The trait Sheffield Wednesday boss Danny Rohl shares with Real Madrid's Carlo Ancelotti
Alan Biggs on the versatile nature of Danny Rohl’s tactics at Sheffield Wednesday
Just seen this quote from a modern day managerial great and found it very relevant to events at S6.
“I don’t have a fixed style. My approach changes depending on the players I have and the opponent we face. Football is about decisions. If you’re too rigid with one way of playing, it makes it easier for the opposition to find solutions.”
This is Carlo Ancelotti, the five-times Champions League winner currently in charge of Real Madrid.
If it’s good enough for Ancelotti, it’s certainly good enough for Danny Rohl as a key reason why for so long the discussion around Sheffield Wednesday has been play-offs with, at best, a mid-table squad. And yet evidently not good enough for many others. You see managers routinely dropping into jobs spouting “their philosophy” and a determination to bend their new team to it.
Often this is no different to nearly everyone else’s philosophy. 4-2-3-1 is all the rage, plus pressing and breaking in transition.
Rohl has used it, too, but with many variations and changes in personnel. Don’t know about you but it’s so flexible, sometimes I can’t pick it, and guessing any teamsheet next to impossible.
Of course, there is a single way - without having more ways - to win games of football. Marcela Bielsa always said at Leeds that he had no Plan B as such - because Plan B was to make Plan A better. He did fall foul of this in the end but only after considerable success.
Across the city here in Sheffield, we saw a team in a set style storm from League One to ninth in the Premier League before opponents learned how to counteract them. But the point is this is only possible if Plan A and all its parts is good enough to dominate most opponents regardless.
That is palpably not true of Wednesday and it’s only by running through the alphabet that Rohl has very skilfully enhanced the face value of his squad.
Clearly he’d prefer to be high pressing and threading passes from the keeper. But he’s buried his preferences - for now at least - and you get the feeling that Ancelotti would be the first to applaud.
In the end, though, the differences are fractional. Wednesday are very arguably a top six side between the boxes but often a relegation team inside them, especially their own.
It’s why they’re still chasing a win against any of the leading outfits going into the latest attempt against Sunderland on Friday. But, with Rohl, desperate to keep the season alive, don’t rule anything out yet.
Read More from Alan Biggs and Sheffield Wednesday: Owls need to adapt to Danny Rohl, not the other way round