The level of coaching at City

[Bluefinn]

The OP has made some points that are true imo, especially the midfield part. We play a very direct style of play and rarely flood the midfield to any great effect and build up our play. Usually our wingers just bring the ball forward or it's longballed to them. If you watch good build up teams like Barca, Arsenal etc. they have many options in midfield and the ball moves well there. They bring people forward but dont look weak on defense either. Like said, they can do this even with lesser players.

 

[pee dubya]

A reasonable post i think, but a bit early to damn the coaching methods used i think. Firstly we really have no idea exactly what Hughes et al are working on right now, style of play could be on the back burner currently, we have no problems scoring goals at all, the problem is at the other end.

Obviously there doesn't seem to have been a huge improvement defensively as of yet, but even now we don't have a settled back 4, how long does it take 4 new players to form a cohesive unit, with the level of understanding and communication required?

I don't know, but personally i'd give more than a third of a season.

What about adding the whole of last season when he was in charge?

So he should have held secret coaching sessions with the players he was planning to sign in the Summer?

 

[heatonmoorblue]

A reasonable post i think, but a bit early to damn the coaching methods used i think. Firstly we really have no idea exactly what Hughes et al are working on right now, style of play could be on the back burner currently, we have no problems scoring goals at all, the problem is at the other end.

Obviously there doesn't seem to have been a huge improvement defensively as of yet, but even now we don't have a settled back 4, how long does it take 4 new players to form a cohesive unit, with the level of understanding and communication required?

I don't know, but personally i'd give more than a third of a season.

Villa have bought 3 new defenders and they seem to be able to work as a cohesive unit. I'm not just taking about yesterday, they seemed fairly solid against liverpool and chelsea as well.

 

[BlueLlama]

What about adding the whole of last season when he was in charge?

So he should have held secret coaching sessions with the players he was planning to sign in the Summer?

What about the players he signed in summer 2008 and Jan 2009. Dont they count or is there some league rule that says a player has to be at the club for 12 months before they can be influenced by the coaching staff! In fact thats probably correct judging by the way we are playing.

 

[mancunial]

i haven,t seen bolton play better all season on tv, everybody is raising there game against us, it,s about city,s money you watch boltons next game it will be noway as effective as they were against city. still think the players have got to be up for it from the first whistle, city matched chelsea last week in every department? plus you can,t account for bad officiating, lets face it yesterday reds lost chelsea drew tottenham lost but none of them clubs are being scrutinised as much as city, this team as only had an handful of games together, give it time, i still think we are on the right track yesterdays game was played very much like a cup tie because certain issues during the game, if we hadn,t gone gungho and kept tight at the back and lost three two we would be even more pissed off, during the game i saw tevez at right back ireland at centre back but it doesn,t matter we got back into it three times, i remember chelsea doing the same in the early seventies at blackpool, they were losing three nil at half time, they then came out for the second half osgood went to centre half the two wingers went to full backs every player played in a different position it ended three each? every paper was saying what a fantastic come back and tactical switch by the manager? myself personally i,m really enjoying this season they are great to watch the only downside is the poor poor officiating? the tactics will improve even if it means a changes at certain positions on the pitch?

 

[miasma]

maybe the coaches need to get the players to mark up from set pieces and defending crosses.

bolton's 2nd comes from somebody on the edge of the penalty area receiving a throw in. nobody near him. its very rare that you ever see that in a premiership game, somebody given that amount of time. i think it should have been barry's man so ireland runs across to compensate.

and for their 3rd, why was toure running out of the penalty area like we was swp? shouldn't it been barry to close down the player on the edge of the box? after all he was marking nobody at the time, or to put it another way, was stood near the penalty spot with 2 other city players marking one man. toure runs back (2 players free behind him) and doesn't win the header, which was a flick on to the scorer. surely it would be better to have stayed in position and barry goes to the edge of the box? they were hardly playing for offside because everyone else stayed near the 6 yard box. they had 7 players in that attack to our 9 (including given).

 

[pee dubya]

So he should have held secret coaching sessions with the players he was planning to sign in the Summer?

What about the players he signed in summer 2008 and Jan 2009. Dont they count or is there some league rule that says a player has to be at the club for 12 months before they can be influenced by the coaching staff! In fact thats probably correct judging by the way we are playing.

I'm talking about defending as unit. First pick:

------------Given------------
Richards-Toure-Lescott-Bridge.

Ricahrds and Toure - new
Toure and Lescott - new
Lescott and Bridge - new
Given and Toure and Lescott - new

The full backs and Keeper have been here longest (although Bridge and Given still haven't been here a year, Micah is only just getting some form back).

That's just the first choice backline, how often have we actually had that out?

 

[JohnMaddocksAxe]

At least as often as Villa have had their very new and injury ravaged defense out.

Their defence includes Dunne (a new player and deemed not good enough for us), Collins (a new player who has recently been injured), Warnock (a player who has been there less than a year) and Cueller (another fairly recent signing).

Plus players like Davis, Beye and Young who have all been out for siginificant periods through injury.

But their manager brings these new players in and has them looking like a unit and never once resorts to saying they are shit at defending because they need to 'gel'.

Plus, all those players are supposed to be of a lesser ability to City's defenders so should, in theory find it much more difficult to turn into a solid defence.

Oh, and we took their captain, best player and defnsive midfielder away from them too, which can't have been much help to their defence

 

[pee dubya]

At least as often as Villa have had their very new and injury ravaged defense out.

Their defence includes Dunne (a new player and deemed not good enough for us), Collins (a new player who has recently been injured), Warnock (a player who has been there less than a year) and Cueller (another fairly recent signing).

Plus players like Davis, Beye and Young who have all been out for siginificant periods through injury.

But their manager brings these new players in and has them looking like a unit and never once resorts to saying they are shit at defending because they need to 'gel'.

Plus, all those players are supposed to be of a lesser ability to City's defenders so should, in theory find it much more difficult to turn into a solid defence.

Oh, and we took their captain, best player and defnsive midfielder away from them too, which can't have been much help to their defence

Yeah i think Martin O'neill deserves great credit for that, forming defensive units like that is his great forte, he followed the exact same forumla at Celtic and played a pretty similar way (pace on the wings, solid midfield, big guy up front), with similar success.

Not sure how good he is at building long-term, he left a mess at Celtic and didn't sustain his success at Leicester, although he has a fairly young team at Villa so perhaps his time at Villa will follow a different pattern if he doesn't get poached by a bigger team.

 

[mad zab]

This is something i've been banging on about for a good few months now. To me, it seems poor. In fact, very poor.

I'll start at the back. First of all, we look a shambles defensively. We can't deal with crosses or set pieces. We don't deal well with balls over the top, we struggle to win the second ball. We have full backs who bomb without regard to what they're leaving behind them. There is little communication, and under a little pressure, our expensively assembled backline looks a bit like a joke (Given aside).

Moving on to midfield. We have nobody who dominates the midfield. Nobody who is comfortable enough on the ball or has the character to be able to stamp their authority on the game. There's little off the ball movement, and for some unknown reason, even when we play 2 defensive minded midfielders, we still look incredibly shaky at the back.

When you move on to the forwards, it's clear as day as to what is happening. Once we move the ball forwards, we are relying on moments of brilliance to pick us up points. This has lead to us, at times, looking devoid of all ideas.

Now this, to me, is where coaching comes in. Watch Arsenal and watch how they can pretty much field a vastly inexperienced side but more often than not, still play close to the ability of the first team. They have a coaching foundation that is buried deep within the club. Once players reach a certain age, they seem ready to step up and immediately look comfortable. The off the ball movement and style of play is breathtakingly good at times. They have their own way of playing and it is very evident. Just keep the ball moving and have at least 2 options for the ball carrier to pass to.

Then watch Barcelona and watch how they play. It helps that they have Messi, Iniesta, Xavi et al, but think back to the friendly we played at the start of the season. They had Gai, Jeffren, Fontas, Pedro, Jonathan Dos Santos - all players alien to probably even the biggest FM fans out there. Yet, despite the scoreline, were able to dominate the game. They were every bit as good as the first team that night, and at times made our strong team look pretty clueless.

Now, keep an eye on how many of those players actually make it at Barca. Probably only Pedro. The rest will probably fall short, but because of the way they have been taught to play football, they are able to collectively dominate a team packed with expensive, experienced internationals.

Now i'm not saying we should instantly have the coaching infastructure of Arsenal or Barcelona. But i am saying, we are the richest club in the world, we have £250m worth of talent at our disposal, so we should have our own identity on the pitch, and it should be successful. We certainly shouldn't be launching pitch length passes to the head of a striker. We certainly shouldn't be relying on moments of individual brilliance to win us games. In an ideal world, individual brilliance should be the safety net when a certain footballing philosophy isn't working. We seem to have the individuals capable of brilliant things but i'm still not sure as to what our footballing philiosophy is.

This is where Hughes backroom staff come in. Apart from the goalkeeping coach, they've been drafted in from Blackburn/Wales. They've been part of set-ups that have had limited success albeit with players of a supposed lesser ability. They appear to have done well with instilling a work ethic, but to me that's probably as far as we can go without bringing in more help. I'm not for one minute suggesting we get rid of his backroom staff, but we are quite clearly missing something. Some form of tehnical and tactical coaching to compliment the work ethic and desire, or somebody who can organise us at the back. Somebody who can teach us to be comfortable on the ball and not hurry the ball forwards. Somebody who can give us our own footballing identity.

As a fan i can only use what we are witnessing on the pitch to figure out what's going on off the pitch, and to me there is quite clearly something missing. We aren't performing much better than Hughes' Blackburn side. The only difference is, we have the individual quality to fall back on. Hopefully in the near future our level of coaching will be up there with the very best. Until that happens, what we're seeing now, is probably about as good as it's going to get.

Of course our second goal was down to individual brilliance, rather than the 7 or 8 passes which created it!!

I doubt whether you could set up one simple training routine that lasted 10 minutes.