Lord Snooty Posted May 18, 2017 Share Posted May 18, 2017 It’s all over but the crying I didn’t post the other night. I try not to when the raw emotions are still sparking on the surface. Not to mention the booze, which I had used to try and forget the terrible feelings in my body, the pangs of pain which overtake. So now in the cold light of day I’ve thought back over the season, and in part last season, for contrast and to see what changes, subtle or otherwise, have been made and what impact they might have made. To look at the players and manager and their performance through the season as a whole. A Better season - But was it? This season- as superbly demonstrated by Ryan’s excellent graphs - (my favourite thread of the season! )was, overall a better season than last with a higher points total and a higher placing. Despite this many of us at various times came away from games with a sense of anguish and apprehension –even when we got results. In the end of course results are all. There was a clear change of playing policy. Effective, even though at times grim , but most fans will back a team when it is getting results. Clearly we had made a definite decision to slightly alter the playing style or tactics. Wednesday were going, it became clear, be able to grind out results when the need arose. Fans will largely accept that. Where the difference in backing comes is when the two differing approaches start losing games. When we lost a few last season, people were quite rational. “We can’t win them all”. This season when defeats came the outpourings were a lot harsher and style is -to my mind- the factor that made people quicker to turn and in greater frustrated numbers. Personally, though I do like free flowing football I find nothing wrong with the pragmatic approach to the game and the season which Carlos and his team have taken this season. After all it worked well for Burnley last season and more than once it was noted on the similarity . The signing of Jones in the summer was perhaps the signal of intent. Did it work? ……ultimately not to expectation We may have finished higher than last season but ended up falling short of making a proper challenge for the top spots and failing to make the play off final. Earlier in the season many, myself included –though not in as vociferous an explosion as some called for the players to be let off the leash and to go and express themselves as they did at times last season. Not go mad, not go all-out attack, even tactical dinosaurs like me understand that with the modern trend for playing counter attack we didn’t want to go out and leave ourselves totally exposed to the sucker punch and getting picked off. But we seem to have swung from one extreme to the other. Last season more of a high paced pressing and attacking side, this season a soaking and grinding side. I’m sure that most fans would accept that as the great Bill Paisley once said, the best teams are neither one nor the other, but the ones that are a cohesive blend of both, which is surely the ticket for the characters we have in this squad. The question now turns to how many of the squad will stay on though and indeed who will manage them. Carlos out – Rumour/truth either way terrible timing The timing this last week in the build up to the game about Carlos’ future couldn’t have been worse timed , creating a misdirection of interest and filling newspaper columns, comments sections and message boards with the sorts of rumours which ALWAYS find their way to the club and the dressing room. Does that really make a difference? Of course it does. Yes, they are professionals, but they are also human beings. Uncertainty over a manager’s position casts doubt on the future of all the players too. Does this affect performance? One would hope that once on the pitch that players to a certain extent can forget off the pitch issues. But some won’t. Some will worry about their own future and feel lethargic with concern. “If the new man doesn’t want me , we’ll be on the move again. Looking for a new home. A new school for the kids”. We can all come on here and say that the nomadic life of a footballer would suit us because of the riches earnt. But money doesn’t stop the way a mans mind works. Worrier will always worry. Some of the players I dare say might have gone the extra mile, wanting so desperately to get a result for a manager who has shown faith in them. Indeed Iooked at Bannan last night, a player who has had an up and down season but always been back by his manager and I saw him playing like a man possessed. Of course he wanted to win. To get to Wembley. To have a crack at the Premier league again. That is a professional desire. But personal desire must come into play too. Carlos Carvalhal Looking back at the season we have to look at the manager. How has Carlos done? As I said in the opening overall he’ll be able to put a 4th place finish on his CV. An improvement on last years 6th place finish. On paper, that is foundations being built on. A solid first season and then building bit by bit. It could be argued and I’m sure will that the next stage of this sequence would surely be to challenge for the top two. Whether he will be here to do so remains to be seen. But if he does, it’s my personal opinion that Carlos needs to go back to his true self. With his true football beliefs. We all remember I’m sure early into his reign when one of the local radio journalists asked him about clean sheets he laugh and said “In Portugal, we don’t have words for this!” A funny moment, a quip, but at the time it raised smiles not just because of the cultural difference and his mock shock, but because under the radar it sent the subliminal message to fans. Carlos’ teams will attack. There were teething problems last season, but they did try and attack, even if it didn’t always come off. Carlos is a 4-3-3 man… When the unheard of Carlos first came to Wednesday this phrase was uttered more times than I can remember, printed more times than I can remember. I kept being told this and decided , like many of us no doubt did to research the new manager a little. And indeed he was the 4-3-3 man and from an interview I read a huge believer in the 4-1-2-3 version of the system which Mourinho employed in his first spell at Chelsea. Carlos’ Wednesday of last season played a lop sided 4-3-3 into 4-4-2 and early on he even played a 4-2-3-1 with Hutchinson and Lopez as a fulcrum for McGuguan a few times. His nod perhaps to English football. Sometimes a case of playing on small pitches where the space was so compacted 4-4-2 seemed the reasonable way to open it up and the experiment seemed to be over. But we did see glimpses of the tactics which we had heard about before his arrival. .. Often Fernando would be cast out wide in games or when subs were made and the debate raged in the pubs and on the forums,…in fact some fans couldn’t even agree one what system we were playing at all! But it was against Arsenal (who despite their excuses still had a side with over 400 International caps on show) Carlos played with that system for which he had been known in his career pre Wednesday. -A 4-1-4-1 moving into a 4-1-2-3 when in possession. And it worked an absolute treat!! If this was what Carlos was all about, then I wanted to see more of it! Hutchinson , Lee and Bannan revelled that night. Hutchinson prowling infront of the back four snapping into challenges and Lee and Bannan were freed from the shackles to move freely around midfield, Lee moving the ball quickly and sharply and Bannan driving on and supporting and getting his range of passing going. Wallace too was superb in the more advanced position dipping in and out causing no end of problems and a fantastic night at Hillsborough. I looked at that line up and thought “Here is a man with a plan!” . Looking at that team I was excited. For it wasn’t too much to think that with Fernando in for Helan and giving a roaming role to find the space he likes to exploit weaving in an out , and that if we could get in the all round battering ram forward but mobile forward to carry out the lone striker role in place of Joao then we would start smashing teams (below) I so thoroughly enjoyed that performance and the way things were shaping. We just needed that forward to play that role. The final piece of the jigsaw striker? A month after this game we signed Gary Hooper on loan with a move to a permanent deal. I’d wanted Wickham or Wood, who I thought would be perfect Young, strong mobile and with a goals record…. But I was happy that we got Hooper. A player with a good goalscoring record and who had made a name for himself. Excitedly I phoned my friend Big Al, an East Anglian farmer (no jokes please) and season ticket holder at Carrow Road for 15 years. “Alan,” I said to him with fervent excitement “this boy Hooper. I think he’s the final piece in this chap Carlos’ jigsaw.” I went on to explain his history and how we had put Arsenal to the sword with this system. “I know, “ said he “I watched it. But you’re wrong if you think that Hooper is the answer” Suspecting that he might just be upset that the chap Hooper was leaving I said joshingly “Now, now, don’t be a bad sport, he’s coming to a bigger club!” “No, genuinely, Hoopers a fine player. But he can’t play the lone role. He hasn’t the lungs. Besides , he likes to drop off into deeper pockets of space rather than lead the line. You’d have been better with Jerome for that role, despite his woeful goals record”. I took it with a pinch of salt, suspecting that he had the hump . But it proved only too true. Hooper wasn’t the lone striker. And more to the point - to play him at all meant that we couldn’t play the very system which I was convinced Carlos had designed to get the best out of our best three players - Hutchinson, Bannan and Lee! Hooper needed a partner, my old friend Alan was right, and against Charlton we started with Hooper and Fernando up front. They dropped into the same areas. We had no focal point and worst of all, to accommodate our three best midfielders and ensure Hooper had a partner Bannan was shifted to the left wing and Wallace given a more defensive duty having to tuck in and help Hutchinson and Lee in midfield where we were outnumbered. After a run of poor games in which Fernando and Joao were tried with the new-man, in the end - amazingly - it was the divisive Nuhiu who ended up being the player that brought the best from Hooper, whilst never being any form of goal threat himself. A team is more than the sum of the parts. The big lump kept defenders busy in leading the line and being little more than a nuisance. But it worked, Hooper enjoying his best spell since his arrival. From showing seeds at the beginning of the year we were now having to play a foil for the £3m pound striker that most fans accepted and expected wouldn’t be needed in this bright new dawn. Come the play-offs against Brighton and Hull though and Carlos changed the side trying to engineer all the big names into the team, at, I think to the cost of the whole. Hooper made little impact and was almost anonymous in the final against Hull . Lumpish centre halves Dawson and Davies had too easy a time against the diminutive Wednesday strike pair , meanwhile in midfield Hutchinson and Lee, though desperately trying were simply picked off by the triumvirate of Huddlestone, Livermore and the rangy Diame. Nuhui is no world beater, at times I’m not sure what he is, and I have no doubt wouldn’t have scored a goal in that game. But he might have given the two brutes at the back something to think about and created space for Hooper. Fernando would have had more space to exploit in the wide areas and Lee and Hutchinson, being run ragged by Hulls midfield trio could have benefitted from the extra body of Bannan who was wasted out wide in a role that ended up being little more than auxiliary full back. I remain convinced that what cost is that day was two things. 1. Shoehorning names. 2. Carlos not being Carlos enough and not using his favoured 4-3-3 system. This season Many people thought major surgery was required. I wasn’t sure. I believed that with the spirit in the camp, and the quality already in the camp that a simple back to basics round pegs in round holes would see us challenge again. I thought we could do with a new centre half and some competition at full back, and Carlos alluded to as much but he and DC had apparently balked at the prices quoted for average central defensive players. The arrival of Reach and Fletcher made me convinced that Carlos had learnt from the 4-4-2 overrun midfield debacle and would return to his midfield dominating roots. Hooper, the man who likes to drop in the hole I thought would either play behind Fletcher in a 4-2-3-1 or be moved on and put down as an expensive gamble. With speculation about Fernandos future all summer I thought Reach might be expecting to play wide of the attacking midfield. The arrival of Abdi only strengthened my belief that Carlos was going to go back to a flooded and attack minded system. Abdi I thought would come in and provide competition with Hooper in that area behind the targetman. It might mean one of Hutchinson , Lee or Bannan being dropped, but so be it if that’s what he thought was best to get the most from Hooper and Fletcher. As it is, Abdi has barely kicked a ball in anger and Fernando, despite the “strike” blip stayed. As it was, that decision over Hutch, Lee Bannan never had to be made early on as Loovens injury hangover from last season and our unwillingness (rightly) to spend well over the odds at centre half meant Hutchinson was dropped back there and the decision would be left for another day. However as soon as the question was there to be asked the shoe horn came out, and it stuck out like a sore thumb. We dug in still, and got some niggly results, but it was obvious that the names would be in. Square pegs, in this seasons round hole 4-4-2. Best summed up by our starting eleven in the game against Huddersfield. Ok, so Wallace barely kicked a ball…but nevertheless , apart from Fletcher for Hooper it was last years team in last years play off formation. Opposition tactics On top of the issues of the system and last year’s issues coming back to bite, there is also the thinking of the opposition who this season have shown us respect and waited on us to break them down. I think the 4-3-3 would have been even more vital this season because of the fact that so many teams have now got a grasp on us. (or “they’ve worked us out” in OT speak) The onus has been on us this year to break teams down. You can do that by dominating midfield, or being direct and getting the ball into the box plenty. We have played the poopydoo son of both of those tactics by playing with wide men in Reach and Wallace ….........but still trying pass through the middle! Do I ultimately think Carlos should stay? Well, to be honest I like the fellow , I wouldn’t mind him staying at all…but I’d want him to be.. “a bit more Carlos” … play the system he truly believes in…with the players in their best roles….. that though is ever more unlikely as with Winnall and Rhodes signing on….(at vast expense for the championship) ….we have two more strikers joining the ranks of our attacking department who cannot play the lone striking role. We now have 7 strikers…..all of whom work best at part of a partnership…. In that sense Carlos has backed himself into a corner…the scattergun approach to strikers has forced his hand….. and if he does leave, the hand of anyone who might take over…into playing a system with two up front… to get the best out of the resources up top. You can’t buy a £10m striker and then play a system that doesn’t suit him. The Chairman won’t stand for it. Our transfer policy has created a playing system which only suits the top end of the team … simply our signings have caged us into a way of playing which doesn’t get the best out of 33% of the team. Will Chansiri let him spend more if he stays? …..perhaps not… given what he’s already given him. Another season of these players in a 4-4-2 though will only end in a similar placed finish though unless we sign two box to box, tackling passing cruiserweights. But that would mean the end surely for some of the chaps who have done so much for us. Our striker obsession could end up being the death knell for three of the best midfield players we’ve had down in S6 in the last 20 years. Can we keep Hutch, Lee, Bannan AND play two up front without them being compromised or shown the door? The only way he could really do something different without Chansiri allowing him to tear the squad up and start again would be to play a 3-5-2 which would give us the strength in midfield which we so sadly lack with only two in there and play a striker partnership…which all of our strikers need to prosper. That would take time on the training ground though and would be a move away from the pivot back four which he so loves. In the most simple terms I think Carlos’ transfer signings and his favoured method have clashed badly and created an impasse. I think Carlos was two pieces from completing the jigsaw....and instead of looking for them....the club just spent £25m on some random pieces from another box. ----------------------------------------------------------- And that’s it for me. I haven't said half of what I want to here! Though I doubt anyone has read this far down. I may still be drunk but I simply can't type the rest.... or maybe it’s a migraine , my head is spinning now. My heart is still not so much broken as lying tattered and trampled in the gutter, So I won’t ever finish this thing here I have started writing…. ….But I’ll be here next year. Hoping we can do it. Being a clapper from September to May and saving my grumbles for when it’s all over! That is the life of the Wednesday man. Of the supporter. Try and enjoy your summer fellow Owls. We'l get there! Chin chin LS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Tom Posted May 18, 2017 Share Posted May 18, 2017 I was gonna say that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aeroswfc Posted May 18, 2017 Share Posted May 18, 2017 What a bloody long post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ANDY Posted May 18, 2017 Share Posted May 18, 2017 Great post @Lord Snooty hard to disagree with that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OxonOwl Posted May 18, 2017 Share Posted May 18, 2017 30 minutes ago, Lord Snooty said: Try and enjoy your summer fellow Owls. I'll be spending most of it reading the OP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArmchairOwl Posted May 18, 2017 Share Posted May 18, 2017 I'll wait for the dvd. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vectile Posted May 18, 2017 Share Posted May 18, 2017 +1 for effort Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SBOwl Posted May 18, 2017 Share Posted May 18, 2017 Completely agree. 3-5-2 is the way forward but requires a top quality centre back and the best right wing back we can find. If not it won't work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fred mciver Posted May 18, 2017 Share Posted May 18, 2017 As usual , excellent analysis by the Lord. But makes me even more convinced Carlos was n't doing the recent buying. He must know he's toast after dissing Rhodes - and therefore his Dad -last night. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lee81 Posted May 18, 2017 Share Posted May 18, 2017 1 minute ago, fred mciver said: As usual , excellent analysis by the Lord. But makes me even more convinced Carlos was n't doing the recent buying. He must know he's toast after dissing Rhodes - and therefore his Dad -last night. No way is Carlos in sole charge of signings imo, too many just make no sense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fast Forward Posted May 18, 2017 Share Posted May 18, 2017 Good Lord. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daveyboy66 Posted May 18, 2017 Share Posted May 18, 2017 I want the same improvement in position next season...if we can improve with all the crap players that have been brought into the club and the inept coaching that Carlo's has shown even a half improvement should be good enough...God knows how well do if Carlo's gets some good players in Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fred mciver Posted May 18, 2017 Share Posted May 18, 2017 For me , we need a top Head Scout too or DOF - Terry Burton, for example, who has done similar jobs recently for Soton and ....Reading. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shezzas left peg Posted May 18, 2017 Share Posted May 18, 2017 34 minutes ago, SBOwl said: Completely agree. 3-5-2 is the way forward but requires a top quality centre back and the best right wing back we can find. If not it won't work. I've been saying this all season, hunt is better going forward and reach could do the left wingback roll with ease, you drop hutch in the middle of the back three for his technical ability compared to lees and Loovens and easy. If you dont want hunt at Rwb. I'm sure Kieron lee as with reach could have quickly adapted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SBOwl Posted May 18, 2017 Share Posted May 18, 2017 4 minutes ago, shezzas left peg said: I've been saying this all season, hunt is better going forward and reach could do the left wingback roll with ease, you drop hutch in the middle of the back three for his technical ability compared to lees and Loovens and easy. If you dont want hunt at Rwb. I'm sure Kieron lee as with reach could have quickly adapted. Agree with you, although I would make a new right-wing back our top summer signing as I think this would be the missing piece of the jigsaw. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shezzas left peg Posted May 18, 2017 Share Posted May 18, 2017 (edited) 6 minutes ago, SBOwl said: Agree with you, although I would make a new right-wing back our top summer signing as I think this would be the missing piece of the jigsaw. Tbh I think hunt the second half of the season hasn't been our problem, he's probably improved no end , defenders do tend to get better with age and I've noticed that with him late on this season he's not made me as nervous. Though I do think he was quite poor compared to recent weeks last night. Edited May 18, 2017 by shezzas left peg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Costello 77 Posted May 18, 2017 Share Posted May 18, 2017 If anyone quotes this post.. I'll strangle them with my bare hands. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holmowl Posted May 18, 2017 Share Posted May 18, 2017 What a fabulous post @Lord Snooty Great read. Bang on the money too. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VictoryBell Posted May 18, 2017 Share Posted May 18, 2017 Well, I stopped reading half way through because I had been reading so long that I forgot how to read but I say: Lord Snooty for manager Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rogerwyldesmullet Posted May 18, 2017 Share Posted May 18, 2017 Fantastic post m'lud hope Carlos reads it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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