Roundheads and Cavaliers

The criticism of the defence has been warranted, but do you remember when Moyes teams were incapable of putting their foot on the ball in the last 10 minutes when defending a lead?

If Martinez needs to learn anything, it's how to manage people's expectations. But we shouldn't condemn him for ambition.

Then I decided I'd better read your linked article first then the main piece.

Right at the bottom you nailed it 'Mediocre Cavalier'.

I'd settle for him gone yesterday at minimum and the end of Howard's 3rd season. max.

The football we were subject to last season and for plenty of this can be described accurately as ’passing the ball side to side along the back line’ How is this ’cavalier’ or indeed just plain old ’entertaining’?

The philosophy seems to be one of caution and patience with the occasional flash of recklessness.

It is no coincidence we self-implode whenever the opposition pressure us high up the pitch; that is where we are keeping the fricking ball!

Conversely, the ’dour/dull/boring’ Moyes based his game of solid basics and high volume of crosses into the old ’Positions of Maximum Advantage’ (laughably so at Man Utd if you recall their game against Stoke... I think). Hardly sophisticated but not exactly lacking in entertainment either.

But yeah, whatever. Wish people would draw the more accurate comparison between the two types of style (Grim Grafters versus Spoilt Losers) rather than any fanciful notion of Roundheads and Cavaliers.

In every walk of life and in business, success is gained and sustained by those who strive for continuous improvement. Standing still in the Premier League will drive you backwards. I get the impression that our phenomenal cavalier feels that his philosophy is best and seems unwilling to learn from his mistakes. The "I will never change my philosophy" approach and condescending patter in interviews is so frustrating.

Looking forward to Highs Lows and Bakayokos and our phenomenal cavalier riding into the sunset, sooner rather than later.

What makes his philosophy so unacceptable is the sight of 'little Leicester' – bottom of the league in March last year and spending about half 'our' project has cost – roaring ahead at the top of Premier League and stuffing it to the RS big time.

But what WE need is patience. All will be well by 2018. Or not.

The second way to play us is for the opposition to stay in their own half with banks of players who let the tip tap go on in our half (which makes the possession look good) but with no result until we again lose the ball when we try and get near the opposition goal, these teams have fast forwards looking for the long ball over our defence who all then race back trying to defend.

As with most things there are different ways to set up and play, I did, do want RM to succeed but after watching us at home he really does not seem to have the inclination or the skill to implement a system to make us harder to beat and yet win.

The exciting football he seems to desire? I have to agree with comments above that many many times it’s very slow, it can be the tip back and forth across the back line until put back to Howard to kick upfield, or the pass to Stones who stands with the ball inviting attackers to tackle him, while stood near our penalty area.

Until the team play with pace and desire for the full match with a different mind-set I cannot see much change, but am hoping for the change to start against Newcastle.

This is year three. It ain’t working.

Am always wary of people talking about in the future... they deep down, they ain't cutting it now and promise yourself future glory and there is nowt to worry about.

Show us a vision, be honest and it’s a different issue. But keep telling us what we know ain't true and it’s a recipe for trouble.

This is part of the Moyes mythology. He started as a yo-yo manager & only achieved successive top half finishes in his 6th season. It was the fact that he then maintained top half finishes until his departure that seems to have lead to myth of him being Mr Consistent – he didn’t start that way, he became consistent.

Overall some interesting points, but maybe you’re a little generous to both managers.

I am firmly of the view that Roberto is not for turning, his stubborn approach mirrors Moyes in a strange way, but with OFM, we did see him getting the very best out of his Roundhead players with-remember – a squad of 18 players or less most often? Conversely, Roberto has inherited very good players and (to his credit) built a bigger squad, but we look more like a rag-tag army of conscripts rather than a tight and effective fighting unit, epitomized by the blessed Tim Cahill, God how we miss him in a fight.

My counter argument is that there are other variants to the two discussed and that the most successful managers fit into a more nuanced phase (described as cavaheads and roundaliers here). I’ve attempted to drop some of the Premier League managers into classification. It’s not coincidence that many of the most successful managers and the ones I’d like us to look at next come in a more nuanced form.

I’d happily have a Pochetino, Koeman, Bilic, Hiddink or Mourinho next.

Of those, only two are available though in the summer and with Mourinho likely to hit Man Utd, the short list gets shorter. What about Hiddink though? He’s proven to be a winner and turn things round in a short-time and seems to be familiar with premier league.

Cavaliers: Wenger, Klopp, McClaren, Martinez, Neil, Monk, Flores.

Roundheads: Allardyce, Pulis, Van Gaal.

Roundaliers (defence first but with flair players): Mourinho, Simeone, Bilic, Pardew, Pochetino, Di Matteo

Cavaheads (Attacking football but with strong defensive system): Guardiola, Ferguson, Ranieri, Koeman, Hiddink.

Everyone closing down and pressing the opposition.

Success usually comes instantly, especially in the last decade, the days of old whiskey nose gradually building up a championship winning team are long gone.

Look at Leicester, Chelsea last season, RS when they signed Suarez. Where did you get this idea Roberto will slowly build up a great side with a seven-year plan? It’s laughable.

Next year the consolidated projection for money distribution means that the difference between an 8th place and a 15th place finish will be £16M (source www.totalsportek.com). Incidentally, and there are some anomalies in the upper placings, the difference between 7th and 15th will be a whopping £29M. So you may not be bothered looking at the end of season table but you can guarantee that everyone else – board, shareholders, the manager for available funds - absolutely *is* concerned. Any business (and let's not kid ourselves here please) likes to financially project with a degree of certainty and any likely new owners are likely to sit in the "investor" rather than the "speculator" camp. So no "cavaliers" for any serious businessmen – get the best roundhead you possibly can.

As to the article, some really good points, but some big flaws in my opinion. It seems to follow statistical projection, saying that a roundhead ends up safe in the middle (i.e. discard the high and low placings and take a mean) but a cavalier has a much wider range of possibility (i.e. random). Yet for me the 'uber roundhead' would have been Mourinho, who was almost – until this season which proves even roundheads can slip - guaranteed to get you titles. I would also put Alex Ferguson and Howard Kendall strongly in the roundhead camp since they clearly built teams on defensive principles. They knew you have to earn the right to play first, and I don't think anyone will argue that their teams looked easy on the eye. The cavalier approach is just fundamentally flawed since it relies on gambling that you will always just play, play well, and play better than the opposition, which is simply not possible all the time. Sometimes you compromise and grind out wins to be successful. As in the real lesson from history, the roundheads trounced the cavaliers through organisation, innovation, discipline and flexibility of the New Model Army and this will always be the case.

Secondly though, and I know this isn't fashionable and doesn't conform to the boring, dour stereotype soundbite received wisdom, but we actually played some terrific entertaining football under Moyes at certain periods. Particularly towards the end of his tenure, and most particularly when he was given big money (for the time) to buy a really top, top striker. Yakubu definitely was in this bracket before his ankle ligament injury. Martinez has been granted funds to buy players that Moyes never was and on that basis alone you cannot directly compare the two. Certainly if you look at the teams that the respective managers inherited the differences between the two styles and the outcomes are even more stark. Not in a good way for Mr Martinez' philosophy either.

So it's roundheads all the way for me, but get the best roundhead you can possibly afford!!

This guy is accurately described in the article. What can we expect from a man with a Premier League win ratio below 30% who never hit the heights as a player. Wrong profession, this guy: should be a spin doctor for the Tories as he can make success stories out of abject failure.

To torture the analogy further; it is worth noting that the dear leader of the Roundheads instigated a programme of reform that transformed a losing side into a winning one, incorporating tight, disciplined units pressing their opposition with intensity. His rule was never outright popular but after he passed on he was later dug up, his corpse mutilated and eventually tossed into a pit by a gang of fanatics.

Conversely, the head of the Cavaliers bungled his way through one ill-conceived idea after another, remained inflexible due to his trenchant belief in his God-given righteousness, played favourites at court whilst banishing those who spoke against him, spent money like it was going out of fashion, enjoyed some initial success on the battlefield but developed a habit of throwing away the advantage. When the time came to try him, he turned on the crowd, stated; "the King can do no wrong" and by the end of it all he was totally off his head.

Maybe there is something in the analogy after all.

You're calling out Roberto as 'a helmet' ...?

You do what is needed to get the result in different circumstances. You're not committed to a 'style' or a 'philosophy', you're committed to winning home games and games against lower opposition, and getting draws in games where the teams are strong or you're away and they have a strong home record. It means being able to defend when you need to, it means tipping the balance on set pieces because they can be the difference between one and three points, and can be worth ten points over a season.

Martinez is a 'cavalier' not because he attacks too much without defending, but because he puts other things ahead of the results. Its a mentality more than a tactical choice. We're so frustrated because he's an extreme example of it, and its got to the stage where we can't even attack all that successfully, because we don't have a solid foundation from which to spring those attacks.

Good managers will always be about balance and adaptability. They won't really have any extreme ideas unless they're about hard work or 'getting the result'. Martinez does so much that is good, but it is all completely undermined and pointless if he won't acknowledge the things holding us back. He could click his fingers tomorrow and become an instantly better manager and we'd be an instantly better team, but he seems committed to futile and harmful beliefs about football which are just plain demonstrably wrong.

Simply put Alex, I don't see how you buy into Roberto having a long term plan.

He talks the talk, but doesn't walk the walk.

His long term plan is clearly flawed, because all his young talented players will jump ship once we fail to finish were we should.

No cups and no CL football will eventually mean no Sones, Ross, Del boy or Rom.

This will mean more building, resulting in more time being needed.

Meanwhile everyone else has the same plan .

Its called fraud.

Here's the thing, lads: he does not exist!!

We have two choices in my view: (1) We get a billionaire and buy titles like Man City and Chelsea; or (2) We build the club from top to bottom. We buy the best young kids we can. We stick to a style of play but practice, practice till we are excellent at it.

That's the two options. For me, Roberto has his faults, no doubt. But so does LVG, Klopp, Mourinho etc. I'm prepared to let him finish his project.

May I suggest the following reading matter if you haven’t already done so – The Civil War by Peter Ackroyd (heavy going but good)

Killers of the King by Charles Spencer (Lady Diana’s brother). This is a great read and is about the retribution brought about by Charles 2nd against his father’s executors once he was restored to the throne after the demise of Cromwell. Its basically a massive manhunt to find and punish the men who signed the death warrant for Charles 1.

This is worth looking at.

http://statsbomb.com/2014/07/defensive-metrics-measuring-the-intensity-of-a-high-press/#prettyPhoto