Guest Post by Bourne_Iron
Every so often, life throws you a curve ball and you have to face up to it and make hard decisions – how you carry out those required decisions determines how good you are at management – whether that be work, personal life, money, football. Those having the nerve to make tough decisions and difficult calls normally are the best managers – and carry out the changes in a ruthless, focused and determined way leading to success (via initial turmoil and criticism)
Big Sam has to be realistic – there is a very real potential that Andy Carroll will not play again. As hard as that is to accept. With every month out and with every new injury to already delicate feet, the % chances of him returning as a top class footballer are reduced. This is an unacceptable risk if not mitigated. When you don’t mitigate obvious risks ventures fail and you exhibit poor management.
Once you accept that conclusion and start to mitigate that risk, you come to the following realizations very quickly. Without Carroll (or a Carroll clone) there is no point in playing Nolan (no knock-downs / no “dream” partnership) and no point employing wingers to float in crosses as there is no target man.
So, you either go and get a Carroll clone (weak management choice as he is unique in my opinion) or make the harder choice (which is what brave and good managers do) and carry out the following:-
- Accept that the current formation is now pointless and change it.
- Drop the wide wingers playing crosses and long ball to target man mentality
- Sell Nolan and make another player captain.
- Sell Jarvis or Downing as two wingers in the new formation are no longer required.
- Look at new acquisitions and plan around them (otherwise no point in getting them)
- When working through it, you are left with a formation mindset of:-
Back four with:-
- Keepers – covered
- Solid defensive core – covered.
- Attacking Full backs – covered at left back (cresswell / potts) but attacking right back is an obvious shortfall.
Midfield of:-
- 2 defensive midfielders – covered here (Poyet, Noble, cheeky youth like moncur)
- 3 Attacking flair players – covered here – Morrison, Whitehead, Zarate, downing (not in winger mode), RVT, Fanimo, Turgott, Lletget
1 Fast counter attacking, running onto a ball striker – Valencia, Lee, Gordon.
With the removal of Maiga, Jarvis, Nolan and Diame you would have funds (hopefully) for a quality attacking right back.
The brave choice for Sam is to move to a 4-2-3-1 and fully utilize the youth players with a quality signing at right back and one more striker- in this type of fluid, counter attacking team someone like Agbonlahor or of a similar type would be ideal.
In the coming weeks – a brave, risk aware manager would set the team up for life without Carroll and carry out changes to personnel and players similar to above – in my opinion, a weak manager would go and try and find a Carroll clone. We are about to see how good Sam really is – if I was a director / chairman I would act quickly and ruthlessly if Sam came to me for funds for Crouch / Traore or similar as this is the ultimate sign of weakness.