[Albion] The "Potter doesnt play with wingers" myth

[Megazone]

Many teams still play with wingers .... we just aren’t one of them.

Agree. We don't play out and out wingers like your Will Buckley's or your Craig Noone's, but our wingbacks do operate as wingers when going forward. Lamptey has looked like the best winger this club has ever had at times.

 

[British Bulldog]

We might use the outside channels quite a bit but as for playing with wingers we can't? we havn't got any? The nearest I've seen to us having wingers in the Prem are 2 players? one was sold to fulham and the other has been injured for about the last 2 years?

 

[NooBHA]

I have no idea how this myth came around as it is really very easy to debunk: just watch the damn games. GP nearly always used wingers in Östersund and in Swansea and Brighton is no exception to this.

If watching the games is not enough, here's a few heatmaps showing where players spent most of their time on the pitch this season:

Trossard
View attachment 126919

March
View attachment 126920

Gross
View attachment 126921

Mooy
View attachment 126922

I think your own maps contra your argument Swansman. The fact that those players you refer to, find themselves all over the pitch tends to suggest that they are not played as out and out wingers. They tend to have a much free-er roles than playing out wide as a winger.

 

[Guinness Boy]

Heard you the first time, it’s a “mod” thing to not rate Ali J at all isn’t it?

No, it appears successive Albion managers haven't either

 

[Swansman]

So Maupay is sometimes a winger ? And Connolly ?

Just because a player finds himself in a wide position doesn’t make him a ‘winger’.

Heat maps also prove very little in regards to how a team sets up ...... if the team you are playing against has wide players the team will need to get wide to defend against it.

Many teams still play with wingers .... we just aren’t one of them.

If Maupay & Connolly would primarly spend their time on the pitch on the wings, yes they would be wingers.

I have said Potter doesn't play wingers. 3 of the players mentioned aren't wingers and March is more a utility player now. They're intelligent midfielders who use whatever space is available to create space for others, and if that means going towards the wing to create space for others they'll do that. Do they play like Ryan Giggs? No.

They dont play like Ryan Giggs, no, but thats not the only way to play as a winger. Playing on the wing makes you a winger. Playing defensively on the midfield makes you a defensive midfielder. Dale Stephens dont play like Patrick Vieira, yet he is a defensive midfielder. Neal Maupay got a different playing style from Zlatan Ibrahimovic, yet they are both central forwards, since they play in a forward position centrally on the pitch.

 

[Kalimantan Gull]

I have no idea how this myth came around as it is really very easy to debunk: just watch the damn games. GP nearly always used wingers in Östersund and in Swansea and Brighton is no exception to this.

If watching the games is not enough, here's a few heatmaps showing where players spent most of their time on the pitch this season:

Trossard
View attachment 126919

March
View attachment 126920

Gross
View attachment 126921

Mooy
View attachment 126922

Ah, I was wondering where Trossard was disappearing to half the time

More seriously, I think these heat maps might* be showing us how we set up defensively, as much as what we do when we have the ball, i.e. the attacking midfielders drifting wide to deny the opposing full backs the ball or space to attack into, and then cutting inside off the wings when we regain possession.


*who really knows

 

[AmexRuislip]

I have no idea how this myth came around as it is really very easy to debunk: just watch the damn games. GP nearly always used wingers in Östersund and in Swansea and Brighton is no exception to this.

If watching the games is not enough, here's a few heatmaps showing where players spent most of their time on the pitch this season:

Trossard
View attachment 126919

March
View attachment 126920

Gross
View attachment 126921

Mooy
View attachment 126922

I think you'll find this heat map is actually from the pitch invasion by Albion fans, May 2017 for when we were promoted to PL.
It shows the older generation of Albion fans unable to hold it in pitch side

 

[Biscuit Barrel]

Gross's pitch map highlights that he is always looking for the water bottle on the touchline due to being knackered after 10 mins.

 

[Terry Butcher Tribute Act]

If Maupay & Connolly would primarly spend their time on the pitch on the wings, yes they would be wingers.



They dont play like Ryan Giggs, no, but thats not the only way to play as a winger. Playing on the wing makes you a winger. Playing defensively on the midfield makes you a defensive midfielder. Dale Stephens dont play like Patrick Vieira, yet he is a defensive midfielder. Neal Maupay got a different playing style from Zlatan Ibrahimovic, yet they are both central forwards, since they play in a forward position centrally on the pitch.

so what you're saying is it's fine to say "Potter doesn't play with traditional wingers", but not to say "Potter doesn't play with wingers".

Great.


Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

 

[Swansman]

I think your own maps contra your argument Swansman. The fact that those players you refer to, find themselves all over the pitch tends to suggest that they are not played as out and out wingers. They tend to have a much free-er roles than playing out wide as a winger.

Give me an example of a "out and out" winger in the Premier League and lets have a look at their map.

 

[beorhthelm]

We might use the outside channels quite a bit but as for playing with wingers we can't? we havn't got any? The nearest I've seen to us having wingers in the Prem are 2 players? one was sold to fulham and the other has been injured for about the last 2 years?

point well made.

 

[Swansman]

Many teams still play with wingers .... we just aren’t one of them.

Give me examples of PL teams playing with two (or even one) "traditional" winger in 2020.

 

[Betfair Bozo]

Give me an example of a "out and out" winger in the Premier League and lets have a look at their map.

There aren't many "chalk on the boots" wingers these days. Adama Traore, perhaps?

 

[NooBHA]

Give me an example of a "out and out" winger in the Premier League and lets have a look at their map.

Very few teams in PL play with wingers now - The closest I can think of in the PL was Leroy Sane but he has been out injured all of last year. Robert Snodgrass also tends to stay quite wide most of the time but his map won't show it as he takes a lot of free kicks from all over the pitch

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

dont think ive heard of this, myth or otherwise.

as noted Mooy and Gross especially are not played to their strengths if they are out wide.

It was posted today (on the Benteke thread, I think, to justify why there is no point us having a target man without a constant barrage of balls blasted or lofted in from the touchline from the latterday equivalents of Stan Matthews and Peter Thompson).

One eyebrow shot up when I read it.

 

[Kalimantan Gull]

Give me examples of PL teams playing with two (or even one) "traditional" winger in 2020.

Yeah, not many. But now you - and many others no doubt - are defining Salah, Mane, Son, Rashford, Grealish and Willian as wingers. That feels weird really

 

[blue-shifted]

Lots of pointless debate on this thread, but the only thing I'm taking from it that I'm lamenting the loss of the true winger. Wonderful and thrilling to see genuine pace out wide get to the byline and deliver for an imposing centre forward to get on the end of one.

My formative years, were spent watching the Blackburn team which won the title, with Wilcox and Ripley getting past the full back and hitting SAS. Even better, the Newcastle team of a few years later, Ginola and Gillespie feeding Sir Les and Alan again on their way to a prodigious goals tally. Even a grudging respect for Beckham and Giggs now (couldn't stand them at the time).

I'd love that trend to come back round again. These things are always cyclical.

 

[blue-shifted]

Is part of the problem here that there isn't really a name which is universally accepted to describe the position, say Trossard and Gross usually play in? As has been said most teams are playing three forwards, with two deeper and wider on either side.

But nobody has decided what they are called. Rashford, Salah, Messi, Gross, they're not wingers, really are they. A winger is something else. Giggs is a winger.

Inside forwards is the closest I can think of. Deep lying strikers, sometimes I hear. Inverted wingers sometimes, though that's problematic as they usually aren't inverted.

 

[Megazone]

Yeah, not many. But now you - and many others no doubt - are defining Salah, Mane, Son, Rashford, Grealish and Willian as wingers. That feels weird really

What exactly is a winger though?

Beckham was an unbelievable crosser of the ball and had a brilliant range of passes but yet wasn't someone who beat players running down the line.

Then there's Ginola who was quality at beating players, carrying the ball and cutting in and scoring.

Both were seen as wingers but totally different players

 

[Jim in the West]

Maybe this throwback to six years ago helps explain the relative lack of pure wing-play....

Man United 2 Fulham2

Fulham's Dan Burn said he had "never headed that many balls since the Conference" after defending 81 Manchester United crosses. Burn, 21, made 22 clearances in the 2-2 draw at Old Trafford on Sunday.

The number of crosses set a new Premier League record.

The 6ft 7in defender, who played 10 times in the Conference for Darlington in 2011, added: "We knew that was going to happen and I was happy for them to play like that. I'm six foot seven so it helps when dealing with those sort of balls". Fulham boss Rene Meulensteen had described United's style as "straightforward".

Despite breaking the crosses record that had stood since 2006, only 18 found a player in red.