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Today's Football 2018-19 Season

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roydo said:
We fought like ferrets in the EU thread mate,but that has baffled me for years.
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Me too, roydo. I see it almost every week on MOTD, and wonder why. When I managed a Sunday League team, I always put two of the smaller players on the posts, and told them to leave the aerial challenges to the big lads. And only come off the posts once the danger had been cleared. I cannot understand the modern thinking of putting all defenders around the centre of the goal/six-yard box - does it mean more bodies provides a better chance of clearing the ball? it seems more likely that defenders get in each others way, and to expect the GK to cover 4 yards either side of him in a split second is wishful thinking IMO. Clark's goal tonight was a case in point - it would have disembowelled the defender on the post rather than have gone in!
 
Old Blue 2 said:
Me too, roydo. I see it almost every week on MOTD, and wonder why. When I managed a Sunday League team, I always put two of the smaller players on the posts, and told them to leave the aerial challenges to the big lads. And only come off the posts once the danger had been cleared. I cannot understand the modern thinking of putting all defenders around the centre of the goal/six-yard box - does it mean more bodies provides a better chance of clearing the ball? it seems more likely that defenders get in each others way, and to expect the GK to cover 4 yards either side of him in a split second is wishful thinking IMO. Clark's goal tonight was a case in point - it would have disembowelled the defender on the post rather than have gone in!
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I think it's done to catch the attacking team offside. I reckon a few years ago some goals were scored where the corner was swung out,then headed back in, and then players scored from a few yards out. Since then, all managers put nobody on the posts, and as soon as the corner comes, they contend the first ball, and then push out to catch the attackers offside.

Trends change, and it may well become the fashion to put a man on each post again at some point.
 
What a transformation since Solskjaer arrived at United, they have swept aside gentle opposition with real panache, verve and no little skill, the players are enjoying themselves again and optimism is soaring. Win today and the feeling will be that United are back and going places.

Perhaps Ole Gunnar Solskjaer will turn out to be the perfect accidental candidate, and if his team beat Pochettino’s Spurs at Wembley on Sunday then that will be taken by some as a further scrap of evidence that it should be the Norwegian. But that is not really how it should work at the biggest clubs. There should be a long-term plan that is a little more durable than reading the runes from a single result, good, bad or indifferent.

City spent years preparing the ground for Guardiola, even appointing Spanish and Catalan executives, it was a long chase one designed to show Guardiola that there would be no better club more ideally suited to him than City. They pursued a plan right down to announcing Pelligrini,'s departure midseason, everything was done to facilitate Guarsiola's arrival, the ground was prepared, the club were made ready.

It was a drawn out and very long pursuit and such an approach is far easier when you're following a long term strategy, a plan to take you to the next level which means never losing sight of the future objective.

As documented numerous times, United since Sir Alex left have stumbled along and made poor choices. They apparently had targets at different times but fell back on the likes of LvG because he had a half decent record and crucially was available at the time Moyes left, Mourinho similarly, he had been a serial winner of trophies and they needed to respond quickly, to secure a big name who could match their city rival's appointment of Pep. There was no long term plan, no strategic thinking.

Ideally United would have operated along similar lines and prepared the ground for their new man, they would have approached him months out and had his assurance that if asked he would have little hesitation in coming. There are however no guarantees in place, no direct approaches made and the possibility that whoever is appointed may forever be known as the Not Pochettino Candidate.
 

Chris O'Connor said:
Gareth Southgate added to Man Utd's shortlist as fears grow Mauricio Pochettino will stay at Spurs


https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/20 ... ricio/amp/

Sam Wallace writes ...

Manchester United are considering an approach to Gareth Southgate, the England manager, as they become increasingly concerned that Mauricio Pochettino will stay at Tottenham Hotspur this summer.

United go to Wembley Stadium on Sunday to face Pochettino’s Spurs team with no certainty yet that the Argentinian is prepared to give up on five years at his current club to become the fourth permanent manager at Old Trafford since Sir Alex Ferguson retired. While Pochettino remains the first choice of United executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward, the club are aware that it is by no means certain he will agree to come.

Southgate signed a new contract with the Football Association in October that takes him to the 2022 World Cup finals and he would be no means certain to accept a job elsewhere in the interim. The England manager is committed to the national team and although United represents the biggest job in English club football he may well believe that, at 48, it could come around for him again.....

.....An approach to Southgate would be problematic given the length of his contract with the FA and the awkwardness of taking a manager from the national team. In early 2002, United were close to appointing Sven Goran Eriksson, then the England manager, as Ferguson’s successor before the Scot reversed his decision to retire at the end of the 2001-2002 season.


Naturally there would also be concerns about Southgate. He has been out of the club game where he had just one management spell, at Middlesbrough, for three years between the summer of 2006 and October 2009. Nevertheless, his resounding success in taking England to a World Cup semi-final this summer, and his faith in young players, make him an attractive proposition.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who is in charge of the team currently since Mourinho’s dismissal, looks like the most likely candidate to benefit should Pochettino turn down the United job. The visit to Wembley on Sunday will be the first significant test of his side after four victories over Cardiff, Huddersfield Town, Bournemouth, Newcastle and Reading in the FA Cup third round.

Pochettino’s recent public pronouncements on his future have offered no great clarity on whether or not he sees Spurs as being able to match his own ambition. He has admitted himself in the account of his career published last year “Brave New World” that he is prone to changing his mind on major career decisions and in the past while in his first job at Espanyol he turned down higher profile jobs at Valencia and Sampdoria.

That is why United have been forced to explore other possibilities as they approach yet another change of manager. Southgate will be watching Everton against Bournemouth on Sunday while his assistant Steve Holland is at Wembley.
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There is no way on earth Gareth Southgate is being “considered” for the United job.

Nor any other top job that comes up in the future.
 


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