Sunderland boss Paolo Di Canio brought on Lee Cattermole

Paolo Di Canio and Lee Cattermole have reached an agreement that give Sunderland's former captain a chance to re-establish himself as team’s key central midfielder. "We have to be honest, he wasn't in the plan," said Sunderland's manager. "But last week I spoke with him for half an hour. Man to man. I told him to have a future here he had to convince me because my regime is completely different to what he had until last year.”The team’s bad situation helped Di Canio to make this decision. Cattermole’s discipline on and off field raises some questions as the ten yellow cards and one red he recorded last season testified. But he’s got the skills to be the technical, British midfielder, Di Canio was looking for since this summer. His last season pass accuracy of 85% is better than the 76% the overall Sunderland team registered this campaign. And his passing ability made him a more accurate playmaker than other midfielders as Sebastian Larsson or David Vaughan. He definitely can pass the ball. And, with 65.7% of Cattermole's passes going forwards, he could be the needed playmaker able to link midfield and attack, which lacked the past three games. He can made accurate passes both in his own half and in the attacking half. Cattermole, who was captain under Steve Bruce and Martin O’Neill, can be the type of player Di Canio needs to re-shape the midfield at Sunderland.

About Roy Hodgson's counter-attacking plan

So, Roy Hodgson hits back at Gary Lineker and defended long-ball tactics as he pointed out that he set his England team to play long-ball football in the World Cup qualifier against Ukraine. Hodgson recognized he had given his team orders not to build from the back and instead to hit it long to Rickie Lambert as soon as possible, bypassing midfield. Against Ukraine’s high pressing game, Hodgson gave his players instructions to play the long ball. Former forward Gary Lineker described this tactics as "woeful". Make it sense? Hodgson is the manager and if he thought his players wasn’t suited enough to retain the control of the ball, he did well finding another way to attack asking his players to aim for Rickie Lambert and go for the second ball. Often blamed for his tactics ideas to play with two banks of four, Hodgson tried to play a more modern 4-5-1 formation still relying on defending play. Hodgson is not focused about a ball retention brand of football as his game plan sticks on the fast-break. Hodgson didn't attempt to change things during his coaching career. He's a manager focused on strong defensive effort, poor ball retention and quick attacking play. With Wayne Rooney, Daniel Sturridge and Danny Welbeck out, Hodgson went for this old and basic attacking strategy. England are unlikely to become a ball-playing team under him but FA knew it when they appointed former Fulham manager. The criticism on Hodgson’s play style make no sense also because Steven Gerrard and Jack Wilshere arer more suited for a direct approach than a ball retention game. Also, play defensively and rely on transitions is another way to win game. You can criticise it or praise it but these are opinions, like the same Hodgson affirmed. It isn’t a shame try to win the games  through. Other teams builttheir legacy playing long balls and Ukraine too played more long balls than England. You can question the fact that England is England and they deserve something different. But it requires different players and not just a different approach. Maybe players like Michael Carrick would help the team maintain ball control. A midfield paring Carrick and Frank Lampard will be less careless on the ball.

Holland with a father of modern football as manager

After an embarrassing group stage exit at EURO 2012, with 0 points earned in a three games stretch, the KNVB reappointed Louis van Gaal, one of the father of the modern football. After one year in charge, van Gaal restored the Oranje's identity: unbeaten, 22 goals scored and four allowed in their 2014 World Cup qualification group. After reaching France 1998 and Euro 2000 semi-finals, van Gaal is back to refresh the proud attacking football that characterized Dutch football from the glory days of  ‘70s. "The KNVB gave me a clear mission to play 'Dutch School' football and with the quality of this squad that must be possible," van Gaal told journalists. A preference for a passing game within a formation where is natural to build passing triangles all around...all this is Dutch. He did it building a classic and fluid 4-3-3, with wingers providing width and with a centre forward supported from two advanced midfielders playing just ahead of a single pivot. The 4-2-3-1 employed by former Dutch coach Bert van Marwijk, with two holding midfielders, were too much defensive. Then, van Gaal loaded his team with fresh blood and young players, usually better students than the olders. Feyenoord's Jordy Clasie, PSV Eindhoven's Adam Maher, Roma’s Kevin Strootman and Chelsea’s Marco van Ginkel support van Gaal’s ideology in his three-man midfield. Destructive holders as Mark Van Bommel and Nigel De Jong are gone. With Rafael van der Vaart and Siem de Jong as other options, Wesley Sneijder’s decreased role with the National team might be something to consider as van Gaal left him out from the squad he called for the 2014 World Cup games against Estonia and Andorra just to recall him following the injury which forced Georginio Wijnaldum out. The trademark of van Gaal's football is well clear yet. "They perfectly did everything a football team should do in my eyes," Pep Guardiola wrote in his autobiography. Barcelona’s tiki-taka credits the Dutchman. Marcelo Bielsa and his followers too have a van Gaal imprinting on their DNA.  "He's probably the most important and the best coach I ever had," Ajax manager Frank de Boer told L'Equipe before 1998 World Cup semi-final against Brazil. The most significant roster overhaul happened on the back four Daley Blind, Bruno Martins Indi and Stefan de Vrij are all part of a talented and young defence including also Miquel Nelom, Dwight Tiendalli and Erik Pieters. Up front, Robin Van Persie is now the undisputed centre forward. Van der Vaart, Jeremain Lens and Ruben Schaken are the Netherlands’ top goalscorers in the World Cup Qualifying stage. Ricky van Wolfswinkel is a reliable option. Van Gaal will step down after next World Cup bust still has the opportunity to put his stamp in a new generation of players once again.

PDC needs time for his revolution

You know, revolutions require time and aren’t painless. That was also for Sunderland new era that started with a defeat. Pajtim Kassami's header was enough to give the away side all three points. With Fulham playing 10 men behind the ball and with their main forward often moving wide open, Di Canio's players wasn’t’ able to find a way to score. The Back Cats looked fit and sharp after the physical boot camp Di Canio installed this summer, and they are built to play from the back, with short passes in a tactical platform new manager created in the way to play a more funny game. On the paper, Sunderland's manager wants his side to deploy a 4-2-4 formation.“When we have the ball, I want us to be 4-2-4 with the wingers, pushing forward to join the attack and the full-backs moving up. We want to attack, we want to entertain and we want to score goals and the players we have brought in will make us much more able to do that,” he told the Echo. And Sunderland did it with both Adam Johnson and Emanuele Giaccherini operating as true attacking wingers but the team was unable to get behind the opposition's back line. They started well, employing a pressing game with both central midfielders Cabral and Seb Larsson chasing their counterpart Steven Sidwell and Derek Boateng while the defensive line was playing high up the pitch. Also, both Cabral and Larsson was good moving alternatively up and down to support the back line in the build from the back and the forwards. The problem was that Sunderland wasn’t able to create clear scoring chances, despite Di Canio’s quote that "there was only one team that tried to play football and create chances. We were in their half for 80 minutes and had some good chances. Only one team set out to win it." Most of the shoots came from distance – 71% as whoscored stats pointed out – but it was just the Czech right-back Ondrej Celustka’s chance to be really dangerous. The powerful Jozy Altidore played well as target man up front but didn’t give his best shooting. Team’s creators Giaccherini and Stéphane Sessègnon was erratic while the only Johnson was in life but inconsistent. Team is looking for a central midfield playmaker and they needs one to pair to Cabral.

Mourinho changed way

José Mourinho started his first stint as Chelsea manager introducing a three-man midfield, a relative news for Premier League, lining up his team in a 4-3-3 formation. After the period spent with Real Madrid, Mourinho is back with new tactical ideas. We still have seen part of Portuguese’s classic game plan, as Chelsea dominated the opening minutes with an aggressive approach by forcing opponents to concede possession and as they rest with the ball to secure the lead. But overall Mourinho seemed more flexible, adopting a 4-2-3-1 in the 2-0 victory over Hull City, with Ramires and Frank Lampard utilized as central midfielders behind the offensive quartet. With Juan Mata out of shape, Mourinho asked the debutant Kevin De Bruyne to cut in from the right while Oscar was starting as the central playmaker and Eden Hazard filled the left forward spot. It was a fluid three interchanging positions as Hazard’s cutting in from the left combined with Oscar and De Bruyne's off-the-ball movements.  Hazard created six goal-scoring chances. All of them found space between the lines moving wide open or into deeper positions and all beneficed by the play of centre forward Fernando Torres which was acting like a true pivot or deep-lying forward and played better then stats dictate, although he disappeared after the break. They played a high tempo football and they could continue to play this way as Mourinho has six players for the three positions behind the centre forward to utilize within the game. He can utilize Hazard, Oscar, De Bruyne, Mata and André Schürrle the same way he did with Cristiano Ronaldo, Mesut Ozil and Angel Di Maria in Madrid. "I've managed so many times here and won so many matches here but we've not had many periods like that for quality," Mourinho told. His Chelsea 2.0 is more similar to Real Madrid than his first Blues version.