Importance of Board Philosophies

[WalkerRFC]

Hi

I was wondering what the real importance of the board's philosphies are. The thing is, I took over Chelsea, and the board wanted me to play possession football and attacking football and wouldn't budge. That isn't my philosophy however: I like to play on the counter.

I played on the counter all season, and won the Champions League and Premier League by a mile. The "attacking football" philosophy had been fulfilled by about 65%, purely due to the above average amount of goals I scored, I guess. However, my possession bar was only at 50%. Hadn't moved all season.

Still, I got offered a new three year contract. But always having this unfulfilled possession philosophy sort of spoils the fun and the realism a bit.

Furthermore, it seems like EVERY big club wants to play possession football. Why? We must stop this Guardiola obsession!

Cheers,
Aidan

 

[Sherkey]

Chelsea not budging from that philosophy sounds more realistic, since Abramovich has a big man-crush on Guardiola and his style of play.. It depends on the club, basically.. Some clubs allow you to change philosophies, while others are more restrictive. As long as you're performing well, it shouldn't be an issue/..

 

[rocheyb]

You've been successful so you should now be able to go to the Boardroom, select the Talk to Board option and effectively edit the philosophies to whatever you want.

At the beginning of my Southampton save, Nicola Cortese insisted that I sign Italian players and I couldn't persuade him to drop the idea. But as I became more successful, with a handful of Italians in my squad, I was able to remove that stipulation from the list. By the time of the board takeover in season 2020/21, the new chairman Simon Blitz (who, in reality, is a former chairman of Oldham Athletic!) was happy to go with my philosophies.

So now, I'm only obliged to play attacking football, dominate possession, sign young players for the youth team and use academy players - all of which I wanted to do, anyway.

 

[Maximus94]

You won't see that possession bar increase until the 2nd or 3rd season. Took my Ajax side 3-4 years to build it to full, despite having an average of 62% possession through the season.

 

[alexdesouza]

Players will pick your club if you have a philosophy they agree with.

Especially young players and attacking football. Possession is a thing that was brought on by the fans. Arsene Wenger has recently dispelled the myths in his last interview where he explains about the Geneva conventions and how each year, depending on the outcome (aka in retrospect which in itself is useless in the football realm), will come to a different conclusion on how to win. So coaches will say "Possession" when Barca was dominating, physical abilities last year with Bayern (very Invincibles-esque in that all their players were 6ft and amazing - contrast to Barca style before) and now the Real Madrid/Dortmund style is preferred (despite Dortmund having a shocking season). So it changes because different teams succeed with different approaches. So the only real conclusion you can make from that is "Winning teams win, losing teams lose." - The end.