Liverpool FC Forum

stu_the_red wrote:I don't attend all the matches any more, this shows you don't pay attention. I've said this numorous times. If you're gonna start an arguement ya little nerd at least have the decency to get ya facts and arguements correct as apose to making them up and talking junk.

John Barnes' Granny wrote:This is hilarious!

In all fairness, people are deliberately taking AB's comment about defensive play out of context, but Stu and Leon have it in for the guy and jump down his throat every time he tries to say something.

AB didn't say 0-0 won games, that was a deliberate misinterpretation of the guy's arguement. Playing defensively can win trophies, as Greece showed in Euro 2004.

He is kind of right, and establishing a rock solid defence that gives little or nothing away over half a decade of football is extremely difficult. Amazing defences like Arsenal's of 1989 to around 1998 take years of fine tuning. Ossie Ardiles created a Spurs side that scored goals for fun in the mid 1990s, but it was all for nowt as the team leaked goals like crazy.

Anyway, the standard of defending in England is abysmal and this is repeatedly shown up in Europe when English sides give away soft goals. One Champions League win in more than a decade is farcical for the self proclaimed Greatest League in the World.

The way I see it is that a team needs to be balanced: solid, disciplined and tight when they are without the ball and creative, sharp and powerful when they are in possession.

As for being a coach of young players, Stu, means nothing about a person's knowledge of the game. English football was tarnished by idiotic youth coaches in the late 1980s and early 1990s who put an emphasis on physical strength and booting the ball long to a tall centre forward. Proof of this is seen in the abysmal state of the English national team in the early to mid 1990s and the relatively poor current English side.

I'm not directing that comment at you Stu as I respect your views on the game, but being a coach means relatively little.

Finaly someone understands what I'm trying to say. 

John Barnes' Granny wrote:but Stu and Leon have it in for the guy and jump down his throat every time he tries to say something.

stu_the_red wrote:Since when did youth sides and having trials for clubs involve Saturdays?

Or even sundays for that matter?

When do reserves play on Saturdays? I've never known that. The trials i've had have been in youth and reserve teams mainly throughout the week, one or two behind closed doors, one or two not.

Secondly, i used to go to matches on weekends, i never played for teams regularly, the most i had was 4 games for stockport reserves, i played for burscough a few times and i had trials with tranmere and trained with Wrexham during pre season last season for 3 weeks.

Also, my point is... how can defence be more important to winning a game than attack when you have to score to win? defence is massively important, it has its own benifits and makes attacking far easier. But the fact is as i said, you can't win 0-0. You can win 10-9. Being able to score goals is more important than keeping clean sheets, its 51% about being able to score 49% about being able to keep a clean sheet.

And yes, i do like solid defensive play, yes that is the style i like most, yes that is the style which is easiest to play. So what? that is totally irrelivant to this arguement. It has absoloutely ****** all to do with it.

JBG i agree with your statement on coaches. Totally. Most of them don't know there ****** from there elbow. However i don't agree with why you are saying they are so bad. The role of a coach is to help players maximise there strengths and weaknesses aswell as helping to maximise there teamates strengths and weaknesses and helping them minimize opponents strengths. Etc etc.

If you have a centre forward who can win everything in the air and bring the ball down and hold it up against any defence in the world, thats what you get them to do, however not at the expense of taking another player out of the game. If you have a player who can pass a ball through the eye of a needle and has great vision and awareness then you give them the ball to allow them to do that, its about 11 players and two many coaches and managers these days make the game about 3 or 4. Houllier was unfortunately one of these. Its fine doing that if you have the talent at your disposal, however Liverpool didn't.

Its better to ask players questions than tell them what to do, at least then they have to think about why they are doing things. A HUGE amount of coaches these days don't play two touch games and don't know anything about using wingers and wide players and don't stop training sessions and ask the right questions.

I also disagree with the point you make about working with kids not improving your knowledge. I advise you to try it. The difference it puts on your perspective of the game is shocking.