Overlapping centre backs - the worst thing to happen to Wilder

[INTERUNITED]

My reason for saying this is that whilst that period was the best I've ever seen as a Blades fan (and I've been going for nearly 40 years), it meant that Chris is always looking for that something new and different which will make him look like a genius. At the minute it's the double pivot in midfield, which hasn't worked and won't work, but he keeps in persisting with it as he thinks it's 'innovative'. The same with playing players out of position, so that when it works, he's the master tactician behind it. What he needs to do is get back to basics and what made him a great football manager. I get the players are shite, but I don't think they are as bad as they are currently showing. For me, the tactics are all wrong. Go back to 442 and start having a go at teams. We can't defend, so why sit back and invite pressure? In this team, the best way to defend is attack. Just try something different Chris and get back to what you are, a bloody good Championship manager!!

 

[Cyprus Blade]

I have never been sure whether the overlapping centre backs was a product of genius or sheer desperation after Gillingham.

 

[Davalon]

It was Knill anyway

 

[SuperSonicBlade89]

I think its funny, Wilder OR Knill didn't exactly "invent" the idea of overlapping CB's. It has actually been done before we did it. Just no one ever made a big deal out of it until we consistently used the system and it worked for a bit, until teams came up with a defence. This happens all the time in football.

 

[bruce]

I think its funny, Wilder OR Knill didn't exactly "invent" the idea of overlapping CB's. It has actually been done before we did it. Just no one ever made a big deal out of it until we consistently used the system and it worked for a bit, until teams came up with a defence. This happens all the time in football.

It worked until we lost O'Connell and never replaced him with someone who could also perform that role.

 

[KMC-1889]

I don’t think it was a massive technical innovation, it was two extremely athletic centre backs that were good on the ball, high in confidence and encouraged to press on. They also had two extremely mobile and consistent wing backs to support them.

It’s no surprise that it feel to pieces when age and and injury got the best of those players. If it was tactical why couldn’t he find replacements or coach players into the system?

 

[Kenworthy’s Tash]

My reason for saying this is that whilst that period was the best I've ever seen as a Blades fan (and I've been going for nearly 40 years), it meant that Chris is always looking for that something new and different which will make him look like a genius. At the minute it's the double pivot in midfield, which hasn't worked and won't work, but he keeps in persisting with it as he thinks it's 'innovative'. The same with playing players out of position, so that when it works, he's the master tactician behind it. What he needs to do is get back to basics and what made him a great football manager. I get the players are shite, but I don't think they are as bad as they are currently showing. For me, the tactics are all wrong. Go back to 442 and start having a go at teams. We can't defend, so why sit back and invite pressure? In this team, the best way to defend is attack. Just try something different Chris and get back to what you are, a bloody good Championship manager!!

As I understand it, it was Mr Dead that thought up the overlapping centre backs, not Wilder

 

[I should coco]

I don’t think it was a massive technical innovation, it was two extremely athletic centre backs that were good on the ball, high in confidence and encouraged to press on. They also had two extremely mobile and consistent wing backs to support them.

It’s no surprise that it feel to pieces when age and and injury got the best of those players. If it was tactical why couldn’t he find replacements or coach players into the system?

Basham, bless him, had proved to be a mediocre midfielder under clough, a poor RB under Adkins and was just about acceptable at CH.

After the appaling start in 2016/17, and reverting to a back 5, he was given licence to show off his amazing engine. The rest, as they say, is history.......'Basham arriving'.

What a wondeful time that was, from 2016 to early 2020.

 

[Lord Eddard Muir]

Basham, bless him, had proved to be a mediocre midfielder under clough, a poor RB under Adkins and was just about acceptable at CH.

After the appaling start in 2016/17, and reverting to a back 5, he was given licence to show off his amazing engine. The rest, as they say, is history.......'Basham arriving'.

What a wondeful time that was, from 2016 to early 2020.

Doubt we'll ever see better mate, it was a great time to be a Blade

 

[GeorgeDonis1889]

Yes the thing that brought the greatest success in his career and produced some of the best football and results in our history was the worst thing that ever happened to him.

And how I wish he'd stop playing a double pivot in midfield just to....try and look like a genius.

 

[nopigfansintown]

He's been playing conventional formations all season. I've no idea why you think otherwise. The only slight innovation is how our right back has been playing. The switch from a four to three in and out of possession with the right back bombing on. This is due to the lack of right back options meaning we go with Ogbene there instead of on the wing. We're essentially swapping between conventional systems hoping one will stick. It won't because the personnel aren't there.

Two up top is very difficult for us due to the lack of quality, fit options. Your starting two has to be two from 60 minutes Campbell, green as the Bramall Lane grass One, and won't fire can't fire Cannon. Campbell and One aren't doing more than an hour so who are your other two ready to come on when they gas? Is any two up top combination really going to give you more than the additional midfielder or defender would? I'm not convinced personally.

A further problem (it may actually be a bigger problem) is the lack of forward quality coming from the wide areas. For me we have one proven quality player that is robust enough to play regularly in Burrows. His form has unfortunately dropped off a cliff. The rest are either injury prone or not good enough.

We do lack ball playing centre backs who can break lines with their ball carrying and passing. It's one of many reasons we don't create enough.

 

[Revolution]

I think its funny, Wilder OR Knill didn't exactly "invent" the idea of overlapping CB's. It has actually been done before we did it. Just no one ever made a big deal out of it until we consistently used the system and it worked for a bit, until teams came up with a defence. This happens all the time in football.

Who else was using this before we were? Genuinely interested.

I know Atalanta were using it but that was a bit later, perhaps during 2018-9 or even the year after.

 

[raimond]

Whilst I do get the point of the OP, it's a bit like saying having Deane was the worst thing that ever happened to us because now every striker since looks shit, or that greatest ever kebab was a terrible thing to happen to you because they all taste shit now in comparison, or that fittest lass you ever pulled with the absolutely incredible body was a disaster because now all boobs seem shite. I reckon do what the rest of us do, live in the moment and wank over the memories.

 

[Tickhill Blade]

Whilst I do get the point of the OP, it's a bit like saying having Deane was the worst thing that ever happened to us because now every striker since looks shit, or that greatest ever kebab was a terrible thing to happen to you because they all taste shit now in comparison, or that fittest lass you ever pulled with the absolutely incredible body was a disaster because now all boobs seem shite. I reckon do what the rest of us do, live in the moment and wank over the memories.

Needs to be on a t-shirt

 

[dexter101]

Needs to be on a t-shirt

should replace "out run, out fight, out play" as our new motto

 

[Badger Blade]

I think it's raised expectations on Wilder at other clubs he was at after us and given the naivety of our owners and many others in the game, foreigners with all the gear, no idea, believing that he or any other manager they appoint can work miracles out of a squad of apparent dross.

Realistically, how many clubs have massively outperformed what was expected of them after spending very little money? Us in going through the leagues up to 2021, Leicester winning the league 2016, Mourinho's Porto team winning the Champions League in 2004, Greece winning the Euros in the same year. Maybe Palace's recent exploits given that they've treaded water for the last decade. Brentford getting to and staying in the Premier League from being perennial League One/Two no-hopers.

All the stars aligned for four fantastic seasons but as soon as the squad needed to be upgraded or we got injuries to key players, we ended up in a chicken and egg scenario where we had to either change the system first but didn't have players who could adapt or change the players but none of them could execute the system nearly as well.

We saw that when Coutts broke his leg, O'Connell did his knee, we struggled for a top end keeper for a long time before and after Dean Henderson, we've never really replaced Billy Sharp with anyone who can score as regularly and most of who we tried haven't hit the mark besides Norwood for Coutts and last season's version of Michael Cooper.

Boils back down again to recruitment, long term succession planning and having a vision that is realistic and can be executed, that has had its due diligence done. That in itself is a full time job for a team of people at the club to do and if we are doing it, we're not doing a very good job based on recent managerial appointments and the players we've signed.

Data is one thing, seeing someone play in the flesh is another entirely.

At the moment, Wilder is standing with Fern Britton with a bag of random shite from the supermarket that he's got 20 minutes to make something edible out of.

 

[Swannyblade]

I think the worst thing was Wilder abandoning the overlapping centre back system, but continuing with five at the back - it essentially left us with a player short further up the pitch. When JOC got injured, priority should have been replacing him with another player who could perform the role. Instead we threw our transfer budget at shiny flops like Brewster instead. We ended up with Jack Robinson filling the gap, who might have been adequate centre back cover, but definitely did not have the tools to step out of defence and be effective in more advanced positions.

 

[Kabba Kabba Doo]

Covid killed us completely, lead to JoC's injury, the fall off a cliff of Stevens, Fleck and Norwood to a degree, they were all flying on confidence and momentum and that break completely killed it dead.

Although as has been said, our recruitment since January 2020 has largely been pathetic, Bogle was a relative success, other than that I can only think of Anel and Cooper as permanent additions who you can call a resounding successful purchase, and we probably ended up with not as much money as we could have done from Anel.

 

[raimond]

Needs to be on a t-shirt

Also the name of my forthcoming memoir

 

[Working Class Hero]

I think that whole Wilder 2016-2020 era actually ruined football forever for me (or COVID did, depending on how you look at it). I can't see it ever being better than that, and we were all robbed of the best part of it. We weren't even there to celebrate the only time we've actually survived in the Premier League during my time, let alone finish in Europe and the resulting journey, which probably would have happened. I haven't really watched any neutral football since then either. Even if United did have a similar period, it definitely wouldn't feel the same now.

In terms of Wilder's standing in the world though, his stock obviously isn't as high as it was then, how could it be? I don't think he can be blamed for this current mess in any way though. He's not only come in to a squad that's absolutely fucking bobbar relative to the standing of the club, but he'd built a squad the season before that would probably get automatic promotion this season (and most other seasons). He must be in complete disbelief about what's happened to it in the short period he wasn't around. I know I am.

 

[coaxingstar71]

I think there seems to be an agenda floating round that Wilder had little to do with the innovative 5-3-2 overlapping centre backs tactic and that it was all Knill, or someone else, or just luck, or magic maybe. It doesn't suit the agenda because people want to believe Wilder is some kind of footballing dinosaur. All absolute bollocks.

I believe it came about because in the first 4 games of that season, we weren't strong enough in midfield so to counter that, we played with 3 CB's. This also meant that Jake Wright fitted in better as he was a great organiser but had no pace. The next bit was how to combat teams sitting off and the answer was for the 2 CB's to go forward creating overloads. Wilder was as much part of that as any of the coaching staff, he had to be, he was the manager ffs.

What I think is often overlooked is how good JOC was at crossing a ball. Once Bash came back in, and that was slightly later because it started with EEL on the right, Jake in the middle and JOC on the left, he looked like a completely different player, transformed from a 'nothing' player into a marauding DRC.

Yet some fans don't think Wilder should get any credit for it. Bizarre.

To me, there are two ways a manager can set up when he comes into a club. You can instil your favourite tactics and get your players to adapt to it (like Amorim has done at Man Utd, which has taken some time), or, you can adapt your tactics to best suit the players at your disposal.

If you're Pep, well you can just go out and buy all the players you need to carry out your tactics. If you're Wilder, you have to adapt with the players you've got until you've had chance to slowly build the squad to deliver your preferred tactics. Unfortunately, our board sacked him while he'd started that rebuilding and now he's even worse off than he was before!

 

[Greystones Blade]

It worked until we lost O'Connell and never replaced him with someone who could also perform that role.

I believe that O’Connell started off as a left winger and converted to a CB. Brian Deane started as a winger and converted to a CF. Perhaps we should be looking for really strong wingers who we might convert into something else? They might be out there…

 

[jt64]

It worked well when we had the personnel to employ it while it was still a novel concept. Then we didn't and better coaches worked out a counter strategy. Which may well have been as simple as let us cross, win ball back, quickly distribute to quick striker and let hilarity ensue vs Egan.

 

[KMC-1889]

The problem is this novel concept was nearly a decade ago, he hasn’t done anything of note since. Even his 4-2-3-1 from last season was ripped from the FA/LMA playbook. And he did it wrong.

 

[Panini]

There's an elephant in the room here ... the overlapping centre backs innovation came about because we were in a division where at least 20 other clubs knew they'd get taken apart if they came at us, especially at BL.

By definition, it's not a tactic you'll get much success out of if you're trying it against teams who aren't parking the bus or, more importantly, are stronger than us.

We did well to get some joy out of it in the PL, possibly a novelty / chaos element worked in our favour.

I'm surprised we don't see teams at the top end of all divisions trying it.

As far as the Blades are concerned, it was nice while it lasted. There's no reason we should have stopped trying to innovate in general - if we get it right then doing something different is a great way of making your whole greater than the sum of your parts.

 

[nopigfansintown]

United stopped playing with overlapping centre backs after the O'Connell injury. It left us an orthodox 3-5-2 team. The quality of our players who were massively overachieving due to the formation was then exposed. The Moose situation also added to this. He was huge for us. Teams set up exactly the same way as they had the previous three or four years against us.

Wilder reasserted the system at Boro and had them flying in his first season. In the second year it went sour although it's worth noting that stats wise they should've been right up there.

Last season we played 4-2-3-1. It wasn't orthodox due to the role of the midfield two and the wide left and right players. Hamer routinely drifted inside to open a larger space for Burrows to exploit. Vini would play more leftwards than an orthodox holding player would to cover the counter on that side. Before Arblaster's injury he'd drop deeper than our DM to break the first press. The right winger would play wider than they normally would (depending on personnel).

 

[Need4speed]

It is rather funny that we essentially never replaced Basham Surely it would have been with any coaches ability to pick up an average footballer with good engine and big heart and make him into a Basham, as that is what happened with Chris. JOC a different story he was a class footballer

 

[s20Blade]

We had to use the money wisely to evolve and utilise the new players into a fresh system. We then wasted the money and it all went to shit.

 

[Gimli]

Counter argument: it was in fact the best thing to happen to Wilder.

It gave United 4 fantastic seasons culminating in our best league finish for 50 years, and gave him personally an LMA manager of the season award and then a runners up spot the following year.

Did the system get ‘found out?’ Did key players get injured and totally disrupt how the system worked? Did we simply overachieve and then the follow up was a regression to the norm? Did Wilder then fail to adapt when the system stop working?

Probably all 4 are true to an extent but that doesn’t mean the good times didn’t happen.

 

[itsinyerblood]

The acquisition of JOC was nor simply a shrewd bit of business (around £500k from Brentford I think) but the way the player responded to the demands of defending made him one of the very best defenders we've had. After some uncertainty about who plays where the pairing of JOC and John Egan became a very efficient duo who complimented one another superbly.
We've not had as great a pairing at the heart of defence since then.