Response to Dear Mr Levy

( Original post by Spooky on DML here: http://bit.ly/ooxKTl )

Nice little trilogy. They're all accurate.

Ramos was supposedly a tactician, but (maybe because his English was piss-poor, or maybe because his heart wasn't in it) when his tactics were repeatedly shown to be ineffectual (at best), Levy dropped him and went for Harry.

Harry's supposedly a man-manager. He works on getting the best out of individuals through motivation, encouragement and fatherly guidance. When (as in our late surge in 2009/10 and the CL matches last season) he manages to squeeze magic out of his players, he's satisfied and vindicated in his belief that "...it's 10% about the formation and 90% about the players.", and anyone who dares point out the naivety of playing five attack minded players/no in-form goalscorers/no deep holding midfielder/just hoping that if we keep the ball in their half and don't succumb to the painfully simple counter-attacks, gets shouted down as an idiot who doesn't understand the game. Look, we won - the tactics are irrelevant. The boys done good.

Of course, it doesn't always work like that (if it did, we'd have won all competitions last season, right?). The glory of Harry's anti-tactics stance is that it abdicates any responsibility on his part - if they play well and win, he talks of 2pts from 8, bottom of the table, blah blah, got them playing confidently. If they play badly and lose, he focuses on form, injuries and other individual problems. It's a perfect way to avoid any blame for anything, and worst of all, I think he's learnt to believe it too.

Now, we all know United and City have squads better than ours, and we'd be daft to think any fluke of tactics or individual genius could've turned those scorelines the other way around without some injection of fresh blood - but that's not to say we couldn't have walked away with a little more pride. We did ok against United, but a glance at the highlights (and/or zonal marking's write up) shows we were far more open than we really needed to be, and going forward we lacked the movement to cause problems. If the players don't have the vision, it's surely up to Harry to either tell them what to do, or (in his preferred Managerial role) replace them for players who know better.

Against City, we were woefully badly set-up: after fifteen minutes it was clear that, while we could possibly take the lead, we'd struggle to stop them scoring at some point. What did Harry do? At two-nil down he introduced Huddlestone for Kranjcar, then Defoe for a broken Lennon, then at four-nil Livermore for Modric. No effort to change the shape - Defoe on for Lennon was necessitated by our lack of a right-wing alternative on the bench, and the idea seemed to be pushing VdV wide and doing a Hoddle/England'98 -esque frontman rotation between Defoe and Crouch. If we'd been closely competing all game, it might've been a brilliant response to an injury calamity, but at four-one it was bizarre. Arguably by that point the game was long-lost, so what difference did it make, but shouldn't he have attempted to change things sooner?

Like I said, once Ramos' tactics were found out, he went. I don't care whether Harry goes or stays, but if he stays I'd like to see him make some effort to address the gaping holes in his tactical abilities. Try some variety (4411/451/442 is not variety when they all involve playing in the exact same style), be more proactive to change things when you've made mistakes (he's made first-half subs in the past - why not yesterday?), just DO SOMETHING. At any rate, I think it's pretty obvious now (and I've been saying this since last November, so it's not a kneejerk) that man-management does not negate the need for *some* tactical common-sense, and when form and morale are at a low ebb (as they currently are), only three events can possibly turn things around:
1) Manager gets team playing more grittily, to earn points and restore confidence
2) New signing rejuvenates team spirit and fixes squad imbalance
3) New manager rides in to the rescue.

Number 2 seems unlikely as we clearly can't compete for the big boys' signatures. Number 3 was Harry's own trick, and I've no doubt Levy would be pursuing this route if he had any idea who could possibly take the reins. That leaves number 1, so come on, let's be realistic, and look forward to us playing tight, pragmatic football and doing our best to get a solid three points against Wolves and at least a hard-won draw against Liverpool. If we go up against Wolves thinking we're Barcelona, it will get a lot worse before it gets any better.

COYS.