Liverpool FC Forum

Boxscarf » Tue May 22, 2012 11:15 pm wrote:

Benny The Noon » Tue May 22, 2012 9:39 pm wrote:
He has only been there 2 seasons.

Reading comprehension isn't your forte is it?

Reality doesn't seem to be yours -Maureen signed a 5 year contract with Chelsea only to leave months later - the same at Inter . Stating claims about Maureen's longevity at a club including any caveats is a bit premature

Benny The Noon » Tue May 22, 2012 10:18 pm wrote:

Reality doesn't seem to be yours -Maureen signed a 5 year contract with Chelsea only to leave months later - the same at Inter . Stating claims about Maureen's longevity at a club including any caveats is a bit premature

Re-read my post and maybe you'll the see the few short words in brackets.

ycsatbjywtbiastkamb » Tue May 22, 2012 4:28 pm wrote:]



that bielsa is another flavour of the month job, he sounds a bit off his rocker as well, he does things like pace out the length of the pitch before deciding on his formation and other stuff like that.
bilbao is the first team he`s managed in europe and i`m not sure south american managers find the culture in england an easy one to adapt to.

One man's madness is another's genius. He's smart, driven and tactically superb. He believes in the total football ethos. I'm hoping the others are a smokescreen and he's going to come in, much the way Rafa did in 2004.

fivecups » Tue May 22, 2012 10:45 pm wrote:

ycsatbjywtbiastkamb » Tue May 22, 2012 4:28 pm wrote:]



that bielsa is another flavour of the month job, he sounds a bit off his rocker as well, he does things like pace out the length of the pitch before deciding on his formation and other stuff like that.
bilbao is the first team he`s managed in europe and i`m not sure south american managers find the culture in england an easy one to adapt to.

One man's madness is another's genius. He's smart, driven and tactically superb. He believes in the total football ethos. I'm hoping the others are a smokescreen and he's going to come in, much the way Rafa did in 2004.

rafa won the league twice in three years, this fella finished halfway down. i know he got to the europa league final but so did roy with fulham.
i think a few people are getting carried away with their performances against united myself.

Is martinez having having a meeting with our club in the morning?
see a few tweets that this might be the case.
The last i heard we was not going to eye to eye meeting with and manager untill we had a few in mind that wished to take the job on?

fivecups » Tue May 22, 2012 10:45 pm wrote:

ycsatbjywtbiastkamb » Tue May 22, 2012 4:28 pm wrote:]



that bielsa is another flavour of the month job, he sounds a bit off his rocker as well, he does things like pace out the length of the pitch before deciding on his formation and other stuff like that.
bilbao is the first team he`s managed in europe and i`m not sure south american managers find the culture in england an easy one to adapt to.

One man's madness is another's genius. He's smart, driven and tactically superb. He believes in the total football ethos. I'm hoping the others are a smokescreen and he's going to come in, much the way Rafa did in 2004.

On your head be it 

See.

Tactics: the genius of El Loco

Marcelo Bielsa might be known as “El Loco” but he is far from stupid, and his decision to turn down Internazionale in the summer was rooted in the most worldly of considerations.

And as Gian Piero Gasperini’s ill-fated five games in the San Siro hot seat demonstrated, the grandees of the game simply don’t have time for radicalism – particularly with Inter’s ageing, slow squad simply unsuited to the sort of hard-pressing game favoured by both Bielsa and Gasperini.

Instead of Italy, Bielsa went to Spain, where he joined Athletic Bilbao, a club almost as idiosyncratic as he is.

They had finished sixth and reached the Final of the Spanish Cup last season under Joaquin Caparros, whose legacy is tainted by suggestions that he was little more than a long-ball merchant. Successful he may have been, but there was little outcry when Josu Urrutia won the club presidential election in the summer and didn’t renew Caparros’ contract. It may, in fact, have been Caparros’ style of football that was one of the reasons Urrutia won the election.

In some ways, Caparros fitted with Athletic’s tradition. As an exhibition in the museum at San Mames stadium makes clear, Athletic is a very British club. It was founded by English shipyard workers and its style was instilled by Wolverhampton-born Fred Pentland, a stern, moustached figure who bade farewell to his bowler hat shortly before the end of each of his five Spanish Cup successes, knowing full well that his players would jump on it in triumph.

Pentland was regarded as a radical coach who favoured a short-passing game (although what was short in the 1920s would probably look pretty direct to modern eyes), but he still liked his centre-forwards big and robust, and his centre-backs more so. The likes of Fernando Llorente and Fernando Amorebieta are the modern incarnations of that tradition.

It’s a difficult line for coaches at Athletic to tread: they must be direct enough to reflect the traditions of the club but not so direct as to be accused of being long ball. In that regard, Bielsa may be the perfect compromise. He is far from a long-ball coach, but he does prefer “vertical football”. He is an idealist; not in an aesthetic sense, but from the point of view of having a clear conception of the sort of football he believes works, with his opinions honed from a library of tens of thousands of videos and careful statistical analysis, all charted in multi-coloured diagrams and spreadsheets.

Bielsa wants the ball to be won high up the pitch and so advocates intense pressing; speaking, as Arrigo Sacchi did, of there being an ideal 25 metres between centre-forward and centre-back. He recognises the importance of the rapid movement of the ball from front to back to catch opponents off balance, but he also sees the value in retaining possession, which is what differentiates him from, say, Egil Olsen, a coach who always prioritises position on the field over possession.

Inevitably, though, it took Bielsa time to settle in Bilbao. He made radical changes, offloading nine players, and training became far more conceptual, with moves worked through in detail without opponents. While Caparros’ sessions were focused on 11-a-side matches, Bielsa has played just one full practice game since taking over.



But there have been encouraging signs that Bielsa’s methods are paying off and that he has begun to adapt to his new surroundings.

His early experiments with the 3-3-1-3 that he had used with Chile have been replaced by a back four, usually but not exclusively, in a 4-2-3-1 shape. He has limited his habit of playing a midfielder in defence and started to pick the left-back Jon Aurtenetxe. There is also a clear effort being made to utilise the wings, and the occasional long, diagonal ball is used to make the most of Llorente’s aerial ability. Llorente himself has been magnificent this season, leading the pressing with such energy and focus that at one point in the Europa League game against Paris Saint-Germain he closed down a free-kick before it had been taken.



There is evidence, too, of the pre-planned moves starting to work. Against PSG, Athletic responded to a packed defence by plying low, hard balls forward, with a player dummying and carrying on his run, looking to receive a lay-off. It was from precisely this route that the opening goal came. Javi Martinez hit forward a pass of perhaps 30 yards; Oscar De Marcos dummied, pivoted and kept sprinting; Llorente helped the ball on and De Marcos crossed to the far post where left-winger Igor Gabilondo hooked a volley into the top corner – a wonderful strike to end a wonderful move. Three passes had sliced open a defence that had six men behind the ball.



After five league games without a win at the start of the season, victory over Real Sociedad in San Sebastian, a draw in Valencia and a 3-0 dismantling of Atletico Madrid at San Mames suggested just what a force Athletic could be. They are also through to the knockout stage of the Europa League. And yet, at most clubs, Bielsa would have been under severe pressure after those first five games, while at Inter he would probably have been sacked.

That speaks of a wider flaw in modern football: the fact mavericks like Bielsa only get their chance at mid-ranking sides like Athletic. Perhaps that’s always been true to an extent – after all, Brian Clough lasted just 44 days at Leeds United, the only truly big club he ever managed – but the difference now is that talent is so concentrated at such a small handful of clubs it’s impossible for mid-ranking sides, even when managed by a genius, to challenge the best. Clough won a league title with Derby County and a league and two European Cups with Nottingham Forest, while Bielsa is left to battle for Europa League qualification.

Were he a generation or two older, Bielsa would have been challenging for the greatest prizes; as it is, his genius is doomed always to bubble a little below the surface.

By Jonathan Wilson

LFC2007 » Tue May 22, 2012 10:57 pm wrote:

fivecups » Tue May 22, 2012 10:45 pm wrote:

ycsatbjywtbiastkamb » Tue May 22, 2012 4:28 pm wrote:]



that bielsa is another flavour of the month job, he sounds a bit off his rocker as well, he does things like pace out the length of the pitch before deciding on his formation and other stuff like that.
bilbao is the first team he`s managed in europe and i`m not sure south american managers find the culture in england an easy one to adapt to.

One man's madness is another's genius. He's smart, driven and tactically superb. He believes in the total football ethos. I'm hoping the others are a smokescreen and he's going to come in, much the way Rafa did in 2004.

On your head be it 

I accept full responsibility, but I also expect the accolades when we win No. 19. 

lakes10 » Tue May 22, 2012 10:56 pm wrote:Is martinez having having a meeting with our club in the morning?
see a few tweets that this might be the case.
The last i heard we was not going to eye to eye meeting with and manager untill we had a few in mind that wished to take the job on?

i hope its not true Lakes , i like the lad tbh he seems a decent fella , especialy sticking up for Rafa the way he did against the drunk , but i feel his time here is to early and i can see this being another Owl scenario ,

lol come on Nanny lets face the truth any manager unless its Rafa is going to get the Owl scenario.
I just dont see Rafa coming back to the club, 99% of all media bbc sky espn dont see him coming back to the club.
the problem is that untill Rafa is forgot 45% of all liverpool fans will not be happy with any manager that the owners pick as it not Rafa.

sad but true.

on another note, is there any word on a deadline that the club has set about when we need a new manager in place by?
you would think with the Euro coming up in a few weeks they would like him to be in the job to start picking players he would like to bring to the club.
it would also shut the media up.

fivecups » Tue May 22, 2012 10:57 pm wrote:See.

Tactics: the genius of El Loco

Marcelo Bielsa might be known as “El Loco” but he is far from stupid, and his decision to turn down Internazionale in the summer was rooted in the most worldly of considerations.

And as Gian Piero Gasperini’s ill-fated five games in the San Siro hot seat demonstrated, the grandees of the game simply don’t have time for radicalism – particularly with Inter’s ageing, slow squad simply unsuited to the sort of hard-pressing game favoured by both Bielsa and Gasperini.

Instead of Italy, Bielsa went to Spain, where he joined Athletic Bilbao, a club almost as idiosyncratic as he is.

They had finished sixth and reached the Final of the Spanish Cup last season under Joaquin Caparros, whose legacy is tainted by suggestions that he was little more than a long-ball merchant. Successful he may have been, but there was little outcry when Josu Urrutia won the club presidential election in the summer and didn’t renew Caparros’ contract. It may, in fact, have been Caparros’ style of football that was one of the reasons Urrutia won the election.

In some ways, Caparros fitted with Athletic’s tradition. As an exhibition in the museum at San Mames stadium makes clear, Athletic is a very British club. It was founded by English shipyard workers and its style was instilled by Wolverhampton-born Fred Pentland, a stern, moustached figure who bade farewell to his bowler hat shortly before the end of each of his five Spanish Cup successes, knowing full well that his players would jump on it in triumph.

Pentland was regarded as a radical coach who favoured a short-passing game (although what was short in the 1920s would probably look pretty direct to modern eyes), but he still liked his centre-forwards big and robust, and his centre-backs more so. The likes of Fernando Llorente and Fernando Amorebieta are the modern incarnations of that tradition.

It’s a difficult line for coaches at Athletic to tread: they must be direct enough to reflect the traditions of the club but not so direct as to be accused of being long ball. In that regard, Bielsa may be the perfect compromise. He is far from a long-ball coach, but he does prefer “vertical football”. He is an idealist; not in an aesthetic sense, but from the point of view of having a clear conception of the sort of football he believes works, with his opinions honed from a library of tens of thousands of videos and careful statistical analysis, all charted in multi-coloured diagrams and spreadsheets.

Bielsa wants the ball to be won high up the pitch and so advocates intense pressing; speaking, as Arrigo Sacchi did, of there being an ideal 25 metres between centre-forward and centre-back. He recognises the importance of the rapid movement of the ball from front to back to catch opponents off balance, but he also sees the value in retaining possession, which is what differentiates him from, say, Egil Olsen, a coach who always prioritises position on the field over possession.

Inevitably, though, it took Bielsa time to settle in Bilbao. He made radical changes, offloading nine players, and training became far more conceptual, with moves worked through in detail without opponents. While Caparros’ sessions were focused on 11-a-side matches, Bielsa has played just one full practice game since taking over.



But there have been encouraging signs that Bielsa’s methods are paying off and that he has begun to adapt to his new surroundings.

His early experiments with the 3-3-1-3 that he had used with Chile have been replaced by a back four, usually but not exclusively, in a 4-2-3-1 shape. He has limited his habit of playing a midfielder in defence and started to pick the left-back Jon Aurtenetxe. There is also a clear effort being made to utilise the wings, and the occasional long, diagonal ball is used to make the most of Llorente’s aerial ability. Llorente himself has been magnificent this season, leading the pressing with such energy and focus that at one point in the Europa League game against Paris Saint-Germain he closed down a free-kick before it had been taken.



There is evidence, too, of the pre-planned moves starting to work. Against PSG, Athletic responded to a packed defence by plying low, hard balls forward, with a player dummying and carrying on his run, looking to receive a lay-off. It was from precisely this route that the opening goal came. Javi Martinez hit forward a pass of perhaps 30 yards; Oscar De Marcos dummied, pivoted and kept sprinting; Llorente helped the ball on and De Marcos crossed to the far post where left-winger Igor Gabilondo hooked a volley into the top corner – a wonderful strike to end a wonderful move. Three passes had sliced open a defence that had six men behind the ball.



After five league games without a win at the start of the season, victory over Real Sociedad in San Sebastian, a draw in Valencia and a 3-0 dismantling of Atletico Madrid at San Mames suggested just what a force Athletic could be. They are also through to the knockout stage of the Europa League. And yet, at most clubs, Bielsa would have been under severe pressure after those first five games, while at Inter he would probably have been sacked.

That speaks of a wider flaw in modern football: the fact mavericks like Bielsa only get their chance at mid-ranking sides like Athletic. Perhaps that’s always been true to an extent – after all, Brian Clough lasted just 44 days at Leeds United, the only truly big club he ever managed – but the difference now is that talent is so concentrated at such a small handful of clubs it’s impossible for mid-ranking sides, even when managed by a genius, to challenge the best. Clough won a league title with Derby County and a league and two European Cups with Nottingham Forest, while Bielsa is left to battle for Europa League qualification.

Were he a generation or two older, Bielsa would have been challenging for the greatest prizes; as it is, his genius is doomed always to bubble a little below the surface.

By Jonathan Wilson

that says he inherited a bilbao side that finished 6th last year, he finished 10th this year.
thats worse than kenny and he got the sack!

Nanny, where's your 'winky' emoticons at the end of every sentence, you usually know more than this. 

NANNY RED » Tue May 22, 2012 11:03 pm wrote:

lakes10 » Tue May 22, 2012 10:56 pm wrote:Is martinez having having a meeting with our club in the morning?
see a few tweets that this might be the case.
The last i heard we was not going to eye to eye meeting with and manager untill we had a few in mind that wished to take the job on?

i hope its not true Lakes , i like the lad tbh he seems a decent fella , especialy sticking up for Rafa the way he did against the drunk , but i feel his time here is to early and i can see this being another Owl scenario ,

i`ve heard he`s meeting them thursday in boston, but before we press the panic buttons they are planning on meeting a few people.
i agree with what you say about another hodgson, those managers who spend their careers at the bottom end of the league have a different outlook to the top managers.

ycsatbjywtbiastkamb » Wed May 23, 2012 12:27 am wrote:

NANNY RED » Tue May 22, 2012 11:03 pm wrote:

lakes10 » Tue May 22, 2012 10:56 pm wrote:Is martinez having having a meeting with our club in the morning?
see a few tweets that this might be the case.
The last i heard we was not going to eye to eye meeting with and manager untill we had a few in mind that wished to take the job on?

i hope its not true Lakes , i like the lad tbh he seems a decent fella , especialy sticking up for Rafa the way he did against the drunk , but i feel his time here is to early and i can see this being another Owl scenario ,

i`ve heard he`s meeting them thursday in boston, but before we press the panic buttons they are planning on meeting a few people.
i agree with what you say about another hodgson, those managers who spend their careers at the bottom end of the league have a different outlook to the top managers.

AVB at 4/7 to be the next liverpool manager so i wonder if he has just met them?