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Pie or Paella, Part One blog post online now.
Basically my view on how football should be played, and why purists like Guardiola and Martinez should be embraced and not scrutinized.
Not deliberately trying to pick bones out of it but there are a few things i do not get.
Well firstly i don’t get the point in trying to compare Martinez and Guardiola.
You say Guardiola was not a great player. I beg to differ. The reason he was the mainstay in that team for so many years was because he was exceptional at what he did at the highest level. Because he was not a media love child and just got on with his job he was not as recognized as some players are today. He reminds me of Paul Scholes, We all now how good he is and has been but people would rather talk about Scott Parker or Charlie Adam although they are not in Scholes’ league, Never have or will be.
I also don’t get the point you make when you end the paragraph with ‘You get the picture’ You made this statement
Lets compare: Bramble to Pique, Watson to Iniesta, Mido to Ibrahimovic, Boyce to Alves, Brown to Xavi.
I don’t get that bit either. How and why would you compare those players.Our short passing game led many ‘know it all’ pundits to predict we’re not good enough to play that way and will suffer.
I don’t see how they have been proved wrong. Not being able to win 2 games on the bounce at any level is un-acceptable.
English footballers have a tendency to get rid of the ball as if it’s a red hot potato whenever an opposition player is within ten yards, losing possession far too easily. This means even football league games can be reminiscent of under 7’s matches, where no team can keep hold of the ball for more than ten secondsI see the point in this, However we will never play at the pace of other European leagues and fast football is all we will get to see. There aren’t many teams capable of keeping hold of the ball and being granted thinking time from their opposition.
I think it’s time English football ignored this ‘we have the greatest league’ in the world nonsense and realise technically, we’re light years away from Spain.Agreed again but there goes the media once more. But to be honest Spanish football bores me unless Barca are on. They are one of a kind, One of the great teams of recent years and would make any league look good.
Roberto has proved that pretty, short passing can keep a team a float
I see that he kept us up by the skin of our teeth last year and this year with 3 games to go we are in the relegation zone. Does not matter how you dress it up, That is going backwards.
Not deliberately trying to pick bones out of it but there are a few things i do not get.
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:“neither martinez or guardiola were brilliant players ”
well you got one part of it right anyway – i dont seem to remember any players that were not brilliant in “cruyff’s 80’s DREAM TEAM”
duke it is still very very early in your aspiring journalistic career, so please dont fall into the ‘lazy hack throw away remarks that are poorly researched mode‘ just yet, which as latics fans we suffer from more than most.
[link2:1lihjlu5]not bad from what i can see,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josep_Guardiola%5B/link2:1lihjlu5%5D
Duke – You use players like Bramble (not signed by Bruce), Watson, Mido (who incidentally was not here when Martinez arrived) & someone else as the type of donkey players that Martinez inherited from Bruce
Those players might not be everyone’s cup of tea but under Bruce Bramble looked a superb defender & was part of a back 4 that had one of the best records in the division. Within months Bobby had turned him into a rabbit trapped in the headlights. IMO Bramble was also a better defender than any of the centre halves that Bobby has brought in
With regards to Watson – would this be the same Ben Watson that Bruce barely played after signing but who Bobby now picks every week (over players that he himself has brought in) & who to be fair to both Watson & Bobby is now playing pretty well more often than not?
With regards to Mido a) Bobby didn’t inherit him & b) he was no worse than 3 strikers that Bobby has paid a combined total of around £12mill for
And on Brown – did a great job for Latics & certainly a better one than anyone who has occupied that position since (IMO)
I do get your general point that guardiola has better players at his disposal & so that is why he’s had more success in trying to play the same style of football but to simply give their names as players who Bobby inherited who aren’t good enough doesn’t tell the whole pictureAnd linked to that, earlier in the article you mention that Guardiola has Messi to fire in the goals yet Bobby has had to work with Gomez, Scotland & Di Santo
Yep that is undoutedly true & would be a handicap on anyone but who was it who signed Gomez saying that “he will be the creative hub of the team, I have no doubts that he is good enough for the premier league”? Who was it who signed Jason Scotland & in response to questions as to whether a 31yr old Scottish league journeyman who had had 2 good seasons in the English lower leagues would be good enough for the premier league said somet along the lines of “I’ve worked with him for the last 2 seasons & have absolutely no doubt that he is good enough”. And finally who was it who (in a time when the club has less cash to splash than it used to) spent a rumoured £4.5mill on a striker with a record of 1 goal in 30 odd top flight appearances??
You got it in one – It was Bobby. So if he is handicapped by having to work with those players then its his own faultThat said, trying to compare Martinez to Guardiola has given me one of the best laughs I’ve had in ages!!! And fair play for trying
Wow guys, lots to take in at once and thanks for your responses I will say this much.
By signifying that Wigan’s players weren’t anywhere near as good as Barca’s, apart from stating the obvious, I was stating that despite the problems Martinez faces/faced trying to get them to play an expansive game, I applaud him for not ignoring his principles and going long ball.
The reason I use Barca as a comparison is due to the fact it’s easy for them to play attractively because they have the world class players to do it. Lots of managers in Martinez’s position wouldn’t even try. I’m embracing his outlook on the team.
Tyldesley, on Bramble: I wouldn’t say him being ‘transformed into a bad defender’ was Bobby’s doing. Yes he dipped in form, but so do many players and I think the whole team has struggled defensively since Bobby’s arrival due to the fact we don’t have a defence coach (Denis Lawrence may be trying to change that).
I disagree on Brown, he was poor in my view. Also, the point is Martinez can only bring in the likes of Gomez, Di Santo, Scotland etc because Wigan aren’t Barcelona in terms of stature or money. It’s so much easier for Guardiola to do it because he has the resources/players to do it, which brings me back to my first point of this post.
At no point did I suggest Martinez is as good a manager as Guardiola, that would be just plain cheeky. Yet using Pep as the perfect model is what I’m applauding Bobby for, as he has a much harder job on his hands you would argue he needs to be better than Guardiola to be successful.
Maybe Guardiola was a better player than I give him credit for, but I don’t think him at his best would make it into Barca’s current XI.
Yosser – Thanks for the feedback because it is appreciated and I want to spark discussion.
I think I’ve explained some of your points earlier in this post about comparing our players to barca’s etc.
Yet I’d like to point out that staying up last season, for me, has proved people wrong by stating that long ball isn’t the only way to survive. We may have only just done it, but we still did it. And could do it again this season. We may still not be great at this ‘short passing’ malarkey, but it’s doing just as well as most teams we had with a more direct approach.
Good point about high tempo being hard to work with a short passing game. But I’m saying if it’s possible, it would create the best blend of football ever seen in my opinion. Barca have done it, and if everyone aspired to play like them, eventually I think we wouldn’t be too far from achieving it.
Duke, I wouldn’t say it was the pace of Barca’s play that sets them apart from others, it’s the ability to play that patient build-up but then end it with a ‘killer’ ball, or a fantastic bit of individual skill when an opportunity arises. Many teams (ourselves included) struggle with that last bit.
I know, And i know Martinez parps on about the long term goals and what we are trying to achieve e.t.c e.t.c, But whatever he has done over two seasons (not much) will be undone again if they go down. So then we are in a position of where there will be new goals and 2 seasons wasted because the payers will go and we will have to sign new ones. But which ones, Probably League 1 players as the better players will probably want to join Leeds, Forest, West Ham?, Even Southampton and they are coming up from League 2. Me and Vat said it in January, We should have signed the better Championship style players if we were never going to make a fist of it, Players like Crofts, Smithies, Hoolahan, Cohen would have made us around about the relegation fodder for Premiership football but keeping hold of key players until the end of the season like N’Zogbia, McCarthy and Al Habsi just could have made all the difference without the over paying of players like Thomas and Di Santo to name a couple. The wage bill would have been down and more British players would have been in the squad. If we stay up i really do we adopt this policy. Obviously N’Zogbia will move on but there is Moses who needs a run of games anyway, Maybe sign Al Habsi on permanently and i think things could get moving. I will list a team of players i think could be a force, Or at least gutsy enough to play for each other and the determination to succeed. I will use Martinez’ system and avoid using players from Norwich and QPR
………………………………Al Habsi………………………..
Boyce…………..A.Williams……..W.Morgan………..D.Fox
…………………….Diame………….McCarthy………………
………..Moses…………..Watson………..McManaman……
…………………………….Maynard……………………………
Duke, I wouldn’t say it was the pace of Barca’s play that sets them apart from others, it’s the ability to play that patient build-up but then end it with a ‘killer’ ball, or a fantastic bit of individual skill when an opportunity arises. Many teams (ourselves included) struggle with that last bit.I totally agree, but the Prem is renowned for its speed so if it were possible to combine the skill with the speed, we would have an incredible style of football.
Yosser, that team screams ‘Championship’ at me more than a picture of Neil Warnock.
That is what i was getting at. Benson has gone now (rip) so i think the foreign policy we have lived off has gone with him. We need a british base. made a slight change to it but the principle is still the same. That team could get promoted from the championship and at the same time put up a fight for the premiership. He wants that medium so why waste money doing it. You could use scraps from the premiership and throw in Woodgate, Hutton and Carew e.t.c but the wages will not be paid for those players so i do not see any other direction to go in. To be honest im not sure what direction we are headed.
Yosser We have signed the supposedly better Championship players in the past, some of them being:
Jason Koumas (Championship player of the year) Marlon King (Championship top scorer)
Jason Scotland (29 goals in League 1 followed by 16 in the Championship)
Jordi Gomez (scored 12 goals & was voted into the Championship team of the year)Yes you can find some decent players, but all that glitters is not gold, and some you think would be certainties to make it quite often do not.
Agreed Standish that is very true.
What i have added there is 2 very solid championship centre backs, An extremely gifted left back, Pace on the wings and a hell of a lot of pace up top in Maynard, It was him or Sinclair. If you have pace up front in this league you will score goals.
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