If the system isn’t the problem then what is?

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Strange comments from a man whose system has lost 21 of 26 games. The stubbornness is incredible. Now to be saying between both boxes we are okay is frankly laughable after recent performances. Yes games are settled in both boxes but it helps you don’t spend most of the match defending yours.


I’m not buying the injury excuse either other than O’Connell we had everyone for the first ten games or so and still failed to win one.
It’s clearly not the board’s fault. And to have spent £100+ million and not be able to cope with the loss of one centre back earlier on in the season is poor.
I don’t like the way these interviews are sounding. CW on the defensive all the time. Bring back the old Wilder.
 



Strange comments from a man whose system has lost 21 of 26 games. The stubbornness is incredible. Now to be saying between both boxes we are okay is frankly laughable after recent performances. Yes games are settled in both boxes but it helps you don’t spend most of the match defending yours.


I’m not buying the injury excuse either other than O’Connell we had everyone for the first ten games or so and still failed to win one.
It’s clearly not the board’s fault. And to have spent £100+ million and not be able to cope with the loss of one centre back earlier on in the season is poor.
I don’t like the way these interviews are sounding. CW on the defensive all the time. Bring back the old Wilder.

Good players (or average players playing well) will be fine with any system, so it is the quality of play that is the problem.
Wilder’s interviews are a different matter
 
Chris is right about one thing here, we aren't currently playing 2 up front. At most 1 and a half most games.


Other than that he fails to understand that times change and you need to adapt year on year.

Barcelona had successfully used tiki-taka then it had it's time and they had to go more direct with Messi-Neymar-Suarez and it worked.
 
At various points this season we've played 3-5-2, 3-4-1-2, 3-4-3, 4-4-2, 4-3-1-2 and not been especially good in any of them. We've tried plenty of different things, but if you can't defend a set piece and you make schoolboy errors regularly, it doesn't really matter what system you play.
 
At various points this season we've played 3-5-2, 3-4-1-2, 3-4-3, 4-4-2, 4-3-1-2 and not been especially good in any of them. We've tried plenty of different things, but if you can't defend a set piece and you make schoolboy errors regularly, it doesn't really matter what system you play.

We actually looked best with 10 men with Bogle and Baldock in the same team against Brighton, whatever we played then try it again!
 
Exactly. I can’t stand constantly blaming ‘individual mistakes’ - if you spend most of the game defending your own box with little possession against premier league quality, mistakes are inevitable.

Chris’s lack of change to try and find a solution amazes me. The league one bad start lasted 5 games before he ripped it up completely. If this had happened last season after promotion no one would be defending sticking with it this long.
 
We actually looked best with 10 men with Bogle and Baldock in the same team against Brighton, whatever we played then try it again!
If we can't bother to have a full bench then why bother with a full team?
 
“This is how we play, but the two boxes decide games.”

I know that we’re all pissed off with life at the moment but he’s right - cut out the stupid mistake each game, convert the 1 or 2 easy chances that we’ve been creating most games and the table would look completely different.

So it’s genuinely down to the players, not the system (I’ll go and get me hard hat.......)
 
This season has been overanalyzed to death and people really need to stop it.

People are looking for problems where there aren't any and answers that don't exist.

The success of last season was built on a settled side playing at the top of their game week in, week out.

And that's it.

This season we haven't had either of those things and we've lost key players who we haven't been able to replace.

Henderson (Left)
O'Connell (Injured)
Stevens (Injured/Severely lost form)
Baldock (Injured/Severely lost form)
Lundstram (Severely lost form)
Norwood (Severely lost form)
Fleck (Injured/Severely lost form)
Berge (Injured)
Mousset (Injured)
McBurnie (Injured/Severely lost form)

That's ten players who were integral to the success of last season that have been taken away. TEN!

Take ten players away from any team and it quite easily explains a fucking 28 point deficit from one season to the next.
 
That we are a small time club. We think circa £110 spent over 8 transfers Windows with our league one squad is enough for the Premier League is delusional beyond comprehension.
 
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“This is how we play, but the two boxes decide games.”

I know that we’re all pissed off with life at the moment but he’s right - cut out the stupid mistake each game, convert the 1 or 2 easy chances that we’ve been creating most games and the table would look completely different.

So it’s genuinely down to the players, not the system (I’ll go and get me hard hat.......)
Obviously, that is true but ...... if we are defending and on the back foot for 70%+ of the game, have no real chance of being able to attack, constantly pass back, etc mistakes are going to happen game in and game out.
 
“This is how we play, but the two boxes decide games.”

I know that we’re all pissed off with life at the moment but he’s right - cut out the stupid mistake each game, convert the 1 or 2 easy chances that we’ve been creating most games and the table would look completely different.

So it’s genuinely down to the players, not the system (I’ll go and get me hard hat.......)

We conceded plenty of goals as a direct result of individual errors last season. This isn’t a new phenomenon that’s just happened this season. In the Premier League you get punished for individual errors.

The difference is we actually had some control of the midfield last season. Wilder is right, the game is decided in both boxes but a lot of that depends on how well your midfield is managing the game. Last season the midfield worked well in front of the back line, it fought, it won tackles it ran, it intercepted. This season, we are all over the place in midfield, constantly being pulled out of position and offering no protection to the back line.

Going forward, it’s the midfield that drives it. Fleck and Lunny took the game by the scruff of the neck and made things happen last season. This year we sit so deep, that when we do get the ball we’re not quick enough to play out or we just smash it up to the strikers who even if they do hold it up, have no one to play to because our midfield is so slow in getting up to support.

People get the system and the formation confused. Yes we are playing the same formation but Wilder can’t sit there and tell me it’s the same mentality. We don’t win the ball high up the pitch anymore, we sit so deep and invite pressure time after time. This rarely happened last season. Our wing backs played much higher up and supported the midfield rather than playing deep. We are a lot more direct this season as well, I’ve havent seen us launch the ball forward this much since Blackwell was manager. We have never been a hoof ball team under Wilder, but this season that’s seems to be the plan.
 


Strange comments from a man whose system has lost 21 of 26 games. The stubbornness is incredible. Now to be saying between both boxes we are okay is frankly laughable after recent performances. Yes games are settled in both boxes but it helps you don’t spend most of the match defending yours.


I’m not buying the injury excuse either other than O’Connell we had everyone for the first ten games or so and still failed to win one.
It’s clearly not the board’s fault. And to have spent £100+ million and not be able to cope with the loss of one centre back earlier on in the season is poor.
I don’t like the way these interviews are sounding. CW on the defensive all the time. Bring back the old Wilder.


This season, the systems been rubbish & the reluctance to change has been ridiculous.
The inability to do things any other way has been negligence on Wilder's part.

You could excuse him saying things have been going well outside the two boxes if we were Brighton, playing decent football & creating chances. The fact is, we've been shit. In the box & outside of it. Much of this has been down to the flat 3, Norwood being exposed in the middle & us not being able to hold the ball.
 
The attitude of the Manager has changed. Hit the brakes and slammed into reverse.
The system may be the same but for the past 14 months, the gung ho style attitude that the Manager instilled throughout the club packed it's bags and buggered off. We lost our way very quickly, going from a team that stuck 22 passes together with Baldock finding the net away at Spurs to being shit scared to try and attack our opponents.
WTF happened?
 
“This is how we play, but the two boxes decide games.”

I know that we’re all pissed off with life at the moment but he’s right - cut out the stupid mistake each game, convert the 1 or 2 easy chances that we’ve been creating most games and the table would look completely different.

So it’s genuinely down to the players, not the system (I’ll go and get me hard hat.......)

I couldn't disagree more.

How many good chances are we making per game, one or two at most?
Also the bit in the middle for 90% of the games has been somewhere between below par and diabolical. The only time the system proved it could work really well was against West Brom away and Newcastle at home - two awful sides.

Wilder had his ego massaged so much last season that he believes the hype about his "Tuftyball". And despite it being no good since Leicester away last season he'd rather stick with it and watch us go down as one of the worst PL teams ever, then change it up and see if it improves our fortunes.

Come on, persisting with 3 centre backs when all three first teamers were unavailable is deluded behaviour.
 
Come on, persisting with 3 centre backs when all three first teamers were unavailable is deluded behaviour
I would agree if Stevens and Baldock were competent as traditional full backs and the midfield was winning its own battles but neither are, so I'm not sure that there were many choices. And let's not forget that both Liverpool goals were scored from the centre of the pitch - they would have had even more space with a 4-4-2
 


Strange comments from a man whose system has lost 21 of 26 games. The stubbornness is incredible. Now to be saying between both boxes we are okay is frankly laughable after recent performances. Yes games are settled in both boxes but it helps you don’t spend most of the match defending yours.


I’m not buying the injury excuse either other than O’Connell we had everyone for the first ten games or so and still failed to win one.
It’s clearly not the board’s fault. And to have spent £100+ million and not be able to cope with the loss of one centre back earlier on in the season is poor.
I don’t like the way these interviews are sounding. CW on the defensive all the time. Bring back the old Wilder.

As much as I love the man, I’ve lost some respect for him this season for exactly this reason. He simply will not change the system and he’s happy to get relegated doing it.

If he starts badly next year, he still won’t change it and he’ll be out the door at Christmas.

The system worked well in the championship because we were too good for teams to cope with it. We caught teams by surprise last season in the PL, but they’ve figured it out now.

Instead of making us hard to beat, he tried to keep at it and other teams are pinning our wing backs in their own half and running the show in the middle. Add to that he’s not even had the players to keep with three centre halves, yet still he won’t change.

He usually caps it off by rattling on about ‘PlayStation managers.’ Anyone can read a league table and tell you that we’ve not played well in almost every game.

still love him. The stubborn bastard.
 
How will we ever know if the system is the problem unless he tries different ones and compares? Are we really going to play this way until the end of the season?
We try a different system every game. Unfortunately we are always losing when he changes it.
 
Chris is right about one thing here, we aren't currently playing 2 up front. At most 1 and a half most games.


Other than that he fails to understand that times change and you need to adapt year on year.

Barcelona had successfully used tiki-taka then it had it's time and they had to go more direct with Messi-Neymar-Suarez and it worked.

That is highly relevant especially the Barcelona comparison.

Tiki-taka had about 2 years, maybe 3 when it worked and it provided some of the best football ever seen. But other, lesser, teams adapted. Barcelona were able to still grind out wins but without the style and eventually the number of wins declined as well.

And that was with players like Xavi, Iniesta, Messi, Etoo, Henry, Villa.

Why anyone thinks the way we played for three and a half glorious years would continue indefinitely without our (usually more talented) opponents countering it, it's hard to say.
 
It is the system. Wilder hasn't any evidence to prove it isn't. We've lost 21 from 26 with his system, and looked decidedly shit since the lockdown return.

I have pointed it out with the diagrams how teams have countered Wilderball. The system he claims isn't failing has only one critical route to goal of successful note - the now-dead-as-fuck 'overlapping centrebacks' which was useful in the rise to the PL, had novelty value at the beginning of last season but during the COVID break, strategists and tacticians simply sat down, did the maths, looked at the passing lanes, the overloads and the way teams had conceded and simply made their teams ship four out to counter-overload-the-overload. We stop, we pass it back, Norwood smacks it over to the other wing, and rinse and repeat until we fuck up a pass and we are in full retreat, three-in-a-line midfield easily outnumbered and we're under the cosh, unable to win it back, Norwood trips someone, a car comes out from the touchline, it's wings and doors fall off, a swannee whistle goes off, Lundstram attempts a tackle and his flower squirts water, there's a trombone slide, Fleck makes a giraffe out of some balloons and Ramsdale's hat falls off and he kicks it forward trying to pick it off the deck.

We've been sussed, and Wilder refuses to acknowledge it. It's fucking late in the day to acknowledge it mind, given most teams this season have fed greedily from our inability to change strategy. When we've been forced to however - and actually gone four at the back and four in midfield - we've looked different and slightly more capable, even if it is obvious the players aren't comfortable playing like that (simply because I feel CWAK don't entertain setting the team up in training to have any system as an alternative.)

Wilder can't blame anything else, he really can't. No one is buying 'COVID and crowds' - it's the fucking same for everyone and really, they've been playing in front of empty stadiums for a year now, for fuck's sake. What happens if we suddenly let crowds back in and we are trunked once again? You gonna blame 'not playing in an empty stadium'? All 22 players have the same experiences, home and away. It's a fallacy, and nothing more.

He also can't blame 'quality of players versus riches'. He's spent a fucking fortune on poor quality players shaking the risky dice on what he reckons were 'the best Championship players', yet we know (and knew) that was far from the truth. They weren't, and they won't be next season either. He can't blame wages - it is a policy he has been instrumental in setting and he's squandred several million on fees and wages of players who have been fringe or not used at all.

In all, he MUST take responsibility for this seasons humiliation. Not saying I want him gone - at the moment and for the first part of next season he is the only solution we have to recover. But he must accept where the blame lies, learn the lessons (no one, even the most seasoned professional in any trade stops learning), act effectively, stop being so fucking brickwall and make sure we have one season and one season only in the Championship to recover, rebuild and reappear in the top flight.

pommpey
 
It is the system. Wilder hasn't any evidence to prove it isn't. We've lost 21 from 26 with his system, and looked decidedly shit since the lockdown return.

I have pointed it out with the diagrams how teams have countered Wilderball. The system he claims isn't failing has only one critical route to goal of successful note - the now-dead-as-fuck 'overlapping centrebacks' which was useful in the rise to the PL, had novelty value at the beginning of last season but during the COVID break, strategists and tacticians simply sat down, did the maths, looked at the passing lanes, the overloads and the way teams had conceded and simply made their teams ship four out to counter-overload-the-overload. We stop, we pass it back, Norwood smacks it over to the other wing, and rinse and repeat until we fuck up a pass and we are in full retreat, three-in-a-line midfield easily outnumbered and we're under the cosh, unable to win it back, Norwood trips someone, a car comes out from the touchline, it's wings and doors fall off, a swannee whistle goes off, Lundstram attempts a tackle and his flower squirts water, there's a trombone slide, Fleck makes a giraffe out of some balloons and Ramsdale's hat falls off and he kicks it forward trying to pick it off the deck.

We've been sussed, and Wilder refuses to acknowledge it. It's fucking late in the day to acknowledge it mind, given most teams this season have fed greedily from our inability to change strategy. When we've been forced to however - and actually gone four at the back and four in midfield - we've looked different and slightly more capable, even if it is obvious the players aren't comfortable playing like that (simply because I feel CWAK don't entertain setting the team up in training to have any system as an alternative.)

Wilder can't blame anything else, he really can't. No one is buying 'COVID and crowds' - it's the fucking same for everyone and really, they've been playing in front of empty stadiums for a year now, for fuck's sake. What happens if we suddenly let crowds back in and we are trunked once again? You gonna blame 'not playing in an empty stadium'? All 22 players have the same experiences, home and away. It's a fallacy, and nothing more.

He also can't blame 'quality of players versus riches'. He's spent a fucking fortune on poor quality players shaking the risky dice on what he reckons were 'the best Championship players', yet we know (and knew) that was far from the truth. They weren't, and they won't be next season either. He can't blame wages - it is a policy he has been instrumental in setting and he's squandred several million on fees and wages of players who have been fringe or not used at all.

In all, he MUST take responsibility for this seasons humiliation. Not saying I want him gone - at the moment and for the first part of next season he is the only solution we have to recover. But he must accept where the blame lies, learn the lessons (no one, even the most seasoned professional in any trade stops learning), act effectively, stop being so fucking brickwall and make sure we have one season and one season only in the Championship to recover, rebuild and reappear in the top flight.

pommpey
cant disagree with any of that pommpey i just cant believe he can say the system works when were stuck 15 points adrift hes really suprised me this season with some of the comments he has come out with actually hes dissapointed me i wanted him appointed and have been a big fan of his for the last 4 years but i really think hes lost the plot this season oh for the real chris wilder to reappear
 
It is the system. Wilder hasn't any evidence to prove it isn't. We've lost 21 from 26 with his system, and looked decidedly shit since the lockdown return.

I have pointed it out with the diagrams how teams have countered Wilderball. The system he claims isn't failing has only one critical route to goal of successful note - the now-dead-as-fuck 'overlapping centrebacks' which was useful in the rise to the PL, had novelty value at the beginning of last season but during the COVID break, strategists and tacticians simply sat down, did the maths, looked at the passing lanes, the overloads and the way teams had conceded and simply made their teams ship four out to counter-overload-the-overload. We stop, we pass it back, Norwood smacks it over to the other wing, and rinse and repeat until we fuck up a pass and we are in full retreat, three-in-a-line midfield easily outnumbered and we're under the cosh, unable to win it back, Norwood trips someone, a car comes out from the touchline, it's wings and doors fall off, a swannee whistle goes off, Lundstram attempts a tackle and his flower squirts water, there's a trombone slide, Fleck makes a giraffe out of some balloons and Ramsdale's hat falls off and he kicks it forward trying to pick it off the deck.

We've been sussed, and Wilder refuses to acknowledge it. It's fucking late in the day to acknowledge it mind, given most teams this season have fed greedily from our inability to change strategy. When we've been forced to however - and actually gone four at the back and four in midfield - we've looked different and slightly more capable, even if it is obvious the players aren't comfortable playing like that (simply because I feel CWAK don't entertain setting the team up in training to have any system as an alternative.)

Wilder can't blame anything else, he really can't. No one is buying 'COVID and crowds' - it's the fucking same for everyone and really, they've been playing in front of empty stadiums for a year now, for fuck's sake. What happens if we suddenly let crowds back in and we are trunked once again? You gonna blame 'not playing in an empty stadium'? All 22 players have the same experiences, home and away. It's a fallacy, and nothing more.

He also can't blame 'quality of players versus riches'. He's spent a fucking fortune on poor quality players shaking the risky dice on what he reckons were 'the best Championship players', yet we know (and knew) that was far from the truth. They weren't, and they won't be next season either. He can't blame wages - it is a policy he has been instrumental in setting and he's squandred several million on fees and wages of players who have been fringe or not used at all.

In all, he MUST take responsibility for this seasons humiliation. Not saying I want him gone - at the moment and for the first part of next season he is the only solution we have to recover. But he must accept where the blame lies, learn the lessons (no one, even the most seasoned professional in any trade stops learning), act effectively, stop being so fucking brickwall and make sure we have one season and one season only in the Championship to recover, rebuild and reappear in the top flight.

pommpey
A bit stronger than I’d phrase it but I can’t disagree with the points made.
 
I would agree if Stevens and Baldock were competent as traditional full backs and the midfield was winning its own battles but neither are, so I'm not sure that there were many choices. And let's not forget that both Liverpool goals were scored from the centre of the pitch - they would have had even more space with a 4-4-2

The first goal came from a cross out wide mate.

Baldock was a full back when he signed for us. As demonstrated by his lack of attacking skills as a RWB.

And Wilder has been perfectly happy playing Enda at LCB on a number of occasions so I don't think your argument stands up at all.
 

This season we do not have the players to make this system work.

Persisting with it is bad management.
 

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