You Can't Test a System With a Frankenstein Squad; A Defense of Cohesion, Continuity, and Proper Player Assessment in Tactical Systems
The Fallacy of Squad Judgments in Fragmented Lineups
After every match where injuries or rotation disrupt the first-choice squad, a familiar refrain emerges: "See? The system doesn’t work." The critique is blunt, decisive, and deeply flawed. Not only does it misunderstand how tactical systems function, but it also misunderstands how players are evaluated within them.
Injuries happen. Rotation is unavoidable. No modern squad can field its strongest eleven across a season with multiple competitions, playing every 3-4 days. Squad rotation is not a luxury; it's a necessity. But attempting to evaluate individual players thrown into makeshift squads does not offer reliable insight into either the player's capability or the system's viability. The real question isn't: "Can this group of eleven replicate the system instantly?" It's: *"Can each player grow into the system once the system itself is functioning cohesively?"
Systems Breathe Through Familiarity — And So Do Players
Modern positional football, like the one Tottenham is attempting to build, demands synchronized movement, rotational patterns, and real-time adjustments between teammates. But these are not rigid chess moves dictated from the touchline. Players operate with autonomy within these frameworks, constantly reading each other's positioning, feints, and movement tendencies.
A well-functioning system breathes because teammates anticipate one another. One player's body shape or feint signals intent; others respond accordingly, filling vacated space or creating passing lanes. This isn't instinct born overnight. It requires training, repetition, and most importantly, familiarity.
When injuries or rotation force patchwork lineups onto the field, this familiarity collapses. This is why a system that looks fluid with one group may look disjointed with another. The system isn't failing; the familiarity required to animate it simply hasn't had time to take hold.
Frankenstein Squads Create False Data — And False Narratives
When a heavily rotated or injury-riddled squad takes the pitch, supporters and pundits often default to evaluating individual players as though the chaotic circumstances were neutral. The problem is, they're not. Players are not isolated variables; they are nodes in a constantly interacting system.
A midfielder who looks composed when paired with familiar partners may look lost when surrounded by inexperienced or unfamiliar teammates who don’t occupy expected spaces or make anticipated runs. A fullback accustomed to overlapping in tandem with a specific winger may find himself stranded when paired with someone who doesn’t recognize those triggers. The issue isn't necessarily that these players are incapable — it’s that their interaction points have broken down.
And yet, after these matches, the verdicts arrive:
"He's not good enough."
"He's not ready for this level."
"We need better depth."
Sometimes, these conclusions are tinged — consciously or not — by pre-existing stereotypes about the player: their nationality, their price tag, their perceived pedigree. A young academy player struggles? "Not good enough." A signing from a less-heralded league struggles? "The level's too high for him." A player from Africa struggles? "Maybe he's athletic, but tactically naive." These narratives latch onto isolated performances without recognizing that the player was asked to operate inside a scrambled simulation, not the real system.
It becomes a self-reinforcing loop: the player rarely gets a chance to perform inside a functioning, stable version of the system, so the early struggle becomes the permanent reputation. And supporters, hungry for simple answers, accept these reputations as fact.
Systems Aren’t Installed — They’re Grown
One of the most persistent misunderstandings about modern tactical systems is the assumption that they function like software. Install the system, plug in any eleven players, and it should operate identically. But tactical football doesn’t work that way.
Systems are living organisms. They emerge from layers of coaching, repetition, interpersonal understanding, and trust. They grow from players learning not just their own roles, but how their teammates interpret those roles. Subtle variations in movement, timing, and decision-making — none of which are visible on the whiteboard — define whether a system looks cohesive or disjointed.
When supporters demand that backups "prove themselves" by performing seamlessly when dropped into half-built versions of the system, they’re asking for a contradiction: demonstrate system fluency in an environment where systemic fluency doesn’t exist.
The most successful squad-building models (whether at Brighton, Brentford, or the best iterations of Liverpool and Manchester City) recognize this: integration is a process. Players are given exposure to the full system alongside its core operators. New arrivals get minutes next to established pieces, learning not just the theory, but the rhythm. Over time, they adapt. And when called upon, they are far more likely to perform because they’ve been given chances to grow inside the real system, not a patchwork imitation.
Of course, this ideal integration process isn't always possible. Fixture congestion, injury clusters, and scheduling demands sometimes force managers to rotate multiple positions simultaneously — often in the least integrated parts of the squad. In those moments, the system's cohesion naturally frays, and expecting seamless performances under those conditions creates unrealistic assessments of both the system and the individuals within it.
Assessment Must Be Contextual — Or It’s Useless
Evaluating players inside malfunctioning systems produces distorted data. A center-back may look exposed when the midfield in front of him collapses. A midfielder may look error-prone when receiving passes from a backline under pressure. A winger may seem isolated when the fullback behind him hesitates to overlap. These breakdowns cascade — and observers too often confuse the symptoms with the player’s intrinsic quality.
Proper assessment must account for context:
Was the system functioning?
Were primary partnerships intact?
Was the player operating in their normal role?
Were teammates filling their assigned functions?
When these conditions aren’t met, conclusions should be provisional. That doesn’t mean no useful observations can be made — but they must be framed within the reality of the situation. Did the player recognize space? Did they make the right decisions even when execution faltered? Did their movement reflect the intent of the system? These are process markers, not outcomes — but they tell far more about a player's trajectory than an isolated misplaced pass in a broken structure.
The danger comes when supporters — and sometimes even pundits — treat chaotic performances as definitive verdicts. Football isn’t a laboratory. The sample sizes are too small, the variables too many, the externalities too chaotic. Treating a player’s appearance in a Frankenstein XI as a reliable data point tells us more about the observer’s impatience than the player’s ability.
Cohesion Is a Skill — and the System Needs Time to Teach It
Ultimately, one of the most underappreciated aspects of squad development is that cohesion itself is a skill — and like any skill, it must be trained. Tactical systems don't merely test technical ability; they test synchrony, trust, and the ability to read the intentions of others in real time.
The players we often label as "plug-and-play" are usually those whose profiles fit naturally into the core system because of previous familiarity, positional versatility, or highly transferable skills. But for most players, especially younger or newly acquired ones, full fluency takes time — and demands patience from supporters who want instant confirmation of success or failure.
That patience isn’t always granted.
Instead, we see players written off because they struggle when thrown into squads missing three or four key pieces. But this is exactly backward. The test of a system is not whether every individual can shine inside an incoherent version of it; the test is whether individuals can grow when immersed in its proper functioning.
If a club believes in its system — truly believes — then the work is to protect the integrity of that system long enough for players to integrate, adapt, and ultimately thrive within it.
That’s how real squad depth is built. Not by expecting every backup to perform flawlessly in chaos, but by investing in continuity that allows each player to absorb the system fully over time.
The failure isn’t the player — it’s the impatience.