Steve Bruce, Eddie Howe and a question of tactics | OneFootball

I hate the word “arguably.” People make the most ridiculous claims and believe that just sticking “arguably” in front of it makes it bulletproof.

I much prefer “reputedly”. It adds a bit more credibility.

Many years ago a workmate asked me if I would go play squash with him. He was a bit of a keep-fit fanatic but didn’t actually “do” sports, and wanted to “give it a go.”

I have to admit, as someone who played to a half decent level at the time I wasn’t keen, but Steve was a mate, and more importantly he had some Capri parts that I wanted to buy off him for a ridiculously low price – so I felt obliged. It was a really obliging price.

The first 20 minutes were spent teaching him the basics and then we decided to get serious and actually give the whole game thing a go. The problem was, nobody had told Steve that he was supposed to get tired. He just waited for me to play a shot and ran after the ball like a demented puppy on a sugar rush. I wasn’t unfit myself but his willingness to chase down every shot, and then getting there, was demoralising. This brings me to what I really want to focus on…

A recent comment from Dwight Gayle claimed that Steve Bruce had once mentioned to the players, “I don’t do tactics!”

You might have noticed that after he took over from Rafa, Brucie’s tactics were pretty similar to the Spaniard’s.

So was it Steve Bruce, tactical genius, or just Monkey see monkey do.

Or in the absence of any direction from their manager were the lads just doing what Rafa had told them previously?

This is interesting on a couple of fronts.

1. This is, if true, a bit of a shocker in the modern game, and,

2. Looking back, maybe we should have picked up on this a little earlier?

While possibly hinting that Brucie may be the last of a dying, managerial breed, I’m not here to slag him off but somewhere further down the page there is an interesting question on the horizon. Honest!

You don’t have to go back too far to remember players who were hardly even managed by their “manager”, let alone being touched by that sophistication we now call “tactics.” They did what they did and that’s why they were playing.

To what extent did the great managers of the day such as Paisley, Shankly, Kendall, Clough etc, actually “do” tactics? Yes, they went with a formation, who to mark, and occasionally who to leave the odd stud mark on, but nothing like today’s game.

On the players’ side, I doubt if local heroes, Bobby and Jackie Charlton, ever had to worry too much about tactics. In those days you just played your position.

Even as recently as Peter Beardsley and Paul Gascoigne, I suspect they just did their own thing. Gazza did what Gazza did, and that superstar that was Peter Beardsley was probably responsible for what managers now expect from all their players. I think Beardo must have gotten his tablets from the same place as my squash playing mate, Steve!

So, you’ll be pleased to know, here comes the question!

Could a complete team of talented individuals from 40 years ago with no tactical input, beat one of today’s mid-table Prem teams with a master tactician at the helm?

Could they wallop the opposition using just their individual brilliance?

Wembley

The game against Liverpool certainly highlighted some interesting stuff.

Obviously, leading up to the Carabao Final, Slot would have worked on setting up his boys a particular way to counter what he believed would be our style of play.

What he didn’t expect, and found difficult to cope with, was us going all 1980s Wimbledon on them, with the long balls and physicality. We’ve watched a few games this season where after ten or fifteen minutes we’re thinking “what are we doing? It’s like we’ve gone out there with no plan whatsoever.”

We had a plan but that plan depended on the other team doing what we assumed they were going to do.

What they had done in their previous however many games.

What they had done numerous times against teams who set up and played like us.

If for whatever reason they didn’t, think maybe Bournemouth, or Brentford, then we had to adapt on the fly. If it’s a small change, then maybe Mad Dog and Eddie can cover it shouting instructions from the touchline, or maybe Nick Pope can have a bit of a lie down, while we hold a team meeting. If it’s anything more than that, then it’s a half time job and the week’s planning goes out the window.

It’s all about who bends first. Who is the first to forsake their own tactics in response to the other team’s changes. Note: Anybody else think “Mad Dog and Eddie” is a great name for a TV series?

It was a much younger and wilder Mike Tyson who said, “Everybody has a plan, until they get punched in the face!”

You have to think that in the cup final, Liverpool bent first.

When Slot said “the game went Newcastle’s way”, it may have sounded a little “Arteta-esque” or sour grapesy, with the Liverpool manager appearing to deflect blame, but I suspect he may simply have been the victim of a difference between English and Cloggy phraseology.

We went out there with a change of tactics that Liverpool just weren’t ready for, and as he rightly said, the game went our way.

With our shuffle we took Salah completely out of the game. They were so busy trying to address our variation from our “normal” style of play, that they didn’t have an opportunity, until late on in the second half, to implement their own pre-“punch in the face” plans. And even then their success was based not so much on their solution, as us being 2 – 0 up and taking our foot off the pedal.

Even the likes of Man City and Liverpool can become too dependent on individual players’ brilliance and we showed how overdependent Liverpool are on Salah.

From our side, maybe we started out a bit concerned with not having Botman or Gordon on the pitch but I think we showed that when it comes to tactics vs individual brilliance, tactics won that particular day.

Oh, and that particular cup.

And to those who claim that the club and the fans may have “over-celebrated” what was “just” the Carabao Cup, it was Liverpool, and I don’t think they turned up with the intention of just making the numbers up. Yes, we took it seriously. As did they.

Of course, it does no harm at all when you also happen to be fielding what is “reputedly” the best midfield trio in the Premier League, and “reputedly” the best striker in Europe. See how that sounds so much better?

Statistics might tell us that Salah is a better striker than Isak but tactics took care of that particular individual brilliance.

Ahhhh! Statistics! XG, assists, possession etc. Now there’s an article for another day!

By the way. In case you didn’t already come to this conclusion, the argument that tactics will beat individual brilliance tends to falter once you accept that our tactics actually WERE individual brilliance.

The individual brilliance of a certain Edward John Frank Howe!