Does the System scale?

[Ron_Justice]

Simple question really but deserving of a little thought / change of Point of View perhaps. We all know the story about how we got here - Teams sitting in, we needed to overload and Bashambauer is born. A system so well tailored to the players at our disposal, in a situation where we had to make out relative qualities count, that we raced through the leagues. Job Done. But should CWAK persevere - Sheffield United's identity is now interwoven with the fabled Overlapping CB's.

The question is, does the system continue to work as well with the next level(s) of player quality? We took relatively decent - good players for League one and the system turned them into a team capable of going toe to toe with 80% of the PL. Can we do the same: Take decent - good Premier League players and turn them into something greater than the sum of it's parts?

 

[Kev Gee]

At the moment it's definitely not working.
Just look at the league table for evidence.

BTW do the academy experts know if we play the same system at youth level?

 

[Ron_Justice]

It's not working because the system relies on the right pegs in the right holes and for the 'decent - good' League One players to have 8/10's every match.

 

[bongleblade]

It's not working because the system relies on the right pegs in the right holes and for the 'decent - good' League One players to have 8/10's every match.

Here lies the pitfall in our epl transfer policy... we could have bought 13 top championship players who fit the positions perfectly (cooper, swift etc...) and spread our bets but had much better chances of players achieving 8/10 as they are suited to their role and their would be more options to choose from

Instead we went for £130m on ‘Hollywood’ transfers like brewster and berge and tried to fit expensive round pegs in square holes (berge position, placing the pressure on a 19yo to outscore our current strikeforce) and focused way too much on potential for future fees over the team performance

The only truly successful transfer this season was Bogle and also Burke tbf... surprise surprise, the transfers which fit in with the transfer policy mentioned earlier - and ironically, i’d argue Bogle is probably worth more than Brewster now...

 

[Ball_Sup (Phil)]

At the moment it's definitely not working.
Just look at the league table for evidence.

BTW do the academy experts know if we play the same system at youth level?

No. Academy (fluorescent away strip) use "the false six"

 

[Maidenhead]

The system will scale, but when you're up against better players you need better players and we can't afford them.

It's the budget that hasn't "scaled"

 

[FMBlade1]

Mark Noble says the system is fine so we have nothing to worry about.

 

[MalmoBlade]

I hear the point about budget and yes the purse strings might have been loosened a bit more on the wages front to aid the recruitment, but let's remember we finished 9th and THEN we wazzed untold millions at the wall. We had no budget when we almost qualified for Europe, then we invested a very significant amount of money and suddenly our inability to play football is about the budget? I agree, to progress we needed to have the balls to go bigger, but surely after the investment we DID make we should have been able to at least stand still? Even slip a bit in the face of improved competition? But to completely lose our arse when all the players we had last season are still there on the same wages is baffling.

 

[guancheblade]

At the moment it's definitely not working.
Just look at the league table for evidence.

BTW do the academy experts know if we play the same system at youth level?

U23s play 3-5-2

Below that I don't know. I hope not, seems senseless to breed generations of work horses instead of quality ball players