The Evolving Gaming!

[beechblade]

As a young coach at Grassroots level I've been getting involved in The FA's push for The Future Game, its aim is to produce better players around working from Grassroots to our 'Elite' game. We all share our own views on how the modern game should be played, some advocate 'Total' football some prefer a mixed style. As a club that is seeing a fall in its current fortunes, a change is clearly needed in how we approach the modern game. I think we are trying to place a change in emphasis with the likes of John Pemberton in charge of the Academy and the recent inclusion of a 'Development Squad' but this emphasis in change has not been brought forward enough to the first team, I believe there are numerous people to 'blame' (if you would say it that way) for this though and that’s not the aim of what I’m discussing.

Some facts on how the modern game has changed:

Physical Demands

Players now cover 50% more distance than they did in the mid sixties; they not only cover more ground but are doing this at much higher speeds in all positions on the field. The number of sprints and high intensity activities has almost nearly doubled since 2002. The time that the ball is live during play is almost 15 minutes more than in 1990.

Technical Demands

With the speed of the game increasing, more teams on higher levels value retention of possession and make more passes per game than in the past, with leading teams often dominating possession with a ratio of approximately two to one (or 65% to 35%.) Players regularly reach 80% pass rates during a game, with the better players attaining a rate above 80%, in fact players in the Premier League and International Level have been seen to achieve pass rates of 90% and above. Consequently, there are more passing and receiving situations during game (20% more than in 2002), with the ball being passed below head height more frequently.
Counter attacks have always been tactically significant in producing goals, with modern teams scoring in excess of 40% of their goals as a direct result of counter-attacking play. These passages of play often occur within 10 seconds of regain possession in the middle and defending thirds of the pitch.
One touch passing in teams at the highest levels is attributed as creating as many 50% of their goals.

(Taken from The FA’s Future Game Guide)

United have been label with the hard working, long ball mentality, when some of their better moves this season alone have been quite the opposite, for numerous years now, if not way earlier than my lifetime, but how can we change this mentality? I don’t buy that any of our coaches are ‘dinosaurs’ because the way in which a coach has to maintain his career development is far more extensive than people believe, and United’s Academy plays host to many of the workshops for coaches of all levels to continue their career development.
So what are your views on how the board and current coaching teams need to change for our club to move forward into a brighter era?

---------- Post added at 08:32 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:18 PM ----------

I personally believe we should be looking at really involving our youth and development squads as players for our future, we should have a base of experienced professionals (and arguably we already do) but the youth and development squad players should be the core base of how we build our team. This restructuring should have been a key focus for this season, after the loan debacle of the previous season but sadly it wasn’t and it’s a main reason why I think we are in our current position. Coaches often say players aren't ready for the step up, but they never will be unless we start to give them proper experience on the pitch. This should be included with more reserve games and more first team games, whether we can allow them the games or send them out to clubs on loan that have the view to use the players in their first team squad, it didn't hurt the likes of Stephen Quinn in his early devlopment.
We have to look to our future and sadly it seems that these changes will have to take place in league 1, we need to structure all our teams in a way that they all play with a similar ethos in style, (each will be slightly different but thats because each coach is different), the style certainly has to involve more retention of the ball in the middle area of the park but it also has to include better decision making in that area too. Modern coaching is designed to breed this in our younger players and that is why they may already be more advanced than some of our current crop at senior level. From the reports I have read on the academy side it seems we are trying to move in this direction but it has to be through strong leadership at managerial level to involve these players we also have to strong leadership at board level to back this change. So far at the younger levels we seem to be moving in the right direction and eventually this has to flitter to our senior squad, so hopefully our future will be much brighter.

UTB!

 

[raul]

Part of the culture change will need to be having the courage of our convictions and being brave enough to see things through even when they aren't going well. We flip-flop between hoof and pass far too often.

If we can't do this when expectations are at an all time low, we never will.

 

[Balham]

Part of the culture change will need to be having the courage of our convictions and being brave enough to see things through even when they aren't going well. We flip-flop between hoof and pass far too often.

If we can't do this when expectations are at an all time low, we never will.

Should we go down - and it's looking pretty likely - then there's a real opportunity for change. Will it happen though?