₦airaland Forum

Abeg what is worrying Sturridge is way more than sharpness. It's the inability to keep things simple. Look at the flick he attempted at goal from a corner when he was free. I cannot count how unnecessary many flicks he attempted when a simple pass would suffice. It's not the sort of performance you'll expected from someone who desires a spot and finds an opportunity. With Torres not finding goals, he can be anything he wants to be but he has to remind us all how tricks and flicks are more important than being effective.


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Regarding Mikel, isn't it amazing that only one person seems to think Mikel is the cause of that goal? There's no need for debate.

debosky: Yes - his name is Sturridge and he was abysmal today!

However, in classic DK style, he only wants to talk about how Torres did even Torres has not played.

dayokanu: Why dont you ask the same of Mr FernanDUD Torres cos I am certain Sturridge has a better goal/minute returns than FernanDUD

Dude, u are taking medicine for headache I don't have. I don't care about Torres mate.

Man . . Danny Sturridge needs to learn the simple things. Tonight reminds us all exactly why RDM almost never plays him.

FBS . . .Congrats man! Olorun a wo o.

Phew!

dayokanu: You mean this and last season you havent blamed Lampard for Torres inability to score? At least posters on this forum can verify what you said

Now Lampard has been dropped but Mr Torres still cant score. What is the issue now? Or do you also agree with Coogar that the creative Hazard, Mata and Oscar playing behind him are the problems nowadays?

So what is the latest hindrance to Torres that makes him unable to score

9 league games, 3 CL games 12 games, totaling over 1000mins Mr Fernandud has 4 goals thats 1 goal every 250min or 1 goal every 4 hours

Talk is cheap. .. Find the quote.

dayokanu: Less than a year ago you all claimed malouda, Sturridge, lampard and Drogba are the problems with Torres and once they are out Torres would start scoring

Infact When it was only Hazard, mata and Lampard, Nateevs singled out Lampard as the only one in the starting 11 that was hindering Torres.

Now Lampard is out Sturridge , Drogba Malouda and we have extremely technical players yet Torres still doesnt get goals

Now tell us why Torres has continued to be a failure in close to 2 yrs at Chelsea?

Hehehe!. I already know you won't find the answer to the question I am about to ask.
Can you find the link - any link at all - where I stated that Lamapard is the "only" hindrance to Torres.

FBS: oga nateevs, abeg shift and relocate. na who you dey blow grammar for?
no one is showing nada aggression here but believe me, its annoying when simple comprehension is beyond your grasp!
Not only that I said let's call a spade a spade - but for some whatever reasons you conjured up in your head, you decided I was referring to you? how did you come up with that?

if you ain't sure of who said what - you either re-read or ask. It's that simple. And for the record, I don't insult.

Dude if do you not believe that there is a massive difference between "Let's call a spade a spade" (what you thought you said) and "Why can't we call a spade a spade" (which is actually what you said), then you need to visit Debosky every night for grammar lessons.


It's very easy to come to a near conclusion as to who you directed it at. However, just in case I was wrong, I started my sentence with "If by calling a spade a spade you referred to me, " . . . . "If" "If" broda.

So let's see, what is the simple comprehension beyond my grasp once again?

FBS: Sometimes, I just wonder if reading or understanding or both is a problem for you? By calling a spade a spade meant saying it as it is. I never said Hazard solely cost us the game and never said we cannot afford to "carry" him along - do yourself a favor and re-read what I said/wrote.
Yesterday was not the first time he lost the ball that finally resulted into a goal against us. Telling a player to defend be it messi or ronaldo or any other player for that matter is certainly not out of place. I even made it clear that I'm sure that he will learn with time.
You were the same person always screaming each time Drogba lost the ball (none of which actually resulted in a goal) -
So Mr, what's up with your double standard? what exactly are you against?

Jeeez! I wonder what the aggression is all about. If you think I don't read, what part of this did you not understand?

nateevs: I am not saying you or Ibime is wrong by calling out Hazard's lack of defending. What I am opposing is the use of the word, we cannot "carry" Hazard.

Where's your own understanding of grammar in all this? What phucking part of that did you not understand?


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Regarding saying he is the sole cause of the loss, did I say you said so?
If you didn't say so, why can you not bloody damn say, "NO I DIDN'T SAY SO" instead of all the insults?

I said YOU or IBIME in the first sentence and then went ahead to reiterate my objection to "Ibime's POV" as seen here:-

Ibime: So despite all yarns, he cost us the game today.

However, as always, you have shifted the focus of the debate out of stupendous lack of understanding and you are blaming me?
Tell me where I have gone wrong. Especially as I stated that "You weren't wrong".

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For Pete's sake, I even said these at different times.

I am not saying he should not defend
Like I pointed out previously, I am not for any player who cannot put in a shift.
He won't get it in a day, maybe not even a season. He will get it though as the likes of Mata and Oscar who are equally as talented get it.

However, dude had to call me Mr double Standards! Is it your itch to hurl insults or your lack of understanding of the phrase "double standards"? Cos I am struggling really seriously to see the double standards.

FBS: The morning after. . .
Beat Manshyte on Wednesday and all is more than well.

As per Hazard, he is a fine player (a Joe Cole raised to power 1,5 ) no doubt but yesterday was about the 4th time he was found out doing a "Ramirez".

Guys went boom boom on Mikel when he gave the ball away against Juve, so why can't we call a spade a spade?

That said, I more than believe than he will learn to defend as per when required irrespective of tactics. A team that plays together wins together.

What I really want RDM to fix is this silly attitude of conceding early in matches. What's that all about?

If by not calling a spade a spade, you refer to me, (as I don't see anyone else on the other side of this debate) then you got it wrong . . . again.
I am not saying you or Ibime is wrong by calling out Hazard's lack of defending. What I am opposing is the use of the word, we cannot "carry" Hazard.

Also to blame Hazard as the "sole cause" of the loss is absolutely and utterly ridiculous. That's my point.


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Hazard's come from a background of light defending as well as being the most important member of his team. Everything went through him at Lille.
He won't get it in a day, maybe not even a season. He will get it though as the likes of Mata and Oscar who as equally as talent get it.

coogar: it begs the question - how did chelsea go 2 man down playing on their own turf?

The ref sent them off.

Ibime: Guy face front abeg. I don't know who brought you into this conversation.

Was it RDM tactics for Hazard to inexplicably start running forward with no sense of danger at all when Mata lost possession on the first goal. So was he running to start another counterattack despite the fact he was the deepest defender on the left hand side?

If it was not his duty to chase Rafael why did he chase him all the way albeit 2 seconds too late?

Was it RDM tactics that got him dropped by Belgium manager for the very same thing?

I would never accept laissez faire behaviour from Chelsea player unless he is Maradona.

I don't need to dislike a player to point out the obvious. That's why FBS said "Hazard -2" during the match cos he knows who was responsible.

Now get your uninvited self off ma posts.

So in short, it's Hazard's fault we lost!

Ibime: No moaning here. The boys played well. A player who causes a goal against every three games should be taught a lesson. All these one about what he's contributed in easy games na yarns only because Chelsea don't have another tiki taka guy on the bench. If na Belgium him day now, rdm woulda taught him a lesson by dropping him after such a woeful defensive performance. Afterall how many times does Mourinho pull out the whip on Ozil despite his stats? Some of us don't brook such nonsense. The first goal today, he was in left -back position, he played the ball to Mata who was robbed, then he inexplicably started running upfront like he didn't just see that Mata had been robbed and he was the only man in left -back position to stop united. Second goal he was 20 yards behind Rafael directly causing the goal as Ashley had to leave Valencia to challenge Rafael. So despite all yarns, he cost us the game today. Who is he not to be taught a lesson? Is Belgium coach mad? Maybe he should start putting in more efforts like the players who are "built like towers"

In short, Eden Hazard cost us the game. Okay, that's a new one.
Should I already include him on the list of players you moan about?

What JM does should not come into this for the very reason that we are not employing JM tactics. Maybe it's a tactic by RDM to relieve Hazard of too much defensive work to effectively launch a counter when the need arises, we don't know. All these yarns about not "carrying" Hazard is ridiculous bro. Go have a cold drink and relax.

Like I pointed out previously, I am not for any player who cannot put in a shift but to think that Eden Hazard cost us the game? I know when I am not feeling too well and I need to lie down.

Hehehe. First PL loss, the moaning is already in overdrive. We cannot afford to carry a player with 2 goals, 9 assists, 83.9% pass completion rate, 2.2 key passes per game, 1.3 dribbles and arguably the most fouled player in the PL. First PL season, only 21.


I am not saying he should not defend but we cannot afford to "carry" Hazard? . . . *facepalm*

Well done boys. We gave it a good fight. A very good display from the boys. The ref? Pfft!

HEhehe. It takes 2 men off and an offside goal for United to stand a chance.
Well play by all involved.

He was offside.

We have to invoke the spirit of Munich.
Defend till we die.

The ref could not be 100% sure it was a dive as the replay shows, yet he issues a card.

Bad decision.

Now that's what I am talking about. Game on.

fredoooooo: baba you show for here today ....

I show o! Na serious matter.
The boys, though 1-2 down, are playing really well.

Now that's what I am talking about.

We get a goal and we are still in it. A win is still very much possible.

Hehehe. Finally Marko Marin is on the bench.

dayokanu: Now tell me what in the defintion of counter attacking football is different from the bolded statement.

Realistic football is bunkering when you need to and attacking when you need to The type played by most teams that win trophy. Tiki take advocate stick to their guns regardless of the situation Van Gall side would rather lose 100-0 than close shop and bunker. You would hardly notice a difference in play from a Barcelona down by 5 goals and a Barcelona up by 5 goals. Last week Barcelona was leading 4-2 I think when they got a red card. Realistic football would dumb down things a bit, remove an attacker for a defender and wait to counter not Barcelona. That is the difference between tiki taka and what I call realistic football.

Who says you have to take out an attacker when you are up? Which rule book defines this as the way to play football? Marcelo Bielsa plays a 3-3-1-3. In the eyes of the English, he is insane.

There is no formal way of playing football. If you are up by 5 and still play the same way, then good luck. How many times have we seen a team take off an attacker in the hope of defending, concede a goal and lose impetus to on and claim a win? Yet people still do it. Why do managers believe that at 3 nil up on the 60th minute, if I sacrifice attack, I won't concede?


No football style deserves the reverenced title "realistic football". You make it sound like it's harder to win playing tippy tappy.

dayokanu: Ajax has always played that way and they have seen their success reduced over the years and atimes overtaken by pragmatic PSV

its the classic Van Gaal vs Hindick philosophy

I am sorry but this just entirely wrong. Your attempt to label Ajax's fall from grace "only a resultant of their playing style" is preposterous.

Also I do not agree with you that Hector Cuper's Valencia was mainly counter attacking. I was a massive Valencia fan back in the day and while Hector had the knack for setting up for the opposition, he was mainly about building quick-paced attack from behind.


That tippy tappy is boring is an opinion that should not be forced on people. I absolutely adore tika taka. It's technical football of unimaginative levels and it takes the best of the best of technical players to execute it.


And what the hell is "realistic football" by the way?

My opinion about counter attacking football especially with the flavours AM and Mochengladbach is that it is a derivative of tippy tappy except as opposed to very slow, patient build-up of play, the movement and passing is swift. However, the common ground in both styles is heavy reliance on the use of space by way of intricate passing and the use of very technically-gifted players to execute such.

I actually feel that this style was adopted to resemble something very close to tippy tappy but at the same time being very considerate about organisation in defence. My belief is that this derivative is as a result of the crucial need to survive in the league.

Diego Simeone played under Marcelo Bielsa while he was coach of Argentina and I like to believe he knows about possession football. Therefore if given the quality of Barcelona, will not play counter attacking football but possession football. I believe the same of Lucien Favre.

dayokanu: The only club where tippy tappy has worked largely is still Barcelona. Can you give any other example? The Dortmund you keep referring to is a counterattacking side. Who defend in numbers and break out at speed

If we have just one club out of hundreds where tippy tappy has worked, Would that be considered a successful tactic that can be replicated with guarantees of success?

Of course it is 'a tactic that has worked and can be replicated'. Whether it should be replicated is the question I cannot answer.

Secondly, I told you that this Barca crop is a fruition of years of investment in teaching total football. That is why they perhaps are the flag bearers of the tactic on a very successful level. Ajax achieved this in the early 90s but years of financial disruption has derailed the success. They are now returning back to this method with under the tutelage of Frank De Boer along with his brother Ronald - taking it back to the academy.

There aren't many teams that are successful at it yet but more and more teams are going that way. Atletico Bilbao, Atletico Madrid, Borrusia Mochengladbach, Arsenal, Ajax, Blackpool, Swansea, Liverpool, Spurs.


As stated extensively, tippy tappy is a philosophy that requires dedication and acceptance by all involved in the club. However, the politics of instant gratification is what usually disrupts the learning curve. Most times if you don't win quickly enough, you lose money. That's why people resort to all sorts of tactics not because tippy tappy by itself is an inferior tactic. If most team persists at it, it can work.

The truth is, only a handful of managers can teach it, that's why fewer teams play that way.

dayokanu: The greatest Tippy tappy team in football history is Rinus Michels Holland won how many trophies?

ZERO

Infact before 2010 the last time tippy tappy won the world cup was in 1970 40yrs earlier.

So if you are prepared to wait every 40yrs stick to it

I think it is a bit myopic to come to this conclusion.
It's difficult to teach tippy tappy in international teams than it is in clubs for the reason of the sheer amount of hours of training national managers have with their players. It requires teaching basic techniques of the use of the ball and more importantly, the use of space. These techniques are best taught at a very young age. In many cases, many footballers have grown past the stage of changing. There is also the issue disparity in football teaching (heavily dependent on coach employed) at international age-groups levels.

Cruyff took Rinus' principles and introduced it on club level where they had access to hours of training and an age level where the rudiments of total football are best absorbed. The crop of players that adopted this early teachings are the Spaniards you see now.


My point is, it is somewhat folly to judge the result of tippy tappy on a national team level. Unless the playing style has evolved into a national culture, like it has in Spain, it will be difficult to achieve much success consistently in international competitions.

@FBS.

Chei see epistle!!!. Dude I cannot quote and re-quote all you've said but I'll give something a go.


You lack of understanding about the focus of the debate is staggering. I have based all my arguments so far on the statement you made - "Tippy Tappy does not win games" and dude, that is clearly wrong. I have no idea what you have in mind to express but I see you've gone from tippy tappy does not win games to route-one is the best to tippy tappy is hard to learn. You are all over the place.

Let it be known that I haven't in any arguments of mine tried to force any style on the debate. You've always known my preference of football but I have not attempted to impose it on this discussion. What I have done is go hard on your ridiculous assertion that tippy tappy does not win games and then cite only Arsenal as an example of why it doesn't work.


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Tippy tappy in vogue?? . . . I laugh in Spanish. The so called tippy tappy is perhaps an Iberian derivative of the footballing principles of Rinus Michels - Total football - sampled, explored and adopted by Johan Cruyff. The Barcelona you see today is the result of hard work of decades teaching football in La Masia established by Johan Cruyff.


The world wide frenzy with this style of football is as a result of more managers buying into this way of football. That's why it looks like "in vogue". Total football has been here for years. Present proponents of total football include Pep Guardiola and Micheal Laudrup all played under Johan Cruyff.

Football has evolved over time. In the past, it was only about winning the game in front of you and then winning a trophy. It was about "only" about bragging rights. It was a fan's game. These days, it's changed. It's big money business. Branding and club image are just as important as winning trophies. And as football evolved, so did the technical side of it. Many technical directors in clubs are now of the opinion that to sustain club image, brand and most importantly, revenue generation, football clubs must adopt a different strategy of technical deployment and recruitment.

So rather than have a manager that comes in and dictates what style of football is played, the style of football is determined by technical department. The style of football is bought and adopted by all coaches in the club. That way you have a uniform style of playing. That way the manager comes in and manages the style that the first team plays and the academy already is used. It's basic, it's scalable and it's sustainable.

This is the way most clubs will go in the future. Whether it will leads to success remains to be seen and this is reason why more and more managers as you see in Marcelo Bielsa, Lucien Favre, Brendan Rodgers, AVB, Diego Simeone, Luis Enrique, Ian Holloway are adopting the concepts of total football and get involved in the club philosophy from top to bottom - 1st team to academies.


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Let's get this straight. I am not imposing my opinions on anyone and I have not said "yet" if any style is better. I just think that you cannot say that you don't have any thing against tippy tappy and then say that tippy tappy does not win games and that in most cases route-one works best. That's a classic case of contradiction.

BlueDiva: Another dimension to the argument...

Forget tippy tappy, the quality of players win trophies.
Tippy tappy with rookie players will win you some games but would'nt win you trophies.
Man City are champs today because of their quality of players, same with Chelsea, Madrid, Barca and United.

Assemble a good squad and a decent manager, choose any style of play and you will win trophies, just work on team chemistry.

Mediocre players can manage to do well for one season but can hardly repeat the feat consistently.
If it was all about tippy tappy then Barca will only use academy players and would'nt waste money buying players.

Bottom line is that money buys you success in the modern game not tippy tappy.

I dealt with this issue in my first response to FBS citing how Barca goes on up on Arsenal by the quality of players (mainly strikers) that they chose to spend on.

The said, the point of view is open to debate.

Assemble a good squad and a decent manager, choose any style of play and you will win trophies, just work on team chemistry.

There is no football team in history that has dominated an era without playing good football.
Manchester City have a prolific assembly of players, they have a decent manager and they chosen any style yet they can't even dominate in England let alone Europe.

Real Madrid pre-Mourinho and even in the JM era have spent an absolute fortune on players, they've had their fair share of decent managers, they chosen a style but they haven't dominated football either in Spain or in Europe for close to a decade.

PSG alike and there are several other teams I can point to.


My point is, there is only so much you can win/dominate without a clear, defined and sustained method of playing that permeates to the academies. However, this has become very tedious to explain over the years and much so by the advent of oilgarchs who buy clubs and assemble players without so much thought about continuity and sustenance of a football culture. The perennial spending somewhat renders the choice of and persistence with a football culture almost obsolete.

For that reason, there is a condescending attitude towards the advocation of fluid and passing attacking football. The ignominy can be smelled from a mile away and much so by the birth of the word "tippy tappy". It is almost as if proponents of "tippy tappy" are calling for an inferior and less effective method of football that such calls are met by stern and sometimes almost hateful responses.


Using some of your points to defend mine, route-one can only be sustained by constant fund injection. Only a clearly defined positive footballing culture and philosophy, that permeates to the academy can sustain a football club's image and brand for years to come. The era of throwing money at teams is coming to an end. Therefore only the foundation can sustain clubs henceforth. The strength of this foundation is heavily dependent on the method of play chosen now and adhered to.

I am thankful that the club has seen that this is the way forward as shown with the calibre, age and quality of players we now pursue. Instead of the likes of Hazard, Mata, Oscar, KDB, we would have been looking for the next Essiens, Drogbas, Maloudas.