I think we're now firmly in a cult-of-the-manager era. The top guys like Pep and Klopp are the celebrated avatars of footballing ideologies they didn't invent, merely perfected, and now everyone fancies themselves as a potential mastermind so they can get some plaudits, too. Didn't we see enough of that with Martin? The introduction of more and more analysis, all these "coaches voice" style youtube videos, all this celebration of the cerebral side of football which I'm naturally a fan of but...
At it's heart, football is a simple game. We're now watching trained athletes in their prime brow-beaten into overthinking systems and details and shapes just to flatter the aspirations of the latest unproven pretender in the manager's seat. How hard is it to just move your ass, run like fcuk for 90 minutes, and make sure the ball spends more time in their third than yours, regardless of if you're passing 5 or 50 yards a time to achieve it?
For all the nuance and dimension and genius of Pep and Klopp and the rest, sometimes you just need a Harry Redknapp to galvanise the dressing room and get the players fired up enough that they want to run til they puke. Duff's tinkering with shapes and this absolutely absurd "sub Cullen for a defender when you need a goal" nonsense we've seen two games in a row now tells me Duff thinks he's a lot smarter than he is. It has failed miserably twice. He doesn't need to be clever - it's the Championship, not the Champions League. He just needs to inspire his players to run, put in 90 mins of effort, and attack either the ball or the opposing team with purpose every second. Do that and the rest will work itself out.