clarets1978 wrote: ↑Mon Jul 08, 2024 3:31 pm
....it probably tok a different type of player to work in a Dyche team...
houseboy wrote: ↑Mon Jul 08, 2024 3:02 pm
....I believe that all this hatred towards him is misplaced and that much of his failure with us was his inability to play Dyches game, which is not a criticism of Dyche just a clash of football cultures...
I am convinced Wout is a human Rorschach Test.
His tenure at Man U was very mixed at best- his pressing and link play was consistent but didn't yield a ton as he was isolated by his teammates, they tended to score more without him- possibly because they didn't isolate whoever replaced him, possibly because he wasn't hugely productive, possibly both.
His career record is generally very impressive, including at the highest possible levels of international football, and as this tournament has shown he can offer more than goals.
But these comments show that even when he was at Burnley people saw what they wanted to. Everyone insists he was used as a head on a stick by Dyche and he just wasn't. Check the heatmaps for average positions, check the pressing & passing stats, compare them to Jay/Wood, Barnes/Wood etc.
When Wout arrived, Jay was used in the Wood role- high, up top forward on the edge of the offside line. Wout was used in the Jay/Barnes role, more like Jay than Barnes in terms of his movement and dropping deep, but with elements of Barnes' holdup and link play. He did this well in some games, notably when Cork returned, less well in others (although the Cork stuff is part revisionism too, I do think he ought to have had a couple more games but he had been dropped because he'd been dreadful in the early half of the season).
Yet people will swear blind that Wout was used as Wood's replacement and a head on a stick when he just plain was not played in that role by Dyche and instead Jay was shuffled into the Wood role, or that Dyche didn't want him when Dyche played him every game and it was Jackson who dropped him. Dyche claimed they'd targeted Wout for a while, I believe that, as a partner for Wood, not a replacement, but when Wood left I suspect Pace was pretty limited in who he'd be willing to let Dyche sign. So the square peg change was Jay into the Wood role. Again, check heat maps, pressing etc if you don't believe me. The problem wasn't that Wout didn't fit into the system, it was that we'd just lost the best fit for the main frontman in that system and so had to move a support striker into that role- and it wasn't Wout who moved.
