Minority Report v Bournemouth

Three out of four of Bournemouth’s goals came from individual Barnsley errors. Nevertheless, Minority Report is not about allocating individual error. It is about systems, and it is about the team. Frankly, if you measure the players individually, Bournemouth were better than Barnsley in almost every position. When a coach sees that, he knows that the only way that we can compete is if our teamwork is better than our opponent’s team work. The system that we use has to accept that individually, we have our limitations and they are going to be better than us. We must therefore deny them the space to capitalise on their individual superiority. The first goal illustrates exactly what I mean.


The build-up for the goal starts in their defensive half. We are playing a forward press, and our midfield 4 are backing up that high press. Bournemouth beat the press, leaving 7 of our outfield players out of the game. They are through on the right side of our back 3, where Sollbauer finds himself marking two Bournemouth players. With the space that he is left with, Billings drills the ball home. It is what happens when a team beats the press. After that, Ismael changes the system and the press is dropped. Our high defensive line goes back 10 yards, and our keeper is under less pressure to police the space behind the high line. Ismael had got the initial system wrong, and Bournemouth were in control. The rest of the goals were through individual error. Woodrow should not get caught trying to bring the ball out from the back, even if there is no-one to pass to in front of him. Walton has to respect the possibility of a direct free-kick, even from that angle. Kane must not try to nudge a pass backwards when the defence is pushing up.


The team’s deficiencies were obvious this evening, partly because we handed Bournemouth the early initiative, and partly because their individuals were so much better than ours. Where it was most obvious was in our lack of pace up front. If you play 3-4-3, you absolutely must have forward line pace, and I know that no-one likes me to pick on Cauley Woodrow, but Woodrow is so obviously a fish out of water in that respect. He is fine in a front two, when he has a target man beside him, and he can pick up the pieces in the box. However, 3-4-3 does not work that way, because all the front players must be fit enough and mobile enough to press. We can finish mid-table with the team that we have. We will beat many of the poorer sides in this division. But if we want to compete with the top teams, we must have more pace if we want to play 3-4-3.


I am going to leave it there. I do not particularly want to hand out any kickings tonight. But defeats say more about a team than do the victories, and when we beat our next opponent, remember how badly outclassed we were tonight, and remember why.

 

Why do defeats say more than victories though?

 

I tend to agree with this analysis. Errors were errors though because there is still a lot of naivety with these players. It reminded me of when we first got into the Premier League and we got tonked by Chelsea etc early on. If the players and manager have anything about them they will learn from this and it wont happen again.

 

You learn more about yourself and the workings of the team and systems when things go wrong. You can analyse the mistakes to prevent them happening again. When things go right, well they've just gone right!

 

Too many individual errors tonight, when they hand (kick) the ball to the opposition strikers with the class of Bournemouth has, then there'll only be one winner. Because of these errors, whichever system we'd have played tonight it wouldn't have made any difference.

 

That Chelsea analogy is spot-on. I hadn't made that connection.

If Bournemouth click (and Red Rain, with a lot of justification, feels we allowed, if not encouraged, them to do so) then they'll give most Championship teams a good tonking.

We weren't in awe of Bournemouth like we were against the likes of Zola and di Matteo - in Daydream Believers, de Zeeuw said he couldn't believe he was in the same tunnel as Vialli before the game - but the same naivete was punished by players who are probably the Championship's version of that Chelsea team (and the analogy persists when you consider their overspending, which allows them to rise above historically superior, better-supported clubs.)

 

We obviously set out to press them but surely the manager isn’t telling Styles & Anderson to press so high up the pitch for the first Bournemouth goal?

I’ve watched it a few times & I just can’t get my head round it. I’ve watched a lot of teams press the opposition & make mistakes but I can’t think of many occasions I’ve seen a side leave such a massive opening when there was no need to.

Mads Anderson is sprinting chasing the Bournemouth attacker back into his own half as they attack down our left. Why is he doing that? Surely logic says to leave him to be picked up my a midfielder & provide cover for Styles? And then Helik comes racing out to the left & basically leaves Solbauer up against 2 Bournemouth players.

I don’t blame Helik, Anderson left him no choice but it was such a cheap goal to give away & as we’ve seen the first goal has been so important in the majority of our games this season.

 

I think it’s much easier to analyse errors than it is to elucidate positives.

I’m not sure why it is, and I’m not undermining your posts, but I think it’s worth reflecting on.

 

No idea where Andersen was for the first goal, what Helik was doing, or why Brittain decided to move away from the goalscorer and towards the player to his right. But it was a good, quick passing move which got them in that position.

The second goal - Brainfart from Woodrow, and then the ball went through Helik who couldn't recover

Third goal - Poor free kick given away, in another example of bad things happening when Helik, Andersen and the ball are in close proximity to each other, followed by Kane getting out of the way of a shot on goal for the second time in a week. Walton might have been better positioned, but had every right to expect the wall to do it's job.

Fourth goal - Pinpoint through ball from Kane

Up front, the issue wasn't pace, it was the forwards not attacking crosses, which has been the case all season. The worrying thing, if you look at the goals we've scored when not already ahead in games, they've either been screamers or defensive mistakes / penalties. We can't break a team down and finish any chances.

I'd like to see Halme play in the next game, because my blood pressure can't take seeing Helik and Andersen alongside each other for much longer. If fit, James has to come in for Kane or one of the front three (and push Kane or Mowatt forward). A bad week next week would see us right back in the thick of it at the bottom.

 

3rd goal was another example of naivety. Walton just never assumed the guy was going to shoot. He wasn't prepared. If he's a good keeper he'll learn.

 

Finishing mid-table this season would represent good progress, in my opinion. Having more pace and competing with teams like Bournemouth would surely require the expenditure of more money, would it not? And we have been told where that leads us!

 

With regard to pace, I think that we are talking about different things. You are talking about the reason why we did not finish the numerous crosses that we put in from both flanks. You are right that none of our front three showed that instinct for making the run at the right time in order to get into space at the right time as the ball is crossed. It is fair comment.

However, I am talking about how 3-4-3 is supposed to work. It does not have a target man, and neither does it have a player to hold the ball up for others to join in. Instead, it has players with pace to break quickly from defense and catch the opposition out unprepared by getting onto the long passes hit from deep midfield players. Those same players have endurance and are very fit, because they are required to take part in a high press, and by doing so, win the ball back in the opposition half. That is how the 3-4-3 system is designed to work. It is the same point that I have made about 3-4-3 since we began playing it. It is a perfectly adequate system provided you have the players to play it. Sadly, that type of player is very expensive and very rare, In such circumstances, is it better to plan to buy that sort of player, or is it better to play a different way. A way that is more suited to the players you have, and the ones you can afford.

 

You are right. Playing 3-4-3 with the players who are suited to it would cost a fortune. But there is a different solution. Play a system more suited to the players we have, and those we can afford and ditch 3-4-3.

 

All opinions, M'Lord, but in my view no system we could have played last night would have altered the outcome of that game. Credit to Bournemouth, and we march on!

 

Does any system ‘suit us’ or is it more down to the lack of quality up front & out wide?

Play a 4-4-2 & whilst I think Styles can do a job on the left it means playing Thomas or Frieser on the right & it means Chaplin or Adeboyejo up top with Woodrow.

Play a 4-3-3 & like you’ve said above we lack the pace & a target man.

Play Struber’s system & we haven’t got anyone who can press the ball like Brown could.

For me we’re probably overachieving in terms of league position & if the manager can keep doing that & then hopefully address the issues in our squad in the January window then hopefully we can improve. The good thing is he’s said this in interviews so he clearly knows there’s work to be done.

 

You may be right. However, Bournemouth have been beaten this season by teams with inferior players. When the opposition has better players, they can still be beaten if your team has a better plan. Over the years, I have seen Barnsley beat teams with better players on countless occasions. Sometimes, we were just lucky, but sometimes we had a better plan. The plan is that you do not concede the first goal, because that puts a huge hole in your bows. In my opinion, that is where we went wrong last night. We conceded first, and we conceded first because our initial plan was the wrong one. Bournemouth played through our high press. After that, we made errors, but the team was under pressure to do things they are not good at doing, because they were behind, and that is what the pressure of being behind does.

Look, I do not like 3-4-3. Our players were acquired to play in a different way, and in different systems. They are being forced into a system, against their nature, simply because that is the way the coach always plays. Apparently, he never compromises. He never plays a different way. It does not make sense to me, but in January, the club will be forced into a decision. Does it change the players in order to acquire players who can be more successful playing 3-4-3 (players with pace), or does the coach compromise and play a different way, using the majority of the players he has got. It seems a stark choice to me, unless someone can convince me to see it a different way.

 

The system had absolutely nothing to do with last nights defeat RR. We lost due to several individual errors and the fact the opposition have better players. 4-4-2, 5-3-2/3-5-2, 4-2-3-1, 4-5-1, anything else you care to suggest, wouldn’t have made a jot of difference if the same basic errors are made. In fact 3-4-3 gained us several chances we ought to have done better with, against a very clinical team. Whilst it was the worst defeat scoreline wise, the actual performance wasn’t awful, like say at Cardiff. Cut the mistakes and take a chance, we wouldn’t have been far from a point.

We are doing every bit as well in the league we can be expected to since Ismael took over, we’ve won more than every other game with that 3-4-3 setup. If we continue to win more games than we don’t under him, we would be punching well above our weight at the end of the season. Games against Bournemouth, and whoever else have spent hundreds of millions in recent seasons, won’t dictate our league position. They had well north of £20million just up front.

 

The problem for me is that we need a lot of players to play 3-4-3 in the way that the coach wants to play. To get players who can play that way effectively will be expensive, because pace is not cheap. To play the Struber system would be less expensive. We could get away with a mobile/pressing forward and a left back. We already have plenty of midfield players, and most of those are surplus to requirements in 3-4-3, because it requires only 2 central midfield player and 2 wing backs. Playing 3-4-3 seems wasteful of our resources in an area we already have strength in, and we are strong there because our previous coaches wanted strength in that area of the team.

We have owners who have specified that the team will press, mainly because they wanted to reduce the cost of changing coaches. It was to cut down on the turnover of players as the new coach replaced the players who do not suit the system he wants to play. Yet, we have arrived at exactly that situation, because there are loads of players at the club who do not suit 3-4-3. It is crazy.

 

I agree with the point you make about the difference in quality between their players and ours, but the fact is that Bournemouth have lost when playing against teams with lower individual quality, and they have lost because that opposition had a better plan. Much of the reason for the errors was pressure, and that pressure came from conceding first. That was the key to the game.

 

Spot on, from what I’ve seen so far this season, there’s no way way Sheffield Weds, Preston and Rotherham are better teams than us, but they didn’t succumb to Bournemouth. I thought we were poorly organised and basically tried relying on our workrate to get us through. As we saw, despite individual errors being capitalised upon by Bournemouth, we were second best all evening