[Archived] What Is Souness Doing With The Midfield?

[rover6]

Whatever it is - it don't work.

West Brom: de Pedro Ferguson Matteo Gresko

Southampton: Matteo Ferguson Tugay Flitcroft

Both quartets had to be rearranged at half-time. Souness has become obsessed with making us harder to beat - a dogged, dare I say it, defensive side that'll supposedly give nothing away. But he's definitely going about it the wrong way.

Has he forgotten how he got success with Rovers in his early days? Has he forgotten the free-flowing, enterprising, passing football, fully equipped with wingers that saw us promoted and finish 6th?

Souness is complicating things unnecessarily. An orthodox 4-4-2 is what the players are comfortable with and which most teams in the Premiership employ.

Edited August 21, 2004 by rover6

[chris]

I think one of the problems is Matteo is a victim of his own reputation, he is no way a midfielder, hopefully Souness will learn this lesson soon and stick him in defence hopefully

[LeChuck]

He's completely abandoned the tactics that made us succesful for the last few years, he's completely lost the plot now in my opinion. He claims he likes to play good football yet the only thing in his mind now is to be as negative as possible.

Has he not realised that we were better defensively when we had attacking players? We just invite pressure now because of this useless team selection, I bet other teams can't wait to play us now.

[AlanK]

Whatever it is - it don't work.

West Brom: de Pedro Ferguson Matteo Gresko

Southampton: Matteo Ferguson Tugay Flitcroft

Both quartets had to be rearranged at half-time. Souness has become obsessed with making us harder to beat - a dogged, dare I say it, defensive side that'll supposedly give nothing away. But he's definitely going about it the wrong way.

Has he forgotten how he got success with Rovers in his early days? Has he forgotten the free-flowing, enterprising, passing football, fully equipped with wingers that saw us promoted and finish 6th?

Souness is complicating things unnecessarily. An orthodox 4-4-2 is what the players are comfortable with and which most teams in the Premiership employ.

Couldn`t agree more. Completely baffled me. two left footers on the bench with a centre back playing.......where the left footers should have been.

Can`t believe these decisions are being made by the same guy who bought us success a few years back.

[LDRover]

Whatever it is - it don't work.

West Brom: de Pedro Ferguson Matteo Gresko

Southampton: Matteo Ferguson Tugay Flitcroft

Both quartets had to be rearranged at half-time. Souness has become obsessed with making us harder to beat - a dogged, dare I say it, defensive side that'll supposedly give nothing away. But he's definitely going about it the wrong way.

Has he forgotten how he got success with Rovers in his early days? Has he forgotten the free-flowing, enterprising, passing football, fully equipped with wingers that saw us promoted and finish 6th?

Souness is complicating things unnecessarily. An orthodox 4-4-2 is what the players are comfortable with and which most teams in the Premiership employ.

He's pioneering a new system Rover6, it's called the 'blanket formation'. So called because you could throw a decent sized one over the 4 of them at any given time during the game.

[mjs]

Whatever it is - it don't work.

West Brom: de Pedro Ferguson Matteo Gresko

Southampton: Matteo Ferguson Tugay Flitcroft

Both quartets had to be rearranged at half-time. Souness has become obsessed with making us harder to beat - a dogged, dare I say it, defensive side that'll supposedly give nothing away. But he's definitely going about it the wrong way.

Has he forgotten how he got success with Rovers in his early days? Has he forgotten the free-flowing, enterprising, passing football, fully equipped with wingers that saw us promoted and finish 6th?

Souness is complicating things unnecessarily. An orthodox 4-4-2 is what the players are comfortable with and which most teams in the Premiership employ.

You are much criticised but your comments are spot on.

The manager has totally lost sight of what brought us success before last season.

Let's hope diamonds are not forever. Give us width, pace and movement please Mr Souness.

[1864roverite]

ditto

[Alex Rover]

For the love of God, please please please play Matteo at the back.

[Blue and White]

I wonder what was so terribly wrong with De Pedro that they had to play Matteo at LM ? Also Flitcroft did nothing at RM either.

[1864roverite]

all flitcroft did was take the place of a player who could have done so much better. He was a waste of the shirt and completely out of the game.

paul gallagher or anyone else (even Douglas) could have done a much better job.

Maybe he had his forthcoming move on his mind !

[Tango]

I actually thought Souness had the right idea with his tactics in the first half. *Waits for volley of abuse*

We were playing away from home and, to me anyway, it looked like he played to protect Tugay, who is at his most effective when given time and space - which he doesn't get when he's forced into back-tracking or covering large areas of the pitch.

For the first half an hour it was working. We were the better side, dominating possession (according to Soccernet we had 70-odd percent of it) while Stead was unlucky not to score with his early chances. However, we fell behind due to a defensive error which immediately exposed the weak link in Souness' tactics - we couldn't keep the ball high enough up the pitch and Southampton ran us ragged for the last 10 minutes.

Souness obviously recognised things needed changing and reverted to a more attack-minded formation in the second-half in order to salvage something from the game and, had it not been for a diabolical decision by the referee, we would have come away with a hard-earned, and justified point.

Part of the reason we have been playing these seemingly unbalanced formations has been due to the injury of Neill and the continued absence of Thompson, leaving us having to play Emerton at right-back with no natural width available. Admittedly though, playing Gresko in the centre of midfield was a mistake but one which Souness rectified.

Give it more than 2 games before you say 'whatever we try it doesn't work'.

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

Just heard the new's on radio Lancs that D'urso has recognised his mistake and that Ferguson could now miss the Arsenal game...........

It just gets better.

Edited August 21, 2004 by SIMON GARNERS 194

[tchocky]

So this is where all the sensible people hang out?

Except the odd optimist.

Give it more than 2 games before you say 'whatever we try it doesn't work'.

It's been quite a few games since Souness lost the plot. I'm afraid a change is in order but would loved to be proved wrong by the man himself. The worst thing is how we go into the new season with no apparent system or starting eleven.

[G Somerset Rover]

Just got back from the game and gotta agree. Twice now at half time, soueys realised that he had to change it from the team that started the match. However he persued in playing Matteo left midfield during the second half. Flitty rm-are you having a laugh? At least when Douglas and Andersen played there last season they had some sort of knowledge of playing slightly out wide. Emerton cannot play right back again this season. Up until half time I thought that it was his worst performance yet in a Rovers shirt. Not one pass went to a team-mate. Thank God he played slightly better the second half. All in all gutted, and again slightly baffled by Souey's selection.

[Tango]

It's been quite a few games since Souness lost the plot.

Would those be the games that saved us from relegation?

It was trying to play nice, fancy football that cost us dear last season - partly because, although it created chances, the strikers didn't put enough away till Stead came along and partly because the defence couldn't defend for toffee.

Souness has made some hard decisions with regards tactics, dropping flair in favour of grit when it was he who encouraged us to play that very way.

I'm not particularly optimistic that this season being much better than last, particularly with the proceeding 3 games, all I'm saying is; it's a new season - give him more than 2 games.

[Philly Rover ®]

Just heard the new's on radio Lancs that D'urso has recognised his mistake and that Ferguson could now miss the Arsenal game...........

It just gets better.

Not sure what you all did, but I actually laughed when D'Urso gave that penalty... I mean there was no sense in even complaining, because he's quite simply not fit to be a human being let alone a referee.

As for rover6's comments... I must say that I agree. The theory behind Souness' tactics isn't bad--it's just that tactics such as those rarely work in reality. Hopefully de Pedro will be fit soon enough to take up the left wing spot, because as it is the team lacks any sort of attacking threat from the left-hand side.

Not sure if this has been mentioned, but the coverage over here announced Rovers starting lineup as:

              Friedel

    Emerton    Short    Nissa
 Flitty                     Gray

      Tugay   Fergie   Matteo

         Stead     Yorke

[G Somerset Rover]

Nah mate it was deffo 4-4-2, with Flitty RM and Matteo LM. When I heard the line up, I thought ah a 3-5-2, but as it turned out it wasn't.

[youandwhosearmy]

Just heard the new's on radio Lancs that D'urso has recognised his mistake and that Ferguson could now miss the Arsenal game...........

It just gets better.

shame he didnt realise his mistake and take back the pen

didnt he know we werent playing spurs!

[vyeo]

Nah mate it was deffo 4-4-2, with Flitty RM and Matteo LM. When I heard the line up, I thought ah a 3-5-2, but as it turned out it wasn't.

the espn commentators here in asia thought the same thing. infact, during the preview show, they had us down as a 3-5-2. personally, i thought for a 3-5-2, it looked like a pretty solid formation, with matteo short and nils at the back, gray and emo bombing the flanks and flits and barry protecting tugay. however, as we all know, it turned out to be 4-4-2... the rest is history...

[Exiled in Toronto]

It's certainly hard to fathom what goes through the great man's mind. I think he massively over-reacts to what seems to be an over-simplified problem analysis.

His first insight after our best finish since we won the league was that playing stylish attacking football with 2 wingers made us vulnerable to the counter-attack. Then before we know it, Duff, Dunn and Gillespie are all gone, with only the useless Emerton and a Spaniard to fat to start. Has that changed our vulnerability? No - for a year and a bit we have had an even worse tendency to let in schoolboy goals.

Now the analysis is that we're just too easy to beat - which is obviously true, but doesn't seem to get to the heart of the issue - so it's 2 formations in 2 games that had to be binned at H/T.

Personally, I think the clock is now irredeemably ticking for him. I wasn't surprised that we had less money for him to spend, but I was surprised that all of a sudden we seem to have less money than all the other 19 clubs. Maybe the unseen money men in Jersey have decided that he's had more than enough to date, and he either does the job with what's been invested to date or he goes.

The irony is that if he had only ever been restricted to a max transfer fee of $1.5m, we'd be hailing him as the best manager ever: Freidal, Gray, Tugay, Stead, Dickov (very impressed with him today) are all fantastic buys. But when it comes to $3m and above.....

On the plus side, I am convinced we have more than enough talent at the club for a good coach to get us well up the league.

[trueblue]

On the plus side, I am convinced we have more than enough talent at the club for a good coach to get us well up the league.

Go on then.... who would you rather have ??

Given who is available at the moment !

This 'Souness out' brigade really pisses me off just who would you get in his place ????????

[1864roverite]

apparently

paul luggy sturrock is going to be available from Monday !!

[Jan]

Who would I rather have:

Gary Megson

Nigel Worthinton

Ian Dowie

Mike Newall

Mickey Adams

Those are just the ones off the top of my head. Actually I'd rather have anyone from the Premiership- apart from Kevin Keegan, and probably more from the championship- but those are the possibilities. Much as I'd love Arsene Wenger, I don't think we'd attract him!

paul luggy sturrock is going to be available from Monday !!

Given today's result shouldn't our "manager" be in the same position?

Edited August 21, 2004 by Jan

[1864roverite]

jan

all 5 are not the type of manager we need at Ewood.

IF there was or is to be a replacement in the managers role then there are really only 3 options for Rovers.

Gordon Strachan

George Graham

Mark Hughes

All 3 above have lots of qualities whereas your 5 have really got nothing to offer more than our current manager. You may as well have suggested stanly turnip !

I would suggest that if Souness could ever bury the hatchet with Old Big Nose Thompson then we may get a better response on the coaching side. Pinnocio has shown he has decent tactical nouse and could do a job with our defenders.

The rest of the team know their abilities and responsibilites (I think!).

[Exiled in Toronto]

On the plus side, I am convinced we have more than enough talent at the club for a good coach to get us well up the league.

Go on then.... who would you rather have ??

Given who is available at the moment !

This 'Souness out' brigade really pisses me off just who would you get in his place ????????

Changing the manager is all about balancing risk. There's no doubt that Souness' abilty to throw a sackfull of medals onto the table does attract players to the club, and there's nobody around who we could afford who has that charisma. So lets assume that a new boss won't be as good at getting the spoilt for choice players like Dickov and Matteo to come.

On the other hand, it's not too difficult to find managers who do know their best formation, who do know their best starting 11, and who are capable man-managers.

But our circumstances mean that we would have to take some risk on someone less experienced. Dowie, Fat Sam (not that he'd ever come), even Paul Jewell. They may step up a la Stead, or they may not - it's a risk.

We can disagree over which approach has the most risk. I happen to think that with the players we have at the club and in the academy, the balance of priorities is to have a manager who can work better with what we have than Souness seems to have done for a year now.

Do you always get angry when someone disagrees with your PoV?