[Getting Barnsley and Burnley To Compete With The Top Four (on a budget) Working Towards Total Football FM22]

On 06/02/2022 at 23:17, Pattric_b said:

The Next Chapter

 

(Warning, another long post)

I had been enjoying my time off when I saw the news. Burnley had sacked their manager. They sit comfortably at the bottom of the Premier League in mid December, with 9 points in 19 games. Safety is 8 points away and they appear to be doomed for relegation...

I'm only after reading about Harry Potts, the former manager of Burnley from 1958 to 1970. He isn't a household name for whatever reason but he is credited with bringing Total Football to England. Burnley are an overlooked club from a small city only an hour and a half away from Barnsley. I felt compelled to help them battle relegation and keep them in the league. They are a club with an interesting history and deserve to be competing for a title. I feel the urge to follow in Harry Potts footsteps and achieve just that. 

We're off to Turf Moor!

Harry Potts and the Forgotten History of Burnley

1959/60 title winning squad photo

I would like to preface this post with a little history I'm sure most of you have never heard of. When people think of English soccer teams and players, historically they are synonymous with direct play, fast pace, very physical and aggressive play. That stereotype was broken in 1959 in a very unlikely place.

The above image is the greatest side in Burnley's history. In 1959/60 they managed to win the title on the final day of the season after defeating Man City 1-2. They received plaudits from their peers that season for their innovative style of play. Under Harry Potts, they are credited with playing an early version of "Total Football". I know, Harry Potts doesn't quite hold as much weight as a name like Rinus Michels or Johan Cryuff around here but in reality, his ideas and implementation of a playing philosophy are quite similar. I think the fact there is very little footage of this Burnley team in action plays a part in this team being forgotten about. But judging by what I've read, they played very similar to Ajax in their prime. 

A lot of people credit Jimmy Hogan with inventing the idea behind total football and bringing it to the Austrians who then influenced the Hungarians. Hogan came from Burnley and Potts spent the majority of his playing career at Burnley so it came full circle. But, the biggest influence on how he had Burnley playing was the great Hungarian side of the 1950's and specifically Hungary's humiliating destruction of England in 1953. Hungary won 6-3 that day, in Wembley, and it shocked the world. 

This Burnley side in a sense also utilized the moneyball technique I adapted at Barnsley. They won the title with the lowest transfer fees spent and only bought 2 of the players shown in the picture above. The rest were products of their superb scouting system and academy, which Burnley championed. With a population of 81k at the time, they were and I believe are still the smallest city to ever win the League title. They also had approximately 33% of Burnley's population show up for their home matches which is unprecedented. The average percentage in the league at that time was 12. 

Bringing Total Football To Britain

Jimmy Adamson, the Burnley wing back, said ‘We liked to keep our game fluid. We didn’t believe in sticking to numbers on our backs. If the full-back suddenly found himself in the momentary role of a winger, then he got on with it, and someone else took over his job in the rear. Burnley played their football “off the cuff”. That best described the Burnley style. There were few hard and fast rules. Obviously we tried to vary our tactics according to the opposition and state of the pitch. But off the cuff fluid football is the aim.’

Jimmy Robson, the Burnley inside forward, added: ‘There was no detailed game plan as such, not in the way that there is today. Each player knew broadly what was expected of him. We didn’t adopt a way of playing to deal with different opponents. Had we done so, say, in Hamburg, when they knocked us out of the European Cup, we might have done better. But generally speaking we played what we considered to be our natural game. It was based on the WW formation except we played it with pace and mobility. It was something which we built up over years of playing together. A lot of it seemed common sense. For example, if Jimmy Adamson moved forward, one of us would cover the gap. We didn’t need to be told, it was almost instinctive. As inside-forwards we knew we had to funnel back when we were under attack. The wing-halves – Jimmy Adamson and Brian Miller or Bobby Seith – would pull back to reinforce the defence and we, inside-forwards, needed to stay in touch with them.’

He also said "A very important aspect of the clubs success was the family atmosphere at Burnley. We were a close bunch. We got on well with one another. We would be pleased for one another when success came."

You can see how important teamwork was to this Burnley side. They were a very versatile team with their players capable of playing multiple positions. Two of the most important ingredients for Total Football.  Potts set Burnley up in a 4-4-2 formation playing a swift passing game. The players were encouraged to be comfortable on the ball (technique) he also valued possession and wanted his team to keep the ball as much as possible. He trained them to pass the ball only when a teammate was open in space. Long balls were generally frowned upon. The Burnley fullbacks would surge forward at any opportunity and the centerbacks would try to play their way out of trouble and deliver defense splitting passes. 

"Wolves legend Billy Wright was impressed by the methodology of Potts, stating “every man is searching for space.” Jimmy Greaves was another admirer, describing the Burnley way as a “smooth, skilled football that was a warming advertisement for all that was best about British football.”

This Burnley team lasted four years (1960-1964) and in those years they won a league title, appeared in the FA Cup final, appeared in the European Cup quarter final and the league cup semi- final. They finished top four each of those years as well. As to the actual reason this team never gets talked about, is beyond me, but they deserve plaudits. 

Other Factors That Set Them Apart

 

Burnley is a very small city with a population of only 80k at that time compared to 88k now. They were a failing textile and coal mining town being left behind as technology developed. Although Burnley is a small place, their fanbase was as passionate as any other club if not more so. 33% of Burnley's population would show up for a home game. As I said earlier in the post, the closest other team only had 12% of their population show for a game. These numbers are obviously skewed given how small Burnleys population is compared to cities like London, Liverpool, Manchester, etc. But it goes to show how much the residents of Burnley relied on their club as an escape from their weekly work life. Their support was undeniable. Burnley had to top Man City on the final day of the season to capture the title and they estimate 30k Burnley supporters traveled to Manchester to try and squeeze into the stadium. Thousands of supporters were forced to listen on a radio outside the stadium. 

Burnley implemented a scouting system that leveled the playing field in the sense that they recruited young players for cheap and a lot of them made their way into the first team. Their chief scout Jack Hixon was known for unearthing talents in the north east of England. Jimmy Adamson, the Burnley captain,  was one such player, and he was not alone. John Angus, Tommy Cummings, Ray Pointer and Jimmy Robson were all from the north east and recruited to Burnley by Hixon. All five players were key to their title winning season. 

Burnley Philosophies to Integrate

This is going to just be a quick recap of what I've written about, a summary, of what changes I'm going to be implementing at my new club. There isn't much written about how they played defensively so I can only imagine it was similar to how other teams played at the time. 

- Fast paced pass and move possession style tactics. No more defensive route one tactics. Attacking fullbacks, centerbacks with good technique and passing and complete players with great teamwork and technique. 

- Sign and recruit versatile players.

- Have the best scouting system and scout all corners of England for local players. 

- Bring a league title back to Burnley

- Win trophies with a small budget

 I will go into more detail about these points as we progress through time. Right now I'm focusing on surviving relegation. 

Burnley in My Save

It's December of 2030 and its been about a year and a half since I left Barnsley. Arteta has been named Barnsley manager but only after Pochettino decided to leave for the United job. 

A quick look at this team, there are 3 former Barnsley players in this squad (Brittain, Golitin and McLane), all of which were never good enough for the first team once I reached a high level of playing. They've also made the odd decision to loan some players who could be of great use to the first team. We have our work cut out for us. I made the decision to play our first game the same way I set up my Barnsley side to see how far off the standard we are. 

My first game came one day after being announced and it was against Arsenal. So there is a sense we are being thrown to the wolves. Win, lose or draw I won't fault anyone just yet. 

And to my surprise, we held our own before inevitably being overrun by Arsenals quality. We lack a lot of quality in a key area, central midfield. I would share my schedule page but its mostly red dots. We lost every single game we played in December for example. 

I will absolutely be making signings in January. With a remaining transfer budget of 18m, I have some wiggle room. Luckily the player profile I'm looking for is pretty similar to what I did at Barnsley. In order to play total football, you need complete players. 

I began trying to recruit my former collegues at Barnsley but not surprisingly most don't want to join a team destined for relegation. Even our friend Matt...

So, the journey begins again. We will attempt to claim a league title and European glory by playing a specific way. The Harry Potts way!

Tl;dr

I've taken over as Burnley manager and I plan to save them from relegation then restore success at the club by adapting similar play philosophies and techniques used by Harry Potts in the 1959/60 season. Total Football is coming back to Burnley!

Thank you for reading and if theres anyone who has more information to offer in regards to this Burnley team, feel free to share!

Sources:

https://thesefootballtimes.co/2018/02/27/burnley-total-football-and-the-pioneering-title-win-of-1959-60/

Quelch, Tim. Never Had It So Good. Pitch Publishing, 2015

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Football

 

Hopefully we will be reunited again soon. All the best boss! 

[Getting Barnsley and Burnley To Compete With The Top Four (on a budget) Working Towards Total Football FM22]

On 10/12/2021 at 01:59, Pattric_b said:

Winding Down the Season and the Epitome of Moneyball?:

We are continuing to defy the odds. I think we have been very fortunate as we have won quite a few games we lost on xG by a large margin.

As you can see, we should be in 7th based on our xG and xGA. Despite all that, we sit top of the table with only 3 matches remaining...

We have guaranteed champions league football. We have also had our fair share of struggles to score, as we aren't as creative as the top teams, but we have been very good and lucky, keeping the ball out of our own net. I won't lie. I am feeling very nervous even though there isn't any pressure on us. I expected us to finish just above relegation. At the moment, we control our own destiny. 5 point lead with 3 games left. If United drops any points, they are in trouble. The best part for us is the remaining schedule is very kind to us. We play Norwich (away), Derby (home) and Tottenham (home). I hope that by the time we play spurs, we will have already wrapped the league up. 

The Final Matches:

Match day 36 is finished, and we did not play well at all. I'm not sure if it's nerves or what, but we could have easily lost this match. 

United won their game 1-2 and they close the gap between us. The title race is heating up...

Match Day 37: 

United face a tough match against Liverpool. We, on the other hand, have an easy matchup against Derby who sits 19th on the table. We should win this match with ease. If United drop points and we win, the title belongs to us. 

As I expected, United did not drop points and beat their rivals in the early kickoff. A late goal, no less. They are putting the pressure on our inexperienced squad. Going into the match I do not want to do team meetings. I feel it may be unwantedly pressuring my players. So we are approaching this next match just like any other. This is the lineup: 

And here are the goals: 

We have kept up to United and won 2-0. Our center back Mads Anderson scoring an absolute screamer and Maupay nearly ruining a penalty kick. We now have a 3 point lead on United and one game left to play. If we draw Spurs, we will the title! Final day drama is on the cards, I know. United are playing 15th place Burnley. I expect them to win that match. 

The 15th minute of the match approaches and I notice Burnley has already scored! Only for Fernandes to score a penalty a few minutes later. We went into halftime 0-0 and Spurs have had the better chances. I feel like changes probably should be made, so I drop my defensive line and untick 'use offside trap' because Isak is running riot on our back line. We come out into the second half in a much better position. Isak is no longer beating our back line in a foot race to long balls. Then, in the 71st minute, a highlight appears:

We have hit Spurs on a quick counter and lead the match 1-0 thanks to Raschl's vision. Not long after do I see United have scored in the 88th minute and I assume the worst is about to come for us. 

We make it to the 91st minute before a highlight appears and we concede a penalty. Kane stepped up and scored. There was 5 minutes of extra time and I had a bad feeling it was going to be one of those games... However, no other highlights appeared for the match and we drew Spurs 1-1. Meaning we were champions!

The title came a lot earlier than I expected, and luck was on our side. Whatever we do in the future, this will go down as probably the greatest achievement in Barnsley history. I'm very proud the vision came together and we could achieve such success with the second smallest payroll in the league. In that sense, money ball has succeeded. We built a championship winning side with a small budget. My goal now is to continue moving forward and win the champions' league on a budget.

I wanted to do a quick update on how our season ended. I'm ecstatic. It will definitely be hard to repeat the title given how much luck we seemed to have. And we also have the champions league coming up, so that will be very exciting. I hope our reputation as a club improves a lot so we will have no limits on who we can sign!

My next post is going to go in on how we played this season. I am going to go through our data hub and try to assess how we performed. 

Thanks for reading. 

Yessss, congratulations!! Incredible achievement. I'm adding this to my CV, that's okay right?  This has been really cool to follow, looking forward to the European tour. 

[Getting Barnsley and Burnley To Compete With The Top Four (on a budget) Working Towards Total Football FM22]

hahaha thanks for re-signing me  no way they've taken my LinkedIn photo for the facepack, I need to update it. I'd be happy to answer any questions (feel free to message here or DM me on twitter @trevillion_), but I'm guessing you already know must of the stuff that I can reveal. 

[Getting Barnsley and Burnley To Compete With The Top Four (on a budget) Working Towards Total Football FM22]

Hey, I was sent this by a friend and it was a great read - you've clearly done your research on the club and found good success. Even if the "Moneyball" trope and influence of Billy Beane is often over-stated (you're not the first nor will you be the last), it's fairly realistic replication of our recruitment philosophy. I'm actually one of your recruitment analysts so please keep me on in-game lmao

[International Staff Improvement]

When playing as a club I usually give my Chairman/DoF the responsibility of hiring staff and I would like to do the same with international management. I know it isn't particularly realistic as in this situation the manager would have the most influence in handing out these roles, however I just don't enjoy trudging through various attributes and trying to find the best option. Equally, there isn't really a limit to hiring for these roles. I would like a similar screen to the club where you can see how your staff rank against other teams in the league, and how many roles are available. A team like France would have more roles available than say San Marino. 

[[N. Ireland] Data Issues]

nice, it was weird as they even had different preferred feet so I wasn’t 100% sure 

[[N. Ireland] Data Issues]

two Emmanuel Adegboyega’s at Newry City AFC

thought could be twins since same D.O.B but one is Irish/Nigerian and the other N. Irish. Similar positions but vastly different attributes. 

[Can’t continue]

Playing as Spurs and it’s stuck processing on an early Europa League round. I’ve even restarted my laptop and tried going on holiday but I can’t proceed past the 27th August

[Accuracy of Data]

I'm currently doing my MSc Dissertation in Economics and want to look at the production efficiency of teams in Europe's top 5 leagues. Factors I want to use in determining player performance concern costs in improving performance, such as training facilities etc. It is difficult to find data for this online, team's do not disclose the yearly costs put into running and maintaining facilities, nor can these facilities be accurately valued. The best option is to is to use FM's data, which gives me a good ranking on who's facilities are relatively better. My question is to what extent is this data accurate? I am aware that each club has data researchers working for Sports Interactive, but I would like to know the processes that go into making sure the data is fully correct. TIA.

[Preferences aren't being saved]

I am having this problem too, it’s really annoying having to reset it everytime since the update