A tale of two managers (Port Vale match day thread)

Westbrooke can’t get in the Stevenage squad atm. (He may of course be injured) can’t imagine him and Steve Evans ever agreeing over how to play football. 

ps. Well done for calling out the win on the other place when it was 1-1 today. Very glad you were right!!! 👍

UTG!

based on the few games Ive seen this season Coutts is an excellent footballer. I didn't see the early games where he was getting a load of stick but think he was recovering from Covid and of course the sending off didn’t endear him to people. He’s played in all the games I’ve seen and in every one we have totally bossed the middle of the park - no coincidence there. Sadly though probably only has a couple more seasons in his legs playing like this. Candidate for POTS in my view, along with Belshaw and Harry Anderson

There can only be one, as in the highlander films. 

Belshaw for me as he was the one who has made some crucial saves, so that we can be in this position. Yes, Anderson has been incredible but we would have lost or drawn if not for Belshaw, on a fair few occasions .   Great Deal in getting him and, by far,  POTS and this century for us too

Coutts is our midfield motor, our Henderson, in a high press game taken from the Klopp school of thought. It wears teams down and they end up looking well beaten. Here's an interesting analysis of the high pressing game from Barney Ronay of the Guardian about how tackling has gone out of fashion since Guardiola arrived.

Twenty years ago the best teams made the most tackles. The top two tacklers in the league were Arsenal and Manchester United. Fast forward to Guardiola’s first season at City and this was still the case: five of the top six also ended up in the top 10 tacklers. The following year this trend was simply dynamited out of existence. City racked up 100 points and won the league by a mile, while also finishing 18th on the tackle table. It is now a total inversion: the better you are the fewer tackles you make. Currently City, Liverpool, Arsenal, West Ham and Chelsea are the bottom five in tackles made. Liverpool are 88th for tackles in Europe’s top five leagues. City, spectacularly, are 98th (ie, last). This is modern physicality: keep the ball, steal the ball, press the ball, move constantly. “What is tackles?”, Guardiola famously asked. Tackles are how you know you’re losing, that control has been lost, that you’re leaving a gap for the counter thrust.

I'd never considered that until now because it all happens so quickly that you hardly notice the difference between a tackle and whipping the ball off their feet. Is Loft our Mo Salah? (just joking).

Finley good shout. He’s been another reason why we've bossed midfield and has a bit more of a creative spark about him. Connolly hasn’t played enough games to be in the reckoning - Taylor would be a better shout. Evans similarly. Exciting and a game winner on his day but not played enough or with the same level of consistency as the others. Anderson (E) has been great but only half a season so not in the reckoning for me. Agree his impact has been significant

Ironically and when i still played, the last manager we had used to have a don’t dive in policy and it seems he was years ahead of Guardiola. Sadly, we ( Crusaders) were a mid table suburban league team and most did not listen, let alone play that way. Lose the tackle and your man is free. It does make sense 

Like I said before, Barton the manager is one thing, Little Joey somebody else entirely who he needs to keep under lock and key.

Something that has occurred to me, KP - that managing Bristol Rovers might rehabilitate him. We can but hope.

You're at the risk of creating the impression that 150 Euros of Gulf blood money have had nothing to do with Guardiola's success. Guardiola has also only ever managed the top sides. 

Tony Pulis had his own distinct footballing philosophy and arguably, in relative terms at least, achieved as much, or even possibly more, than Guardiola has. If Guardiola took over a mid-table L1 side and got them to the premiership on the back of his distinctive philosophy, then we might have to reconsider this assessment.