David Hodges

Everybody knows that everybody is cheating. Universities have so many people with the words "strategy" and "AI" in their titles yet on this issue, they can't seem to think through what is going to happen beyond the end of next week.

The general consensus is that, due to the rise of man-to-man pressing, teams are being forced to rely much more on set pieces, thus leading to a lack of open-play creativity. Although this is certainly true in the Premier League, I would rather focus on the possible solutions in open play. First, I would like to say that we have already seen a major league, Serie A, become obsessed with man-to-man football, and it also led to the two best Italian footballing minds, De Zerbi and Conte, providing collective solutions to the same problem. 1. The carrying solution – Qualitative superiority – PSG A team full of carriers cannot be stifled by man-to-man pressing. If the opponent gets beaten 1v1, the press crumbles. This is primarily what PSG are. I will get this one out of the way first, since it obviously cannot be implemented with lesser funds. 2. Dynamic superiority – Positional pinning – De Zerbi/Conte Man-to-man is an extremely reactive approach; every defensive player “follows” every attacking player. This gives a fundamental advantage to the team in possession. It does not matter if the defensive player knows “where” to be when the attacking player simply arrives earlier. You can then use this to create automatisms (Conte), where positional pinning is used to establish patterns of timed arrivals and dismarking movement, up-back-throughs, third-man combinations, etc. 3. Dynamic superiority – Associative superiority – Relationalism If you put players in close proximity without constant positional pinning, you create an environment for flicks, combinations, one-twos, dropping and arriving, etc. For a man-to-man approach, it is simply not practical to keep following these movements when executed correctly. This is what we saw with Wenger’s Arsenal or Ancelotti’s Madrid in their prime. Guardiola’s idea this season of overloading the centre with technical players is him placing much more emphasis on associative superiority than he has previously. With an impending rule change in the Premier League for set pieces, coaches need to look at different solutions, as Guardiola is actively doing.

That’s my centre back right there

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Wharton’s body orientation when receiving the ball, and then the execution of that pass. Utterly sublime. There isn’t another English midfielder like him right now.

Coaches often try to decrease the emotional atmosphere in training. They try to anesthesize situations so players don't become too emotional. WHY? Games are highly emotional & emotions play a huge role in learning...Therefore shouldn't we try to amplify emotion in training?