Subject: [NT] NorwichCityNil

that depends, on you [:

In the interest of fair play and also now that I realise NCN is serious in his campaign I ask the same question to you as I did to jpk. In all due respect though you have stood before but not seriously if I am correct?

Can I ask what you felt has gone wrong recently with the NT and what you would have done differently?

I personally believe ermejo has had some pretty bad luck along the way, but what errors have you noticed if any?

More importantly, I helped an actual Australian to win the election and thus end the reign of the corrupt and uber-weak King Borkos of Poland.

Ha! I knew there was something fishy about it.

I've just sent out my ninjas to England, beware!

I always stand, pretty much - whether people choose to take me seriously or not up to them :)

Ermejo did very well in the qualifiers, and in the first round, beating 2nd ranked Italy . The first bad game he had, he lost in the 2nd round, which of course is a knock-out match. Ermejo opted to play quite a high back line for this match, but the offside trap didn't seem to work all the time - which seems to have resulted in Lithuanian forwards being played in past the last man, which gave their players a foot race against our defenders to a one-on-one against our keeper. A little further back, and I think we would have been less vulnerable to the through balls from their midfield.

Having watched it back to refresh my memory, the 2nd Lithuanian goal came about because the front post wasn't being guarded. But this is all fine-margin stuff, and on another day, with some minor tweaks, England could have won that match.

Fair enough, good answer. ;)

Basically I'm running this time because there isn't a decent manager who hasn't had a go before, and I had a similar experience to ermejo when I was NT - losing a match I could / should have won vs Croatia in the quarter finals. I'd like to put that right :)

Well I am glad that 2 good experienced managers from England are going for the job....makes it hard to decide where to vote. Which is exactly how it should be.

If you were to face Phil and his USA team, what tactic would you expect to face and how would you counter that tactic to win the game?

Will you be creating an [NT] thread, or will people have to guess that you're running in England ? :)

If you were to face Phil and his USA team, what tactic would you expect to face and how would you counter that tactic to win the game?

The trouble with Phil is that he's good enough to adapt to what he thinks you might try, you're also likely to not know which formation he's going to favour. He does like to play a high back line, so I'd probably try and exploit that by playing a pacey high winger on the outside of his full-backs, maybe 1 centre forward in the hole between central defenders. I'd also aim to sit my mids slightly behind his midfielders in my half of the pitch, and in the (small) holes that his formation leaves in his side of the pitch.

Thats an interesting answer.

Hmm - interesting. Not the same as good ? :)

Well he almost always plays 5 defenders to stop any wingers causing him problems...therefore it was not the answer I expected thats all. With him playing 5 defenders also this would mean a central striker would be covered most of the time by the middle of the central defenders?

Ah, the example I looked at he was playing 4 defenders. Typical :).

Against a 5 man defence, my lot would line up something like this...

............*.......*

.....*.......................*......

.................*

With a defensive midfielder and 2 "semi-wingers", who drift wide when needed, follow the ball when its closest to them, and offer options (horizontal or 45 degree angles usually) when the ball is closer to someone else. The forwards would look to exploit spaces between the central defender and the two next to him.

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Thats a good answer against his side I think. He rarely plays a 4 man defence, although he will come and argue that soon enough. ;)

If I'm honest, that's a tactic I use a lot, with minor derivations. A lot of the best managers seem to use 5-3-1-1, but I prefer the kind of 5-3-2 outlined above.