Football fans and their "understanding" of tactics

[Zlatan 7]

There's this fascinating thing. I mean, I'm not sure if you've heard of it, but it's got this wealth of information at your fingertips. I mean, just think about it, a little movement of the fingers and voila. I am talking about the wonderful thing called The Internet!!

Everything you want is available at your bloody fingertips. This idea that people can't learn things is so ludicrously 19th century.

If people are passionate enough, they may bother to research and analyze various ideas, movements and strategies that can help them know more so they have a better understanding of what they see. While they may not understand everything, they most certainly more than you and can make more accurate assessments on matters.

There are definitely backseat managers but there are plenty here who can pinpoint and provide analysis on how we play and you wouldn't say they're wrong.

It's ridiculous to shut others down down because you feel ignorant.

Your actual argument here is this:
X keeps acting as if he/she knows stuff. I don't know if what X says is true or not, but X is not on my telly so X must shut up because X is wrong and I am right.

The internet?

I can’t bake a cake but I just read a great guide on the internet, seems easy, just mix things together and put it in the oven, I’m going to bake the best cake the world had ever seen later. Thanks, internet

 

[hasanejaz88]

Yea, well, I've had a blogspot of mine quoted and used by Michael Cox of zonal marking. So I have some credibility

 

[Ajr]

There are things an average fan can understand and see such as possession etc and basic stats, what they don't see is the underlying causes of it (I'm not saying I do) and why the team couldn't defend on the right very well for example. Coming from coaching professionally in other sport, there is a lot more in depth the further you get up the pyramid too. At the very top, the margins are so slim compared to lower levels and you can not get away with anything. Even then though it's partly luck and you can set up however you want tactically but if your opponent can't score then you do ok. It's also down to the players a lot, and going back to united the players have all shown they can play 3 atb and do well but it just didn't work last night at all. I am not defending oles tactics from last night, 3/5 at the back was probably the wrong option but it has worked great before in big games and no one was complaining then.

If you want to know my actual view on Ole, no I don't think he is the best manager but he is doing better than the last 3. I think he has a very outside chance of getting a pl title this year/more of a chance next year and sacking him is not worth it, it's not like Poch would do any better.

 

[Zlatan 7]

It irks me when you have fans (on the likes of Youtube etc) shit on the management and go on about the tactics like it's some basic thing. This is elite-level football, the highest level in the world. What looks simple to implement and execute is actually far from that...

Just ask people who have played football, the jump from amateur - semi-pro - pro is absolutely gargantuan.

You’d think this would be obvious

 

[dove]

The internet?

I can’t bake a cake but I just read a great guide on the internet, seems easy, just mix things together and put it in the oven, I’m going to bake the best cake the world had ever seen later. Thanks, internet

Quite a bad example. You can easily bake a very good cake watching some good video guide on the internet. You can't get it wrong even if you are really bad at baking.

 

[Fortitude]

This thread would have validity if people were using hindsight instead of calling out the pitfalls and the expected mire before a game kicks off, or before the obviously impending goal(s) were conceded, or the obviously vulnerable and exposed part of the pitch, exploited.

 

[SuperiorXI]

Knowing something is wrong is not elitist. It's normal.

If a band performed while high and going off note everyone will notice. But real technical musicians can notice which and what keys is wrong.

You dont need to be a master to see something is broken. You just need to be a master to fix it.

I'm not blaming fans calling ole tactics wrong. I do however got pretty irked when they claim the solution to the problem is for instance " play TFM and 352". The problem is there for everyone to see, the solution is something else.

Yeah you can know it's wrong and that's fine but going on like it's some basic easy solution i.e...

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It's not as simple as this. Put some respect on the names of elite-level management teams, they don't spend their days picking their nose and playing with lego, otherwise everyone would do it.

 

[MattofManchester]

Quite a bad example. You can easily bake a very good cake watching some good video guide on the internet. You can't get it wrong even if you are really bad at baking.

He's just trying to say I'm right, you're wrong, so I wouldn't bother. You can teach yourself an entire trade online, multiple, in fact, but apparently the most complicated thing he's ever looked for is baking a cake and he still couldn't do it.

The simplistic nature of his argument while attempting to be condescending says enough, really.

 

[Zlatan 7]

Yea, well, I've had a blogspot of mine quoted and used by Michael Cox of zonal marking. So I have some credibility

Got a link?

 

[b82REZ]

What amazes me if the policing of the forum by supporters of our manager. OP is one of the worst culprit of trying to shut down debate. This takes the fecking biscuit though.

Why join a FOOTBALL DISCUSSION forum if you're so precious over people criticising the manager and his mediocre tactical ability?

 

[jamesjimmybyrondean]

Op apparently wants this to be about football in general but it will well turn into an Ole thread. With Ole you don't even need hindsight to see some of his wrong decisions as they are rookie mistakes

 

[Withnail]

Wrong. I'm primarily result and entertainment oriented, as those are the few things I know. Results are pretty black and white, and I know whether or not I feel entertained.

I will defend the manager if a loss came down to one or two individual errors, because I have a hard time seeing how the manager should have prevented that.

Are you defending the manager for last night's debacle?

 

[Zlatan 7]

Quite a bad example. You can easily bake a very good cake watching some good video guide on the internet. You can't get it wrong even if you are really bad at baking.

Of course you can, never baked a cake before but watch master cake bakers on tele, read an internet guide and think you can do the same but instead of coming out a colourful 3 tier masterpiece your sloppy mess would be more like a leather loafer,

anyway I digress, the point was that reading something on the internet doesn’t make you an expert without any practical experience

 

[12OunceEpilogue]

It is frustrating I agree and the way we started annoyed me too, I just laugh at the posts saying that we are not coached or that players don’t know they’re jobs. It’s the highest level football ffs, someone who has only ever played at dinner time in school or Sunday league has no idea even though they think they know enough to absolute trash our manager

I am left wondering what they do on the training pitch quite often when I'm watching us in first halves of games, but yes I'd stop well short of saying they're literally not coached and have no idea how to conduct themselves on the pitch/in the dugout.

To my (epically untrained) eye there are a range of factors at play in our inconsistency and our propensity to misfire; we don't have an elite squad of players, we don't have elite management and coaching, we're in extraordinary times which have taken various tolls, some players (Rashford for sure) seem to have been asked to play through injuries/fatigue, we're trying to play various different systems on short turnarounds, maybe certain players aren't too good at adapting to new roles/sets of instructions quickly, there's a general sense 'leadership' is lacking in the team and of course the management structures above players and coaches are widely regarded as being filled with incompetent shitehawks. All of those and probably many other issues besides are at play and as armchair fans we have no real way of knowing exactly to what extent each factor affects our training sessions, performances and results on a week-to-week basis.

 

[Zlatan 7]

Yeah you can know it's wrong and that's fine but going on like it's some basic easy solution i.e...

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It's not as simple as this. Put some respect on the names of elite-level management teams, they don't spend their days picking their nose and playing with lego, otherwise everyone would do it.

That expert of tactics in that video

 

[Zlatan 7]

He's just trying to say I'm right, you're wrong, so I wouldn't bother. You can teach yourself an entire trade online, multiple, in fact, but apparently the most complicated thing he's ever looked for is baking a cake and he still couldn't do it.

The simplistic nature of his argument while attempting to be condescending says enough, really.

Could quote me if you’re going to talk shit

 

[Lentwood]

The most annoying part about being a football fan is having to listen to other football fans constantly blame managers for their tactics. It doesn't matter which team you support. It happens with every team, on every professional level. Am I really gonna listen to Armchair Bob, fueled by Stella and the power of hindsight, and value his opinion over a professional manager with years of experience, hours of research delivered to him/her by professionals before each game and exclusive "behind the scenes" knowledge?

The Dunning-Kruger effect is evident. You might protest and claim that you have watched football all your life and therefore don't fall into the "no experience" category, but you're wrong. You haven't managed a professional football team and you never will.

The worst culprit is the power of hindsight. Unless the team you support dominated the game by every reasonable metric, you can quite literally blame any loss or draw on poor tactics. You disagree with the selection of a player? Well, the player that wasn't selected would have made all the difference! You disagree with the formation? Ditto. Individual errors cost you the game? Well, the coach should have spent more time on X, Y and Z in practice! A more attacking setup than usual? Naivety! More defensive setup? Cowardice! The usual setup? Lack of creativity!

Ultimately it all falls back on one thing: the result. If the manager wins, then he/she got it right. In some cases people will claim that the win was lucky, though. It largely depends on the popularity of the manager and past results(I'm beginning to see a pattern).

The elephant in the room remains the same: you don't know shit. You don't know what the research behind the scenes have picked up. You don't know the thought processes and how the managers try to predict and counter each other. You don't know what is according to the plan or not. You don't know which players have performed in training or look especially motivated. You don't know which players are most suited to deal with the manager's tactics for a particular game. The only thing you do know is the end result. But you don't know how much of the loss/draw came down to failure in tactics or in-game adjustments. If tactics and in-game adjustments are responsible for 20% of the outcome(which I think is a very generous number), then the majority of losses and draws aren't primarily gonna be because of this. And it's not like tactics are binary either. There are many grey areas and you can get some things wrong and some things right.

"So we can't discuss tactics and in-game adjustments then?". Of course you can! This is a forum after all. But have at least an ounce of humility and don't talk as if you definitely have the answers, because you don't.

Correct, good post. Books like “Fooled by Randomness” are excellent at explaining how humans are easily deceived because we’re desperate to assign human agency and simple narratives to what are basically random events.

 

[SuperiorXI]

That expert of tactics in that video

4-pronged attack

 

[Zlatan 7]

I am left wondering what they do on the training pitch quite often when I'm watching us in first halves of games, but yes I'd stop well short of saying they're literally not coached and have no idea how to conduct themselves on the pitch/in the dugout.

To my (epically untrained) eye there are a range of factors at play in our inconsistency and our propensity to misfire; we don't have an elite squad of players, we don't have elite management and coaching, we're in extraordinary times which have taken various tolls, some players (Rashford for sure) seem to have been asked to play through injuries/fatigue, we're trying to play various different systems on short turnarounds, maybe certain players aren't too good at adapting to new roles/sets of instructions quickly, there's a general sense 'leadership' is lacking in the team and of course the management structures above players and coaches are widely regarded as being filled with incompetent shitehawks. All of those and probably many other issues besides are at play and as armchair fans we have no real way of knowing exactly to what extent each factor affects our training sessions, performances and results on a week-to-week basis.

Agree with all this

 

[11101]

Of course you can, never baked a cake before but watch master cake bakers on tele, read an internet guide and think you can do the same but instead of coming out a colourful 3 tier masterpiece your sloppy mess would be more like a leather loafer,

anyway I digress, the point was that reading something on the job yet et doesn’t make you an expert without any practical experience

You don't need to be a 3 star chef to tell if the cake tastes like shit though do you.

You can spot when something is wrong without needing to know the fix too.

 

[VeevaVee]

Some people can’t even see that Bruno is a good footballer mate.

 

[SiRed]

Bit like listening to people at work talk about boxing.... Its all ''Yeah, he as got fast feet and his arms are one inch longer but his weight has dropped a kilo bla bla bla''

Why cant anyone just say '' Yeah, he's hard him''

I guess thats the whole point of conversing with people. Be a bit of a boring place if we werent allowed to discuss things we may or may not completely understand.

I have a good understanding of tactics in football OP. More than a professional manager?? probably not, but enough to discuss what i see before my eyes. Dont be so precious.

 

[Zlatan 7]

[

You don't need to be a 3 star chef to tell if the cake tastes like shit though do you.

You can spot when something is wrong without needing to know the fix too.

But that’s not what I was pointing out, yes we can all look at the cake or taste it and say it’s shit, that’s opinion, to say you could do better because you’ve read an internet guide is stupid

 

[SuperiorXI]

Some people can’t even see that Bruno is a good footballer mate.

how can this be possible?

 

[Chief123]

The most annoying part about being a football fan is having to listen to other football fans constantly blame managers for their tactics. It doesn't matter which team you support. It happens with every team, on every professional level. Am I really gonna listen to Armchair Bob, fueled by Stella and the power of hindsight, and value his opinion over a professional manager with years of experience, hours of research delivered to him/her by professionals before each game and exclusive "behind the scenes" knowledge?

The Dunning-Kruger effect is evident. You might protest and claim that you have watched football all your life and therefore don't fall into the "no experience" category, but you're wrong. You haven't managed a professional football team and you never will.

The worst culprit is the power of hindsight. Unless the team you support dominated the game by every reasonable metric, you can quite literally blame any loss or draw on poor tactics. You disagree with the selection of a player? Well, the player that wasn't selected would have made all the difference! You disagree with the formation? Ditto. Individual errors cost you the game? Well, the coach should have spent more time on X, Y and Z in practice! A more attacking setup than usual? Naivety! More defensive setup? Cowardice! The usual setup? Lack of creativity!

Ultimately it all falls back on one thing: the result. If the manager wins, then he/she got it right. In some cases people will claim that the win was lucky, though. It largely depends on the popularity of the manager and past results(I'm beginning to see a pattern).

The elephant in the room remains the same: you don't know shit. You don't know what the research behind the scenes have picked up. You don't know the thought processes and how the managers try to predict and counter each other. You don't know what is according to the plan or not. You don't know which players have performed in training or look especially motivated. You don't know which players are most suited to deal with the manager's tactics for a particular game. The only thing you do know is the end result. But you don't know how much of the loss/draw came down to failure in tactics or in-game adjustments. If tactics and in-game adjustments are responsible for 20% of the outcome(which I think is a very generous number), then the majority of losses and draws aren't primarily gonna be because of this. And it's not like tactics are binary either. There are many grey areas and you can get some things wrong and some things right.

"So we can't discuss tactics and in-game adjustments then?". Of course you can! This is a forum after all. But have at least an ounce of humility and don't talk as if you definitely have the answers, because you don't.

I absolutely agree.

However, Ole got his tactics wrong yesterday and just as bad during in game changes. I could see that from my armchair.

 

[Oranges038]

The most annoying part about being a football fan is having to listen to other football fans constantly blame managers for their tactics. It doesn't matter which team you support. It happens with every team, on every professional level. Am I really gonna listen to Armchair Bob, fueled by Stella and the power of hindsight, and value his opinion over a professional manager with years of experience, hours of research delivered to him/her by professionals before each game and exclusive "behind the scenes" knowledge?

The Dunning-Kruger effect is evident. You might protest and claim that you have watched football all your life and therefore don't fall into the "no experience" category, but you're wrong. You haven't managed a professional football team and you never will.

The worst culprit is the power of hindsight. Unless the team you support dominated the game by every reasonable metric, you can quite literally blame any loss or draw on poor tactics. You disagree with the selection of a player? Well, the player that wasn't selected would have made all the difference! You disagree with the formation? Ditto. Individual errors cost you the game? Well, the coach should have spent more time on X, Y and Z in practice! A more attacking setup than usual? Naivety! More defensive setup? Cowardice! The usual setup? Lack of creativity!

Ultimately it all falls back on one thing: the result. If the manager wins, then he/she got it right. In some cases people will claim that the win was lucky, though. It largely depends on the popularity of the manager and past results(I'm beginning to see a pattern).

The elephant in the room remains the same: you don't know shit. You don't know what the research behind the scenes have picked up. You don't know the thought processes and how the managers try to predict and counter each other. You don't know what is according to the plan or not. You don't know which players have performed in training or look especially motivated. You don't know which players are most suited to deal with the manager's tactics for a particular game. The only thing you do know is the end result. But you don't know how much of the loss/draw came down to failure in tactics or in-game adjustments. If tactics and in-game adjustments are responsible for 20% of the outcome(which I think is a very generous number), then the majority of losses and draws aren't primarily gonna be because of this. And it's not like tactics are binary either. There are many grey areas and you can get some things wrong and some things right.

"So we can't discuss tactics and in-game adjustments then?". Of course you can! This is a forum after all. But have at least an ounce of humility and don't talk as if you definitely have the answers, because you don't.

I generally don't care about the opinions of pundits either, largely because of the same reasons given in the topic: they don't have all the facts and information. They haven't been there in the training ground and seen all the facts and had the necessary preparation. They can base more on previous experience of course, which generally makes their opinions more valid than the opinions of fans, but they still don't have enough information to draw a definite conclusion.

And there are many different ways to win a game. Just because a manager lost, it doesn't mean that he got his tactics all wrong.

Isn't this what the forum is for? A platform for people to express thoughts and opinions and argue about who is right or wrong? It's all based on actual events, hindsight and conjecture.

People will post what they see as being wrong if they feel strongly enough about it, facts have nothing to do with it. It's all about opinions, may be I think I'm right, maybe I think your wrong. Maybe some one else thinks we are both wrong.

May as well close this site down if you think people shouldn't be offering opinions on managers, players and tactics without being fully qualified managers and all knowing about what goes on behind the scenes.

By this metric all sports reporters should also be out of a job. As they report on the games watched and do the exact same thing as people on here, offering opinions and hindsight. Aside from being paid for it. How are they more qualified to talk about a game than the average fan?

Post match analysis should also be done away with too, no point in analysing things in hindsight to point put what might have been done wrong. Sure what can an ex player who's not a current manager know.

While we're at commentators may as well do one too, just in case they have an unqualified opinion on tactics or football in general. We'll all watch the games in silence and nobody who's not personnally involved with the teams will offer any opinion on anything.

In fact let's not watch or discuss games at all until we all go get UEFA pro licenses and only talk about the teams we coach and watch every day.

 

[Tom Van Persie]

how can this be possible?

Read his performance thread. It's comical.

 

[Lynty]

I'm friends with a lower league reserve manager, who I'm convinced one day will manage in the top leagues (fanatical about tactics, huge amount of dedication, networks really well etc.) I've helped out on occasion with drills, mainly sending in balls and putting out cones and such, but listening to him and his colleagues have in depth tactical discussion - is tedious and makes you realize how little the average fan is exposed to this stuff and how obsessed you have to be about football.

I can guarantee that 99.9% of users on this site, myself included, would hopelessly fail at managing a football team. We don't know enough about football.

"Knowing when the tactics are wrong" is the easy part.

 

[Chief123]

There's this fascinating thing. I mean, I'm not sure if you've heard of it, but it's got this wealth of information at your fingertips. I mean, just think about it, a little movement of the fingers and voila. I am talking about the wonderful thing called The Internet!!

Everything you want is available at your bloody fingertips. This idea that people can't learn things is so ludicrously 19th century.

If people are passionate enough, they may bother to research and analyze various ideas, movements and strategies that can help them know more so they have a better understanding of what they see. While they may not understand everything, they most certainly more than you and can make more accurate assessments on matters.

There are definitely backseat managers but there are plenty here who can pinpoint and provide analysis on how we play and you wouldn't say they're wrong.

It's ridiculous to shut others down down because you feel ignorant.

Your actual argument here is this:
X keeps acting as if he/she knows stuff. I don't know if what X says is true or not, but X is not on my telly so X must shut up because X is wrong and I am right.

What gets me confused is when I have people in what’s app groups asking questions like “How do I...” or “Does anyone know how to...”.

I’ll normally type their same question into Google and paste the link to the answer. They’ll then thank me like I wrote it.

How can Google not be someone’s first port of call before whatsapp or a forum?

 

[11101]

But that’s not what I was pointing out, yes we can all look at the cake or taste it and say it’s shit, that’s opinion, to say you could do better because you’ve read an internet guide is stupid

Who is saying they could do better? The OP is complaining about fans complaining about Ole. You don't need to be SAF or Rinus Michels to see he's out of his depth here. I along with half the matchday thread could see Fred was going to get sent off last week. That doesn't mean i knew who to replace him with.

 

[OleBoiii]

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[dove]

Of course you can, never baked a cake before but watch master cake bakers on tele, read an internet guide and think you can do the same but instead of coming out a colourful 3 tier masterpiece your sloppy mess would be more like a leather loafer,

anyway I digress, the point was that reading something on the internet doesn’t make you an expert without any practical experience

I don't disagree with that or this thread. I think many fans think they know more than the manager and some even think they would do a better job which is clearly wrong. But it is normal to discuss tactics, it's a football forum after all and we invest in this sport so much time so after watching the game for 15-20 years or more you surely understand something more than reading something on the internet and trying to be an expert 5 minutes later. Doesn't make you an expert but sometimes you just know we are in trouble when you see a starting XI. Some tactical and game management decisions were baffling yesterday and you don't need to be a genius to see that. Does it make us better than Ole though? Of course not.

 

[Zlatan 7]

Who is saying they could do better? The OP is complaining about fans complaining about Ole. You don't need to be SAF or Rinus Michels to see he's out of his depth here. I along with half the matchday thread could see Fred was going to get sent off last week. That doesn't mean i knew who to replace him with.

You want me to go looking and quoting? I’m sure you havnt missed them all

 

[SuperiorXI]

Read his performance thread. It's comical.

I'll have a look

 

[Zlatan 7]

I don't disagree with that or this thread. I think many fans think they know more than the manager and some even think they would do a better job which is clearly wrong. But it is normal to discuss tactics, it's a football forum after all and we invest in this sport so much time so after watching the game for 15-20 years or more you surely understand something more than reading something on the internet and trying to be an expert 5 minutes later. Doesn't make you an expert but sometimes you just know we are in trouble when you see a starting XI. Some tactical and game management decisions were baffling yesterday and you don't need to be a genius to see that. Does it make us better than Ole though? Of course not.

All that is fair and it’s the discussions that I miss to be honest. The extremeness of calling the manager a pe teacher or that a poster could do better kills any kind of discussion before it starts

 

[OleBoiii]

Isn't this what the forum is for?

There's a pretty big difference between:

"I think Manager X got it wrong. I think doing A instead of B could have made a difference."
and
"Manager X is clueless! Anyone could tell that doing A wasn't gonna work. He must be sacked ASAP"

 

[Smores]

Oh joy we're back to the "why are you all so mean" threads.

Just recognise your own bias and accept it for crying out loud. If you don't like reading criticism of Ole's tactics probably best not to go on a football forum after he made some tactical blunders.

 

[Lentwood]

Isn't this what the forum is for? A platform for people to express thoughts and opinions and argue about who is right or wrong? It's all based on actual events, hindsight and conjecture.

People will post what they see as being wrong if they feel strongly enough about it, facts have nothing to do with it. It's all about opinions, may be I think I'm right, maybe I think your wrong. Maybe some one else thinks we are both wrong.

May as well close this site down if you think people shouldn't be offering opinions on managers, players and tactics without being fully qualified managers and all knowing about what goes on behind the scenes.

By this metric all sports reporters should also be out of a job. As they report on the games watched and do the exact same thing as people on here, offering opinions and hindsight. Aside from being paid for it. How are they more qualified to talk about a game than the average fan?

Post match analysis should also be done away with too, no point in analysing things in hindsight to point put what might have been done wrong. Sure what can an ex player who's not a current manager know.

While we're at commentators may as well do one too, just in case they have an unqualified opinion on tactics or football in general. We'll all watch the games in silence and nobody who's not personnally involved with the teams will offer any opinion on anything.

In fact let's not watch or discuss games at all until we all go get UEFA pro licenses and only talk about the teams we coach and watch every day.

The OP clearly states that people are entitled to debate and have their opinions.

I personally don’t listen to punditry or read the newspapers because it is “noise” i.e. it should be filtered out, in the main.

Did you ever see a pundit say “that was an entertaining game of football today, one team had some shots that went in the goal and the other side also had some shots but none of them went in the goal, maybe they will be luckier next week”?

Did you ever hear a pundit say “sure Utd conceded three goals today, but one game is far too small a Dataset to draw any conclusions whatsoever... here’s a look at United’s defensive record over the last two years under Solskjaer”?

When pundits provide that level of commentary I’ll take their opinions more seriously.

When fans on this forum highlight long term trends over bleating about literally the last game of football they watched (sometimes the last few minutes), I’ll take their opinions seriously

Whilst the pundits are determined to over-analyse, scrutinise and sensationalise every tiny detail, every action, every gesture and every decision on a per minute per game basis I will continue to dismiss it as the garbage that it is.

I would say I wouldn’t bother to try and correct the trolls and the knee-jerkers on this forum, but the problem is, it can actually have a negative impact on the club. It’s also nice for the sensible posters, like the OP, to know there are still plenty of people out there who are level-headed and patient

 

[OleBoiii]

Oh joy we're back to the "why are you all so mean" threads.

I have no problem with harsh tones. That can be fun enough.

I do have a problem when people have delusional confidence in their own top football manager knowledge. I'd rather spend hours explaining the off-siderule to 5 year olds who are high on soda than listen to Armchair Bob who thinks he knows better than literally any manager in existence. It's revisionist to think that Fergie didn't suffer the same criticism, though to a lesser degree because he won more games. Isn't there a thread in here about "zombie football" that dates all the way back to the Fergie era?

 

[Oranges038]

There's a pretty big difference between:

"I think Manager X got it wrong. I think doing A instead of B could have made a difference."
and
"Manager X is clueless! Anyone could tell that doing A wasn't gonna work. He must be sacked ASAP"

I generally don't care about the opinions of pundits either, largely because of the same reasons given in the topic: they don't have all the facts and information. They haven't been there in the training ground and seen all the facts and had the necessary preparation. They can base more on previous experience of course, which generally makes their opinions more valid than the opinions of fans, but they still don't have enough information to draw a definite conclusion.

The elephant in the room remains the same: you don't know shit. You don't know what the research behind the scenes have picked up. You don't know the thought processes and how the managers try to predict and counter each other. You don't know what is according to the plan or not. You don't know which players have performed in training or look especially motivated. You don't know which players are most suited to deal with the manager's tactics for a particular game. The only thing you do know is the end result. But you don't know how much of the loss/draw came down to failure in tactics or in-game adjustments. If tactics and in-game adjustments are responsible for 20% of the outcome(which I think is a very generous number), then the majority of losses and draws aren't primarily gonna be because of this. And it's not like tactics are binary either. There are many grey areas and you can get some things wrong and some things right.

Agreed.

But that's not what you've posted, your pretty much saying that any opinions from people not personally involved will all facts and information at hand are invalid, which to an extent is true in because anyone outside of the team has no impact at all. But isn't that that the point of talking about the game?

So why come on here to read what other people post if you feel this way?

Should the forum be closed because none of us have any intimate knowledge of what is going on behind the scenes seeing as our opinions are irrelevant anyway?

Why bother watching the post match analysis with former players or other pundits ?

Why bother reading match reports?

Why bother reading sports opinion articles at all?

Why don't all of us watch all the games in complete silence and only listen to what the players, managers and those directly involved have to say and express no opinions or thoughts of our own?