Football tactics
How many fans genuinely understand football tactics? Do you need to be a qualified coach or an ex-player to offer expert opinion on how a team has been set up to play?
I've been thinking about this since the cup final, after which the general consensus among the fans on this forum seemed to be that Jack Ross adopted the same tactics which had failed on three previous occasions against St Johnstone. But is that REALLY what he did? Did he GENUINELY say to his players something along the lines of 'same again lads, I'm pretty sure it will work this time'? What would that say about his abilities as a coach?
Unless Ross were to come out and explain his tactics for the game then I guess we'll never really know, but personally I find it hard to believe an obviously intelligent guy who is clearly a keen student of the game would adopt such an approach. Was there instead an attempt made to deploy a different set of tactics which we, as fans, simply failed to pick up on largely due to the fact they didn't work?
I do sometimes wonder if it's easy for fans/pundits to be wise after the event when it comes to tactics. It's easy to throw around phrases like 'we got our tactics spot on' or 'our tactics were a disaster' after a game, but how many of us are truly capable of casting an expert eye over a game and providing an accurate analysis of the run of play?
I've been thinking about this since the cup final, after which the general consensus among the fans on this forum seemed to be that Jack Ross adopted the same tactics which had failed on three previous occasions against St Johnstone. But is that REALLY what he did? Did he GENUINELY say to his players something along the lines of 'same again lads, I'm pretty sure it will work this time'? What would that say about his abilities as a coach?
Unless Ross were to come out and explain his tactics for the game then I guess we'll never really know, but personally I find it hard to believe an obviously intelligent guy who is clearly a keen student of the game would adopt such an approach. Was there instead an attempt made to deploy a different set of tactics which we, as fans, simply failed to pick up on largely due to the fact they didn't work?
I do sometimes wonder if it's easy for fans/pundits to be wise after the event when it comes to tactics. It's easy to throw around phrases like 'we got our tactics spot on' or 'our tactics were a disaster' after a game, but how many of us are truly capable of casting an expert eye over a game and providing an accurate analysis of the run of play?