I’d say 90% of good tactics is just playing the right players in the roles that suit their skillset.
Tripper-Foden-Bellingham was a disastrous Left hand side combination, and it didn’t need a rocket scientist to work that out.
I think too many fans a guilty of wanting players for their own personal self gratification, instead of taking a step back, looking at how the manager sets up his team, and going from there.
example: the type of players who Conte wanted are not the same as Ange and we should adjust accordingly.
Under Ange, the wingers are the Primary width-giver and that’s just not Eze’s game.
He needs an overlapping fullback to be see the best of him, so he can have the freedom to drift inside. Ange won’t give him that. I’ve never wanted us to buy Eze for that reason. The Odobert transfer delighted me because it showed a hard commitment towards the type of player with attributes that we were after, not a big name who plays differently.
However people want to spin it, Wilson Odobert is far more likely to replicate what we wanted from our first choice, Nico Williams, than Eberiche Eze would have. To me that’s really “backing the manager”.