modern football unfortunately.

I think it is, it’s all about keeping possession and eliminating risk. It’s almost like the opposite end of the spectrum to the likes of basset and beck, play to the percentages. It feels like the over analysis of stats stifles flair and individual creativity. 

[Vlad the Fox]

One thing I’ve learnt this pre-season is that frog wanking is a thing.  

[phoneticerror]

13 minutes ago, Gazza M said:

Ward is playing for shop window minutes. Mads is obviously number 1 and Jakob 2 when fit. It amazes me how people can't distinguish between the difference of preseason and full competitive matches. 

 

It is Coopers time to try things and see what works and what doesn't tactically. Traditionally the last friendly is the best indicator of what the starting line up will be first proper match. Until then pinch of salt please. 

If you want to sell Ward, don’t let him play FFS

[whoareyaaa]

Hopefully he has a plan and formation and not treat each game differently that’s what i loved about Enzo ball although it was not that exciting for some people I thought it was fine btw he has a clear idea of what he was doing and it paid of most of the time and that’s why potter would have been perfect for us 

Edited 27 July by whoareyaaa

[filbertway]

Now he's had a chance to see just how awful our back ups are, hopefully he's going to concentrate on using the good players and honing the talents of the 3 quality youngsters that he's got available.

[Phube]

2 hours ago, JimJams said:

I don't particularly like the idea that a coach is "flexible in his approach" because that just says to me that they don't have a clear philosophy of how to play.

 

Serial loser Ancelotti disagrees!

 

 

[GingerrrFox]

1 minute ago, Phube said:

Serial loser Ancelotti disagrees!

 

 

Easy to do that when you’ve got some of the best players in the world at Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Chelsea. Didn’t work out quite so well at the likes of Napoli and Everton…