The real weakness of the SE

[joao]

We have the talents for the MF position, but most are not play with discipline, as they love to
hold the ball too long or make errant passes that give away the ball. What use is 'work rate'
if all the player does is hustle to get the ball and make a bad pass. Also, we need to realize that
a great dribbler does not necessary mean a good ball distributor.
We fans should learn to appreciate more in a player than selfish ball caressing and showmanship
that we seem to like encouraging. The bottom line should be productivity with less entertainment.

[Scipio Africanus]

We have the talents for the MF position, but most are not play with discipline, as they love to
hold the ball too long or make errant passes that give away the ball. What use is 'work rate'
if all the player does is hustle to get the ball and make a bad pass. Also, we need to realize that
a great dribbler does not necessary mean a good ball distributor.
We fans should learn to appreciate more in a player than selfish ball caressing and showmanship
that we seem to like encouraging. The bottom line should be productivity with less entertainment.

It seems you are having a conversation with someone living in your head. Nobody asked for dribblers on this thread.

If a player hustles and gets the ball and makes a bad pass, then the midfield players should hustle to get it back and try again to make a good pass. The game doesn't stop because someone made a bad pass. Work rate ensures that the other team also doesn't have the luxury of time on the ball, with which they can hurt you.

[waka-man]

In short. The SE philosophy going forward should be: WE OWN THE MIDFIELD, by hook or by crook, no matter who we are playing against. If we can't own it, we will prevent the opponent from owning it. It ain't gonna be easy, but being a winner ain't easy. It's something that is achieved first in the mind, then by hard work on the pitch.

Is this your preferred mode of play or what Nigeria needs?

I get that you might like that form of football, but there are many other ways to go. Especially if, as you claim, we don’t have the players for it. It’s like you’re saying play to our weakness.

Liverpool have a good midfield, buts it’s by no means dominant. The best you with the press, pace and width in a system designed for their full backs and wide forwards.

For all their titles, Chelsea have never had a ball holder. Lampard was a scorer. Hazard was a runner. Kante is a ball winner. So they’ve generally won with a big forward who can hold the ball up- Dtogba, Costa etc

For the current crop, the strengths are a dominant ball winner, a pair of high-end attackers and some very fast (although inefficient) wide forwards. Design the team around that: high press, direct / vertical passes, operate at pace.

You haven't been reading the thread. I proposed a viable workaround based on flooding the midfield and high work rate. Read again.

I'm glad you brought up Liverpool. Do you see how they were torn apart yesterday by good midfielders with an eye for the good pass? For all their quality, they lost that game in midfield. Textbook example.

Ok now I’m properly confused. I’ve reread the thread and my confusion just deepened.
You aren’t actually asking for possession, just hard tackling.
And Onazi like energy.
And because Liverpool are in a relative slump you don’t think the machine Klop built is a useful model for teams with a similar profile.
Am I interpreting that right?

I’ll just repeat what I said: you design any system to accentuate your strengths and mitigate your weaknesses. Flooding the midfield with energy or guile or ball holders or JJ or Onazi is not playing to our strengths.

But it is ok for us to disagree on that.

Not necessarily hard tackling. Flood the midfield with bodies and congest it for the opposition. Energy of movement in that midfield to hustle, block passing lanes, intercept passes. When you get the ball, don't linger. Do quick triangle passes combined with off the ball runs to gain space and time with the ultimate aim of playing the ball into space for a runner who can come from anywhere. When you do all these, you not only have possession, you have effective possession.

But I'm curious? Why do you think this?

Flooding the midfield with energy or guile or ball holders or JJ or Onazi is not playing to our strengths.

What do you believe our strengths are?

Pace in wide areas, high quality strikers approaching their prime and a solid defensive base (including one of the world’s best defensive midfielders) and mobile fullbacks.

This team needs to play vertically and directly to get the ball forward quickly, execute a smart press and play with pace into wide areas supported by mobile full-backs.

“Flooding the midfield” is negates the press, negates width and negates the dynamic advantage of our team.

[joao]

We have the talents for the MF position, but most are not play with discipline, as they love to
hold the ball too long or make errant passes that give away the ball. What use is 'work rate'
if all the player does is hustle to get the ball and make a bad pass. Also, we need to realize that
a great dribbler does not necessary mean a good ball distributor.
We fans should learn to appreciate more in a player than selfish ball caressing and showmanship
that we seem to like encouraging. The bottom line should be productivity with less entertainment.

It seems you are having a conversation with someone living in your head. Nobody asked for dribblers on this thread.

If a player hustles and gets the ball and makes a bad pass, then the midfield players should hustle to get it back and try again to make a good pass. The game doesn't stop because someone made a bad pass. Work rate ensures that the other team also doesn't have the luxury of time on the ball, with which they can hurt you.

I made an observation.
You can refute it, but don't expose your inabilty to have a better counter by insulting yourself.

[Scipio Africanus]

We have the talents for the MF position, but most are not play with discipline, as they love to
hold the ball too long or make errant passes that give away the ball. What use is 'work rate'
if all the player does is hustle to get the ball and make a bad pass. Also, we need to realize that
a great dribbler does not necessary mean a good ball distributor.
We fans should learn to appreciate more in a player than selfish ball caressing and showmanship
that we seem to like encouraging. The bottom line should be productivity with less entertainment.

It seems you are having a conversation with someone living in your head. Nobody asked for dribblers on this thread.

If a player hustles and gets the ball and makes a bad pass, then the midfield players should hustle to get it back and try again to make a good pass. The game doesn't stop because someone made a bad pass. Work rate ensures that the other team also doesn't have the luxury of time on the ball, with which they can hurt you.

I made an observation.
You can refute it, but don't expose your inabilty to have a better counter by insulting yourself.

No be by force to contribute to every thread. Speaking about self insults, your post has done the job nicely. Please

[joao]

We have the talents for the MF position, but most are not play with discipline, as they love to
hold the ball too long or make errant passes that give away the ball. What use is 'work rate'
if all the player does is hustle to get the ball and make a bad pass. Also, we need to realize that
a great dribbler does not necessary mean a good ball distributor.
We fans should learn to appreciate more in a player than selfish ball caressing and showmanship
that we seem to like encouraging. The bottom line should be productivity with less entertainment.

It seems you are having a conversation with someone living in your head. Nobody asked for dribblers on this thread.
If a player hustles and gets the ball and makes a bad pass, then the midfield players should hustle to get it back and try again to make a good pass. The game doesn't stop because someone made a bad pass. Work rate ensures that the other team also doesn't have the luxury of time on the ball, with which they can hurt you.

I made an observation.
You can refute it, but don't expose your inabilty to have a better counter by insulting yourself.

No be by force to contribute to every thread. Speaking about self insults, your post has done the job nicely. Please

Last time I checked, this is a public forum and a marketplace of ideas and opinions.
Now, crawl back to your 'looney' cave and debate yourself.

[Scipio Africanus]

We have the talents for the MF position, but most are not play with discipline, as they love to
hold the ball too long or make errant passes that give away the ball. What use is 'work rate'
if all the player does is hustle to get the ball and make a bad pass. Also, we need to realize that
a great dribbler does not necessary mean a good ball distributor.
We fans should learn to appreciate more in a player than selfish ball caressing and showmanship
that we seem to like encouraging. The bottom line should be productivity with less entertainment.

It seems you are having a conversation with someone living in your head. Nobody asked for dribblers on this thread.
If a player hustles and gets the ball and makes a bad pass, then the midfield players should hustle to get it back and try again to make a good pass. The game doesn't stop because someone made a bad pass. Work rate ensures that the other team also doesn't have the luxury of time on the ball, with which they can hurt you.

I made an observation.
You can refute it, but don't expose your inabilty to have a better counter by insulting yourself.

No be by force to contribute to every thread. Speaking about self insults, your post has done the job nicely. Please

Last time I checked, this is a public forum and a marketplace of ideas and opinions.
Now, crawl back to your 'looney' cave and debate yourself.

I get the feeling you don't have a strong grasp of English. Your stupidity isn't intentional.

[joao]

We have the talents for the MF position, but most are not play with discipline, as they love to
hold the ball too long or make errant passes that give away the ball. What use is 'work rate'
if all the player does is hustle to get the ball and make a bad pass. Also, we need to realize that
a great dribbler does not necessary mean a good ball distributor.
We fans should learn to appreciate more in a player than selfish ball caressing and showmanship
that we seem to like encouraging. The bottom line should be productivity with less entertainment.

It seems you are having a conversation with someone living in your head. Nobody asked for dribblers on this thread.
If a player hustles and gets the ball and makes a bad pass, then the midfield players should hustle to get it back and try again to make a good pass. The game doesn't stop because someone made a bad pass. Work rate ensures that the other team also doesn't have the luxury of time on the ball, with which they can hurt you.

I made an observation.
You can refute it, but don't expose your inabilty to have a better counter by insulting yourself.

No be by force to contribute to every thread. Speaking about self insults, your post has done the job nicely. Please

Last time I checked, this is a public forum and a marketplace of ideas and opinions.
Now, crawl back to your 'looney' cave and debate yourself.

I get the feeling you don't have a strong grasp of English. Your stupidity isn't intentional.

I'm truly sorry Mr AfricAnus. Should have known that feelings dictate your perception and ideas.
Go relieve yourself, as I believe that should help clear things out.

[Scipio Africanus]

We have the talents for the MF position, but most are not play with discipline, as they love to
hold the ball too long or make errant passes that give away the ball. What use is 'work rate'
if all the player does is hustle to get the ball and make a bad pass. Also, we need to realize that
a great dribbler does not necessary mean a good ball distributor.
We fans should learn to appreciate more in a player than selfish ball caressing and showmanship
that we seem to like encouraging. The bottom line should be productivity with less entertainment.

It seems you are having a conversation with someone living in your head. Nobody asked for dribblers on this thread.
If a player hustles and gets the ball and makes a bad pass, then the midfield players should hustle to get it back and try again to make a good pass. The game doesn't stop because someone made a bad pass. Work rate ensures that the other team also doesn't have the luxury of time on the ball, with which they can hurt you.

I made an observation.
You can refute it, but don't expose your inabilty to have a better counter by insulting yourself.

No be by force to contribute to every thread. Speaking about self insults, your post has done the job nicely. Please

Last time I checked, this is a public forum and a marketplace of ideas and opinions.
Now, crawl back to your 'looney' cave and debate yourself.

I get the feeling you don't have a strong grasp of English. Your stupidity isn't intentional.

I'm truly sorry Mr AfricAnus. Should have known that feelings dictate your perception and ideas.
Go relieve yourself, as I believe that should help clear things out.

I see you like to look for anuses. Since you seem a little slow, I'll help you out. Look in the mirror

[Damunk]

A very good thread slowly overtaken by personal issues...

[Scipio Africanus]

A very good thread slowly overtaken by personal issues...

OK. Make I stop am.

[Scipio Africanus]

In short. The SE philosophy going forward should be: WE OWN THE MIDFIELD, by hook or by crook, no matter who we are playing against. If we can't own it, we will prevent the opponent from owning it. It ain't gonna be easy, but being a winner ain't easy. It's something that is achieved first in the mind, then by hard work on the pitch.

Is this your preferred mode of play or what Nigeria needs?

I get that you might like that form of football, but there are many other ways to go. Especially if, as you claim, we don’t have the players for it. It’s like you’re saying play to our weakness.

Liverpool have a good midfield, buts it’s by no means dominant. The best you with the press, pace and width in a system designed for their full backs and wide forwards.

For all their titles, Chelsea have never had a ball holder. Lampard was a scorer. Hazard was a runner. Kante is a ball winner. So they’ve generally won with a big forward who can hold the ball up- Dtogba, Costa etc

For the current crop, the strengths are a dominant ball winner, a pair of high-end attackers and some very fast (although inefficient) wide forwards. Design the team around that: high press, direct / vertical passes, operate at pace.

You haven't been reading the thread. I proposed a viable workaround based on flooding the midfield and high work rate. Read again.

I'm glad you brought up Liverpool. Do you see how they were torn apart yesterday by good midfielders with an eye for the good pass? For all their quality, they lost that game in midfield. Textbook example.

Ok now I’m properly confused. I’ve reread the thread and my confusion just deepened.
You aren’t actually asking for possession, just hard tackling.
And Onazi like energy.
And because Liverpool are in a relative slump you don’t think the machine Klop built is a useful model for teams with a similar profile.
Am I interpreting that right?

I’ll just repeat what I said: you design any system to accentuate your strengths and mitigate your weaknesses. Flooding the midfield with energy or guile or ball holders or JJ or Onazi is not playing to our strengths.

But it is ok for us to disagree on that.

Not necessarily hard tackling. Flood the midfield with bodies and congest it for the opposition. Energy of movement in that midfield to hustle, block passing lanes, intercept passes. When you get the ball, don't linger. Do quick triangle passes combined with off the ball runs to gain space and time with the ultimate aim of playing the ball into space for a runner who can come from anywhere. When you do all these, you not only have possession, you have effective possession.

But I'm curious? Why do you think this?

Flooding the midfield with energy or guile or ball holders or JJ or Onazi is not playing to our strengths.

What do you believe our strengths are?

Pace in wide areas, high quality strikers approaching their prime and a solid defensive base (including one of the world’s best defensive midfielders) and mobile fullbacks.

This team needs to play vertically and directly to get the ball forward quickly, execute a smart press and play with pace into wide areas supported by mobile full-backs.

“Flooding the midfield” is negates the press, negates width and negates the dynamic advantage of our team.

Let me list the things that you believe are our strengths. Are they really our strengths? How do you define strengths? Are they things that help you win games, or not lose games? Who do we quantify those "strengths"?

1. Pace in wide areas. How did that help us against Argentina or Croatia at the WC, or even Algeria at the ANC? To make it easy for you to answer this question, how many chances did we create from our "pace in wide areas"?

2. High quality strikers. How have our high quality strikers fared against top shelf opposition (those that you will eventually have to beat to actually win trophies)?

3. Solid defensive base. I give you that we seem much better defensively under Rohr (This is just a gut feeling. Maybe a numbers specialist might wanna jump in here).

I humbly propose that if the strengths you listed above aren't helping us beat top quality opposition, we need to develop new strengths.

Also nothing stops us from changing up game rhythm to play the way you described, depending on where we are during the game.

[Bigpokey24]

Our weakness is tactical, we have a very inept manager who lacks the basic intelligence to read or influence a game on the fly. We aren't going anywhere with this **** . We are yet to tactically outsmart any decent team since this **** has been coach of the SE. Coaches matter a lot and the SE are suffering from this

[Tobi17]

Our weakness is tactical, we have a very inept manager who lacks the basic intelligence to read or influence a game on the fly. We aren't going anywhere with this **** . We are yet to tactically outsmart any decent team since this **** has been coach of the SE. Coaches matter a lot and the SE are suffering from this

Seems your issue with Rohr is more personal!

[Damunk]

Our weakness is tactical, we have a very inept manager who lacks the basic intelligence to read or influence a game on the fly. We aren't going anywhere with this **** . We are yet to tactically outsmart any decent team since this **** has been coach of the SE. Coaches matter a lot and the SE are suffering from this

Seems your issue with Rohr is more personal!

Of course it is.
He won't contribute anything to the discussion apart from whinge from his desktop and pray every day that he is vindicated by wishing defeat on the SE via Rohr.
They're like emotional vampires, sucking the life out of other people's positivity.

Its only freaking football. Not the Black Plague or even the Brazilian covid pandemic for God's sake.
Quite sad really.

[waka-man]

In short. The SE philosophy going forward should be: WE OWN THE MIDFIELD, by hook or by crook, no matter who we are playing against. If we can't own it, we will prevent the opponent from owning it. It ain't gonna be easy, but being a winner ain't easy. It's something that is achieved first in the mind, then by hard work on the pitch.

Is this your preferred mode of play or what Nigeria needs?

I get that you might like that form of football, but there are many other ways to go. Especially if, as you claim, we don’t have the players for it. It’s like you’re saying play to our weakness.

Liverpool have a good midfield, buts it’s by no means dominant. The best you with the press, pace and width in a system designed for their full backs and wide forwards.

For all their titles, Chelsea have never had a ball holder. Lampard was a scorer. Hazard was a runner. Kante is a ball winner. So they’ve generally won with a big forward who can hold the ball up- Dtogba, Costa etc

For the current crop, the strengths are a dominant ball winner, a pair of high-end attackers and some very fast (although inefficient) wide forwards. Design the team around that: high press, direct / vertical passes, operate at pace.

You haven't been reading the thread. I proposed a viable workaround based on flooding the midfield and high work rate. Read again.

I'm glad you brought up Liverpool. Do you see how they were torn apart yesterday by good midfielders with an eye for the good pass? For all their quality, they lost that game in midfield. Textbook example.

Ok now I’m properly confused. I’ve reread the thread and my confusion just deepened.
You aren’t actually asking for possession, just hard tackling.
And Onazi like energy.
And because Liverpool are in a relative slump you don’t think the machine Klop built is a useful model for teams with a similar profile.
Am I interpreting that right?

I’ll just repeat what I said: you design any system to accentuate your strengths and mitigate your weaknesses. Flooding the midfield with energy or guile or ball holders or JJ or Onazi is not playing to our strengths.

But it is ok for us to disagree on that.

Not necessarily hard tackling. Flood the midfield with bodies and congest it for the opposition. Energy of movement in that midfield to hustle, block passing lanes, intercept passes. When you get the ball, don't linger. Do quick triangle passes combined with off the ball runs to gain space and time with the ultimate aim of playing the ball into space for a runner who can come from anywhere. When you do all these, you not only have possession, you have effective possession.

But I'm curious? Why do you think this?

Flooding the midfield with energy or guile or ball holders or JJ or Onazi is not playing to our strengths.

What do you believe our strengths are?

Pace in wide areas, high quality strikers approaching their prime and a solid defensive base (including one of the world’s best defensive midfielders) and mobile fullbacks.

This team needs to play vertically and directly to get the ball forward quickly, execute a smart press and play with pace into wide areas supported by mobile full-backs.

“Flooding the midfield” is negates the press, negates width and negates the dynamic advantage of our team.

Let me list the things that you believe are our strengths. Are they really our strengths? How do you define strengths? Are they things that help you win games, or not lose games? Who do we quantify those "strengths"?

1. Pace in wide areas. How did that help us against Argentina or Croatia at the WC, or even Algeria at the ANC? To make it easy for you to answer this question, how many chances did we create from our "pace in wide areas"?

2. High quality strikers. How have our high quality strikers fared against top shelf opposition (those that you will eventually have to beat to actually win trophies)?

3. Solid defensive base. I give you that we seem much better defensively under Rohr (This is just a gut feeling. Maybe a numbers specialist might wanna jump in here).

I humbly propose that if the strengths you listed above aren't helping us beat top quality opposition, we need to develop new strengths.

Also nothing stops us from changing up game rhythm to play the way you described, depending on where we are during the game.

Those are our strengths. I don’t believe we’ve optimised ourselves fully to them.

But it does seem we have a clear point of difference:
I say play to your strengths. You don’t argue with those strengths, only that we’ve lost games against Algeria, Argentina and Croatia despite having those strengths. Your earlier example of Liverpool also suggests that you believe if you have strengths (not necessarily play to them), you should never lose, even to good teams.
I’ll respectfully disagree with that.
But our biggest disagreement is on how you build a team. I say build on your strengthens. You say naturalise Ghanaians. Again, I respectfully disagree.

[Scipio Africanus]

Let me list the things that you believe are our strengths. Are they really our strengths? How do you define strengths? Are they things that help you win games, or not lose games? Who do we quantify those "strengths"?

1. Pace in wide areas. How did that help us against Argentina or Croatia at the WC, or even Algeria at the ANC? To make it easy for you to answer this question, how many chances did we create from our "pace in wide areas"?

2. High quality strikers. How have our high quality strikers fared against top shelf opposition (those that you will eventually have to beat to actually win trophies)?

3. Solid defensive base. I give you that we seem much better defensively under Rohr (This is just a gut feeling. Maybe a numbers specialist might wanna jump in here).

I humbly propose that if the strengths you listed above aren't helping us beat top quality opposition, we need to develop new strengths.

Also nothing stops us from changing up game rhythm to play the way you described, depending on where we are during the game.

Those are our strengths. I don’t believe we’ve optimised ourselves fully to them.

But it does seem we have a clear point of difference:
I say play to your strengths. You don’t argue with those strengths, only that we’ve lost games against Algeria, Argentina and Croatia despite having those strengths. Your earlier example of Liverpool also suggests that you believe if you have strengths (not necessarily play to them), you should never lose, even to good teams.
I’ll respectfully disagree with that.
But our biggest disagreement is on how you build a team. I say build on your strengthens. You say naturalise Ghanaians. Again, I respectfully disagree.

So in your opinion why haven't we optimized ourselves to our strengths? How do we optimize ourselves to the strengths you listed? In other words, what should we be doing to optimize the strengths you listed that we are not doing now?

[fabio]

Our weakness is tactical, we have a very inept manager who lacks the basic intelligence to read or influence a game on the fly. We aren't going anywhere with this **** . We are yet to tactically outsmart any decent team since this **** has been coach of the SE. Coaches matter a lot and the SE are suffering from this

Seems your issue with Rohr is more personal!

Of course it is.
He won't contribute anything to the discussion apart from whinge from his desktop and pray every day that he is vindicated by wishing defeat on the SE via Rohr.
They're like emotional vampires, sucking the life out of other people's positivity.

Its only freaking football. Not the Black Plague or even the Brazilian covid pandemic for God's sake.
Quite sad really.

You need a mirror

A very good thread slowly overtaken by personal issues...

[Damunk]

Our weakness is tactical, we have a very inept manager who lacks the basic intelligence to read or influence a game on the fly. We aren't going anywhere with this **** . We are yet to tactically outsmart any decent team since this **** has been coach of the SE. Coaches matter a lot and the SE are suffering from this

Seems your issue with Rohr is more personal!

Of course it is.
He won't contribute anything to the discussion apart from whinge from his desktop and pray every day that he is vindicated by wishing defeat on the SE via Rohr.
They're like emotional vampires, sucking the life out of other people's positivity.

Its only freaking football. Not the Black Plague or even the Brazilian covid pandemic for God's sake.
Quite sad really.

You need a mirror

A very good thread slowly overtaken by personal issues...

Your point being?
See guilty conscience. I mention your name?
Even the OP was humble enough to agree with me and changed direction back to where we were facing at the beginning.

[waka-man]

Let me list the things that you believe are our strengths. Are they really our strengths? How do you define strengths? Are they things that help you win games, or not lose games? Who do we quantify those "strengths"?

1. Pace in wide areas. How did that help us against Argentina or Croatia at the WC, or even Algeria at the ANC? To make it easy for you to answer this question, how many chances did we create from our "pace in wide areas"?

2. High quality strikers. How have our high quality strikers fared against top shelf opposition (those that you will eventually have to beat to actually win trophies)?

3. Solid defensive base. I give you that we seem much better defensively under Rohr (This is just a gut feeling. Maybe a numbers specialist might wanna jump in here).

I humbly propose that if the strengths you listed above aren't helping us beat top quality opposition, we need to develop new strengths.

Also nothing stops us from changing up game rhythm to play the way you described, depending on where we are during the game.

Those are our strengths. I don’t believe we’ve optimised ourselves fully to them.

But it does seem we have a clear point of difference:
I say play to your strengths. You don’t argue with those strengths, only that we’ve lost games against Algeria, Argentina and Croatia despite having those strengths. Your earlier example of Liverpool also suggests that you believe if you have strengths (not necessarily play to them), you should never lose, even to good teams.
I’ll respectfully disagree with that.
But our biggest disagreement is on how you build a team. I say build on your strengthens. You say naturalise Ghanaians. Again, I respectfully disagree.

So in your opinion why haven't we optimized ourselves to our strengths? How do we optimize ourselves to the strengths you listed? In other words, what should we be doing to optimize the strengths you listed that we are not doing now?

Oh wow, loads.
We’ve got to stop the obsession with playing with a number 10. Iwobi might look interesting running around, losing the ball and occasionally scoring a stunner, but with our strengths that role is negated.
Unleash the fullbacks by providing an even more defensive shield in front of the CD’s. Ndidi is like two men there so supporting with Etebo, not Aribo, gives you much more of a defensive shield. Aribo, like Iwobi, looks attractive to the eye, but is not such a standout talent for us to adjust our play to.
By giving the fullbacks real license, you weaponise out width and give our wide attackers the freedom to basically become 2nd and 3rd attackers.
Press high. Relentlessly.
We’ve played versions of this in past both with 343 and 4213 but the one I’d really love to see is an old fashioned 442 which would really be a 4222. Nigeria can afford to play with a second striker - again based on strengths. Compensate for the lost of central midfield numbers with a 4 man press and one of the defensive midfield pair allowed to join in at the right moment. Another reason I value Etebo over Aribo (our third goal against Cam showed how to make this work, but even the second half agains Argentina in the 4-2 friendly will show you a lot).
If we keep pining for the days of Oliseh and JJ we will miss the gold that is right in front of us.
And we will keep fantasising about a Ghanaian side that’s not done anything in over 10 years.

[Scipio Africanus]

Let me list the things that you believe are our strengths. Are they really our strengths? How do you define strengths? Are they things that help you win games, or not lose games? Who do we quantify those "strengths"?

1. Pace in wide areas. How did that help us against Argentina or Croatia at the WC, or even Algeria at the ANC? To make it easy for you to answer this question, how many chances did we create from our "pace in wide areas"?

2. High quality strikers. How have our high quality strikers fared against top shelf opposition (those that you will eventually have to beat to actually win trophies)?

3. Solid defensive base. I give you that we seem much better defensively under Rohr (This is just a gut feeling. Maybe a numbers specialist might wanna jump in here).

I humbly propose that if the strengths you listed above aren't helping us beat top quality opposition, we need to develop new strengths.

Also nothing stops us from changing up game rhythm to play the way you described, depending on where we are during the game.

Those are our strengths. I don’t believe we’ve optimised ourselves fully to them.

But it does seem we have a clear point of difference:
I say play to your strengths. You don’t argue with those strengths, only that we’ve lost games against Algeria, Argentina and Croatia despite having those strengths. Your earlier example of Liverpool also suggests that you believe if you have strengths (not necessarily play to them), you should never lose, even to good teams.
I’ll respectfully disagree with that.
But our biggest disagreement is on how you build a team. I say build on your strengthens. You say naturalise Ghanaians. Again, I respectfully disagree.

So in your opinion why haven't we optimized ourselves to our strengths? How do we optimize ourselves to the strengths you listed? In other words, what should we be doing to optimize the strengths you listed that we are not doing now?

Oh wow, loads.
We’ve got to stop the obsession with playing with a number 10. Iwobi might look interesting running around, losing the ball and occasionally scoring a stunner, but with our strengths that role is negated.
Unleash the fullbacks by providing an even more defensive shield in front of the CD’s. Ndidi is like two men there so supporting with Etebo, not Aribo, gives you much more of a defensive shield. Aribo, like Iwobi, looks attractive to the eye, but is not such a standout talent for us to adjust our play to.
By giving the fullbacks real license, you weaponise out width and give our wide attackers the freedom to basically become 2nd and 3rd attackers.
Press high. Relentlessly.
We’ve played versions of this in past both with 343 and 4213 but the one I’d really love to see is an old fashioned 442 which would really be a 4222. Nigeria can afford to play with a second striker - again based on strengths. Compensate for the lost of central midfield numbers with a 4 man press and one of the defensive midfield pair allowed to join in at the right moment. Another reason I value Etebo over Aribo (our third goal against Cam showed how to make this work, but even the second half agains Argentina in the 4-2 friendly will show you a lot).
If we keep pining for the days of Oliseh and JJ we will miss the gold that is right in front of us.
And we will keep fantasising about a Ghanaian side that’s not done anything in over 10 years.

I agree 100% with you on Iwobi and the number 10 role. He isn't skilled or productive enough on the front end to justify his turnovers and suboptimal work rate.

You want to add Etebo to Ndidi, fine, more engine power in the middle, but who will provide the accurate passes for your attacking fullbacks, who will control the tempo for us? Are the fullbacks going to reliably take the ball most of the full length of the field? We don't have fullbacks of that quality. They will need to be fed a constant diet of timely and accurate passes to be effective. Who has shown that they have the sense of timing, the tempo, and the passing range to do this?

I love Ndidi and Etebo to death but their turnover rate will be high, and the high turnover rate is not an indictment on them, but on the frequency of their touches on the ball. More touches, more turnovers, by simple statistics. Who will clean up after them, and also add cover for our marauding fullbacks? Did you see what Etebo's turnovers did to us against Argentina and Croatia? This concern is very, very vital because our center backs are not exactly quick to recover when they are placed on the back foot.

I also think you are somewhat discounting Aribo's value. I really liked the attacking (and defending) dimension he gave us against Brazil in the friendly. We need about 2 more players like him in the squad IMO.

Our play against top teams currently usually looks disjointed, with us reacting frantically and sporadically to their probing and attacking, being pushed around all over the field. Not good for the stomach or the heart. Me no likey.

[waka-man]

Let me list the things that you believe are our strengths. Are they really our strengths? How do you define strengths? Are they things that help you win games, or not lose games? Who do we quantify those "strengths"?

1. Pace in wide areas. How did that help us against Argentina or Croatia at the WC, or even Algeria at the ANC? To make it easy for you to answer this question, how many chances did we create from our "pace in wide areas"?

2. High quality strikers. How have our high quality strikers fared against top shelf opposition (those that you will eventually have to beat to actually win trophies)?

3. Solid defensive base. I give you that we seem much better defensively under Rohr (This is just a gut feeling. Maybe a numbers specialist might wanna jump in here).

I humbly propose that if the strengths you listed above aren't helping us beat top quality opposition, we need to develop new strengths.

Also nothing stops us from changing up game rhythm to play the way you described, depending on where we are during the game.

Those are our strengths. I don’t believe we’ve optimised ourselves fully to them.

But it does seem we have a clear point of difference:
I say play to your strengths. You don’t argue with those strengths, only that we’ve lost games against Algeria, Argentina and Croatia despite having those strengths. Your earlier example of Liverpool also suggests that you believe if you have strengths (not necessarily play to them), you should never lose, even to good teams.
I’ll respectfully disagree with that.
But our biggest disagreement is on how you build a team. I say build on your strengthens. You say naturalise Ghanaians. Again, I respectfully disagree.

So in your opinion why haven't we optimized ourselves to our strengths? How do we optimize ourselves to the strengths you listed? In other words, what should we be doing to optimize the strengths you listed that we are not doing now?

Oh wow, loads.
We’ve got to stop the obsession with playing with a number 10. Iwobi might look interesting running around, losing the ball and occasionally scoring a stunner, but with our strengths that role is negated.
Unleash the fullbacks by providing an even more defensive shield in front of the CD’s. Ndidi is like two men there so supporting with Etebo, not Aribo, gives you much more of a defensive shield. Aribo, like Iwobi, looks attractive to the eye, but is not such a standout talent for us to adjust our play to.
By giving the fullbacks real license, you weaponise out width and give our wide attackers the freedom to basically become 2nd and 3rd attackers.
Press high. Relentlessly.
We’ve played versions of this in past both with 343 and 4213 but the one I’d really love to see is an old fashioned 442 which would really be a 4222. Nigeria can afford to play with a second striker - again based on strengths. Compensate for the lost of central midfield numbers with a 4 man press and one of the defensive midfield pair allowed to join in at the right moment. Another reason I value Etebo over Aribo (our third goal against Cam showed how to make this work, but even the second half agains Argentina in the 4-2 friendly will show you a lot).
If we keep pining for the days of Oliseh and JJ we will miss the gold that is right in front of us.
And we will keep fantasising about a Ghanaian side that’s not done anything in over 10 years.

I agree 100% with you on Iwobi and the number 10 role. He isn't skilled or productive enough on the front end to justify his turnovers and suboptimal work rate.

You want to add Etebo to Ndidi, fine, more engine power in the middle, but who will provide the accurate passes for your attacking fullbacks, who will control the tempo for us? Are the fullbacks going to reliably take the ball most of the full length of the field? We don't have fullbacks of that quality. They will need to be fed a constant diet of timely and accurate passes to be effective. Who has shown that they have the sense of timing, the tempo, and the passing range to do this?

I love Ndidi and Etebo to death but their turnover rate will be high, and the high turnover rate is not an indictment on them, but on the frequency of their touches on the ball. More touches, more turnovers, by simple statistics. Who will clean up after them, and also add cover for our marauding fullbacks? Did you see what Etebo's turnovers did to us against Argentina and Croatia? This concern is very, very vital because our center backs are not exactly quick to recover when they are placed on the back foot.

I also think you are somewhat discounting Aribo's value. I really liked the attacking (and defending) dimension he gave us against Brazil in the friendly. We need about 2 more players like him in the squad IMO.

Our play against top teams currently usually looks disjointed, with us reacting frantically and sporadically to their probing and attacking, being pushed around all over the field. Not good for the stomach or the heart. Me no likey.

What I’m trying to do is to get you to see that a central “creative” midfielder is not a necessity. And if you don’t have the players for it, it is useless to keep flogging it. The fact that everyone one CE is salivating over a 19-year french boy, playing in England’s 2nd tier, who has never publicly stated an interest in playing for Nigeria, and to the best of my knowledge has never been, shows how this obsession leads to a ridiculous form of insanity.

Our central midfield is best set up to 1. Be the first line of defence (literally allow us to become a back three when full backs bomb forward) 2. Win the ball 3. Make the simple forward pass that sets up our attack.

I disagree on you judgement on our fullbacks. We have very good fullbacks. Zaidu is one his way to great things and Ebuehi is finally on his way back. My suggested understudy to both in Aina, who has all the talent but maybe needs some serious talking to. He’s not been helped by not having a settled club side, but he’s more than adequate as a back up. Zaidu and Ebuehi are both blessed with the engine to get up and down the field. I also think in such a system, Moses Simon gives you an interesting option in that position.

Have I been harsh on Aribo? Perhaps. But I don’t see the ball-winner we need in that role.

As for Etebo, I think he’s been a victim of us trying to play the system you advocate. In the WC, he was our most advanced of a midfield three and that’s asking for trouble. He was far more effective in the ANC playing a deeper role but again, because he was being asked to link defence and offence, he was over-worked. And that’s where the trouble starts.

I should say this: the one position that requires some through is who plays alongside Ndidi in that midfield. I’m not buying all this Ejaria, Eze, Olise hype. Even if there were ready (they aren’t), we need something more destructive to liberate our strengths.

[Scipio Africanus]

I agree 100% with you on Iwobi and the number 10 role. He isn't skilled or productive enough on the front end to justify his turnovers and suboptimal work rate.

You want to add Etebo to Ndidi, fine, more engine power in the middle, but who will provide the accurate passes for your attacking fullbacks, who will control the tempo for us? Are the fullbacks going to reliably take the ball most of the full length of the field? We don't have fullbacks of that quality. They will need to be fed a constant diet of timely and accurate passes to be effective. Who has shown that they have the sense of timing, the tempo, and the passing range to do this?

I love Ndidi and Etebo to death but their turnover rate will be high, and the high turnover rate is not an indictment on them, but on the frequency of their touches on the ball. More touches, more turnovers, by simple statistics. Who will clean up after them, and also add cover for our marauding fullbacks? Did you see what Etebo's turnovers did to us against Argentina and Croatia? This concern is very, very vital because our center backs are not exactly quick to recover when they are placed on the back foot.

I also think you are somewhat discounting Aribo's value. I really liked the attacking (and defending) dimension he gave us against Brazil in the friendly. We need about 2 more players like him in the squad IMO.

Our play against top teams currently usually looks disjointed, with us reacting frantically and sporadically to their probing and attacking, being pushed around all over the field. Not good for the stomach or the heart. Me no likey.

What I’m trying to do is to get you to see that a central “creative” midfielder is not a necessity. And if you don’t have the players for it, it is useless to keep flogging it. The fact that everyone one CE is salivating over a 19-year french boy, playing in England’s 2nd tier, who has never publicly stated an interest in playing for Nigeria, and to the best of my knowledge has never been, shows how this obsession leads to a ridiculous form of insanity.

Our central midfield is best set up to 1. Be the first line of defence (literally allow us to become a back three when full backs bomb forward) 2. Win the ball 3. Make the simple forward pass that sets up our attack.

What you describe sounds a lot like France under Deschamps. Based on defensive solidity and pace on the flanks, but even they need a Pogba to bring it all together.

I disagree on you judgement on our fullbacks. We have very good fullbacks. Zaidu is one his way to great things and Ebuehi is finally on his way back. My suggested understudy to both in Aina, who has all the talent but maybe needs some serious talking to. He’s not been helped by not having a settled club side, but he’s more than adequate as a back up. Zaidu and Ebuehi are both blessed with the engine to get up and down the field. I also think in such a system, Moses Simon gives you an interesting option in that position.

Ok. We can agree to disagree.

Have I been harsh on Aribo? Perhaps. But I don’t see the ball-winner we need in that role.

As for Etebo, I think he’s been a victim of us trying to play the system you advocate. In the WC, he was our most advanced of a midfield three and that’s asking for trouble. He was far more effective in the ANC playing a deeper role but again, because he was being asked to link defence and offence, he was over-worked. And that’s where the trouble starts.

That's because he doesn't have the skillset of a #10. I agree he should play a deeper role, but we still need a metronome to bring it all together. Like I said even France under Deschamps, who it seems your vision of the SE is modeled after, still need someone like Pogba to dictate play.

I should say this: the one position that requires some through is who plays alongside Ndidi in that midfield. I’m not buying all this Ejaria, Eze, Olise hype. Even if there were ready (they aren’t), we need something more destructive to liberate our strengths.

Ndidi isn't destructive enough? How about someone who has a decent work rate and passes better than Ndidi.