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Comparisons of Latics with Barcelona are of course laughable, but Athletic tonight showed how that style of football should be played.
It certainly depends on having players of the right quality, but Athletic’s defence sat high and the distribution from the keeper was to midfield, not along the back four. If the ball was then lost the defence were there behind it.
The midfield ran and ran and ran making space, supporting the sole attacker. At times they had 5 forward, but those same midfielders were willing to drop back quickly when necessary.
They tore United apart down the wings with quick fire incisive passes, not slow sideways/backwards. If it went backwards it was for a reason – usually to create a better angle to strike forwards.
So, yes, they obviously have better players than we do (although one could ask why a medium La Liga team should compared to a Premier League team), but it’s not just technical ability, it’s the power of thinking and the will to put in a shift that struck me as the difference.
twas a very good performance shades of latics indeed
The midfield ran and ran and ran making space, supporting the sole attacker. At times they had 5 forward, but those same midfielders were willing to drop back quickly when necessary.That’s the major difference right there. I don’t think our midfielders get forward as much as they should, and on the odd occasion that they do they aren’t as willing to get back.
The main reason for this club playing like they do is technical ability and the structure given by a good manager and a long tradition of playing this way.
All the clubs players have to have links to the Basque country and therefore the grass roots level of training those players has probably been based on developing technical ability as is the footballing culture in that region.
For a club like ours to get to a situation where we could implement anything like the structure in place at Bilbao is almost impossible because of the English training ethos at grass roots level which is still way behind on teaching technical ability to kids.
The pool of talent around the North West, under stern competition from many clubs and the lack of players coming through without any discernable technical ability to rival Spanish youngsters, means we could never have a similar system in place until a vast shift in grass roots policy. It would also take a willingness for a total change in our nations footballing mentality.
We are basing our future on a structure that needs that basic technical ability/awareness but has a lack of talent required to make it work IMO. Add to that the fact we could never afford the type of players to make it work, is it all an unrealistic pipe dream that looks good on paper but in reality never had a chance, with the type of mountain that Wigan Athletic would have to climb in order to achieve it?
That doesn’t really apply in this case though Lowton
I’ve read a bit about Bilbao over the last few days & what their manager (Bielsa – appointed in July) has done is change the whole footballing culture at a club traditionally renowned for a physical direct approach – so all those players either already in the 1st team squad or emerging through the ranks have actually been asked to completely change the way they’re being asked to play. By all accounts it took the team 4 or 5 games to gel & yet we’re still being told that changing the footballing culture at a club takes years
Admittedly Bielsa had a far better starting base as Bilbao finished 6th last season but it does offer a different perspective on all this changing the culture of a club stuff we hear at LaticsOn top of that, from reading a BBC article yesterday it also appears that the guy has been wise enough to see that there were positives to Bilbao’s old style & kept up their old intensity of play – so now as well as playing the zonal, high movement & short passing game he is renowned for they also play at a very high intensity, look to win the ball high up the field & get it forward quickly. When I read that my thoughts were “if only” when compared against Latics slow, sitting deep, low intensity style of play
Leaving aside the quality of some of their players watching that style of play was like a breath of fresh air.
Barcelona scraped a last minute 2-2 draw at their place a few months back & by all accounts they played the same then. Barca’s manager said he’d never come across a side playing with so much intensity – & in a way it shows what can be done against (allegedly) the best club side in the world even with inferior players10 of the 23 man Bilbao squad came through youth system complimented by Herrera 7.5 mill,Lopez 6 mill,Martinez 6 mill ,Iraizoz 4.6,Jose 2.5,ocio 3.5,.Great blend,30 mill isn’t exactly small change but with the youth development program obviously producing talent then they will have a good chance of competing for a period with the big two.Very envious .
Some good comments there Tyldesley.
I think the general grass roots level in Spain though, ushers through more technically gifted players and although Bilbao might have had a more physical approach in the past, i bet the quality of player was still more technically astute than what English football has coming through.
Granted, we could definitely be more intense in our game play but man for man we could only dream of having the same ability in depth as they do.
Even if we train our youngsters to play like this, they will get poached eventually.
It would be interesting though to show our players the video of last night’s game and show how the system is expected to work and what is expected of them.
10 of the 23 man Bilbao squad came through youth system complimented by Herrera 7.5 mill,Lopez 6 mill,Martinez 6 mill ,Iraizoz 4.6,Jose 2.5,ocio 3.5,.Great blend,30 mill isn’t exactly small change but with the youth development program obviously producing talent then they will have a good chance of competing for a period with the big two.Very envious .I think this is the crux of the problem here in England, we use far too many overseas players at all levels as a quick fix and overlook the long term.All managers are under so much pressure to achieve right now that clubs cannot and will not wait and accept transition periods that will allow young home grown talent to come through.Can you see Man Ure, Liverpool,Chelsea ,Arsenal etc adopting the Ajax philosophy? we have a great team that wins everything the big name players all leave then we start again not worrying that we will not win anything for a while.It will never happen.How else do we explain the Lee Clark Gary Megson situations? In Spain it seems their policy is Spanish is best most of the time where as over here its only the most expensive players will do no matter where they come from.
you cant polish a turd.
our players are not good enough to do what he (martinez) wants them to do.
they are not comfortable on the ball, we have defenders who are not very good at defending, and strikers who cant hit the target. myself and everyone else can see what he wants them to do, but they are not good enough to do it..and if we do manage to groom a couple of players to be any good, they will get taken by bigger clubs.
thats why we were more succesful under jewell and bruce..they bought players to do a job, and they did it.
if we want to be like bilbao, us as fans are gonna have to be VERY VERY patient..stick with martinez and let him have 7-8 years of learning the whole club how to play this way, from the kids to the first team, and be prepared for a few ups and downs, and let him get on with it, without pressure.
it wont happen though, its not the english way, he will be forced out by the fans, or he will walk.
thing is, which way do we want it?
are we prepared to wait, and let him doin his job and support him unconditionally?
or do we want a change, try to stay in the premier league?
I’m on the patient side of the argument even if it means we have to take a step backwards ie relegation
there I’ve said it
you cant polish a turd.our players are not good enough to do what he (martinez) wants them to do.
they are not comfortable on the ball, we have defenders who are not very good at defending, and strikers who cant hit the target. myself and everyone else can see what he wants them to do, but they are not good enough to do it..and if we do manage to groom a couple of players to be any good, they will get taken by bigger clubs.
thats why we were more succesful under jewell and bruce..they bought players to do a job, and they did it.
if we want to be like bilbao, us as fans are gonna have to be VERY VERY patient..stick with martinez and let him have 7-8 years of learning the whole club how to play this way, from the kids to the first team, and be prepared for a few ups and downs, and let him get on with it, without pressure.
it wont happen though, its not the english way, he will be forced out by the fans, or he will walk.
thing is, which way do we want it?
are we prepared to wait, and let him doin his job and support him unconditionally?
or do we want a change, try to stay in the premier league?
sorry to pick at a little part of what you said sanctuary but I don’t get why people seem to think bruce was a sucessfull for us? He had half a good season in his full season in charge and after that we were dire.
I believe if he hadn’t of gone to Sunderland Tesco would be relegated by now…
Despite us having poor outcomes in a lot of games there hasn’t been many matches where we haven’t dominated a period of the game chalk back to the first 20 min of Swansea that some were calling the worst performance ever!
All in all sometimes under Jewell Hutchings and Bruce the team was out of ideas and we pushed our luck to the limit!
If only we could keep the spells of domination up for 90 minutes….
you cant polish a turd.
our players are not good enough to do what he (martinez) wants them to do.
they are not comfortable on the ball, we have defenders who are not very good at defending, and strikers who cant hit the target. myself and everyone else can see what he wants them to do, but they are not good enough to do it..and if we do manage to groom a couple of players to be any good, they will get taken by bigger clubs.
thats why we were more succesful under jewell and bruce..they bought players to do a job, and they did it.
if we want to be like bilbao, us as fans are gonna have to be VERY VERY patient..stick with martinez and let him have 7-8 years of learning the whole club how to play this way, from the kids to the first team, and be prepared for a few ups and downs, and let him get on with it, without pressure.
it wont happen though, its not the english way, he will be forced out by the fans, or he will walk.
thing is, which way do we want it?
are we prepared to wait, and let him doin his job and support him unconditionally?
or do we want a change, try to stay in the premier league?
sorry to pick at a little part of what you said sanctuary but I don’t get why people seem to think bruce was a sucessfull for us? He had half a good season in his full season in charge and after that we were dire.
I believe if he hadn’t of gone to Sunderland Tesco would be relegated by now…
Despite us having poor outcomes in a lot of games there hasn’t been many matches where we haven’t dominated a period of the game chalk back to the first 20 min of Swansea that some were calling the worst performance ever!
All in all sometimes under Jewell Hutchings and Bruce the team was out of ideas and we pushed our luck to the limit!
If only we could keep the spells of domination up for 90 minutes….[/quote]
Salford when Bruce arrived we where doomed and he turned things round and kept us up, a pretty good start in my eyes. Then in his last season until Whelan sold his team from under him we would have walked into Europe. We won something like one game after the January transfer window and finished seven points off a European place. So I ask you how the fuck do you not call that success???
Then in his last season until Whelan sold his team from under him we would have walked into Europe.With the club’s financial restraints leading to cutbacks on the travel budget, I’d say walking into Europe would have been quite likely.
i liked us under steve bruce.
the problem was, bruce wanted to kick on and push for europe, he wanted money to go out and buy players, better players than what we had. he wanted to us to spend bigger and attract better players.
the reason i believe he left, is that dave whelan didnt share his ambition and was afraid to spend what bruce wanted to spend, in hindsight due to what has happened to some clubs since, you could argue that whelan was correct not to back bruce?…hence the reason bruce joined sunderland and why wouldnt he?..bigger club, bigger fan base, more money.
anyways, like i said, i liked us under bruce, i always came away from the game thinking we gave our all out on the pitch and tho the football was abit more direct, it wasnt long ball and we had some skilful players i.e palacios, valencia.
i’d rather have that team and that manager, than the current one.
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