I had read a lot about the youth teams on here but hadn't really watched much of their play so was looking forward to the game yesterday. Whilst there are obviously very talented individuals like Diaz and Sancho, it was a disappointing display. They were set up to play very wide and stretch play but Salzburg were compact and flooded the midfield with aggressive pressing and we didn't seem to have an answer tactically for that. Our central midfield came off second best throughout the game because of a lack of numbers although we didn't help ourselves with some really poor distribution. I didn't get the impression from that game that anyone is ready to make the transition to the first team squad other than Grimshaw who looked useful. Its unfair of me to say with so little experience of the team but it looked more of an issue with coaching, team set up and tactics rather than players capability. Didn't see much evidence of good chemistry between Davies and his young team either.
This is something I thought when watching the game. It felt like the only pass any City player had, was 20 yards, usually wide or straight down the middle & in doing that, we were poor.
As you say, Salzburg were quick aggressive & had a plan which they were all comfortable with & knew exactly where they should be in each situation. The movement of their forward players was also far superior.
My question is, why were Salzburg so much better organised in their style than we were in ours ?
Imo, there are only two possible answers. One, the players lost it completely & changed from the way they normally play, to a complete mess, due to nerves/surprise etc. Or two, somebody came up with a plan for beating Salzburg, & asked the players to execute it, & they totally failed to adapt to it.
Now imo, there were certainly elements of (1) where some players were completely brainless, repeatedly, which reflects badly on them & also Salzburg won most 50/50 balls basically by going for more of a tackle whilst our players attemptd to 'nick' the ball & play. I don't mind that so much, as another ref would have given us 20 more free kicks & it's difficult for the kids to know what they are allowed to do.
But now to the 2nd part: If it was the coach, who set he team up like that, & not down to the players deviating from the normal style, imo, we should get rid.
We train these kids, year in, year out, to pass the ball & move in little midfield traingles, press, & basically never to stop believing in that method, same as Pep with the first team.
What we saw v Salzburg was the kind of wide open midfield, everyone out wide with huge gaps down the centre, isolated lazy striker, no pressing, kind of bollocks we saw from Pellegrini, not the kind of football we expect from our academy teams or from a Guardiola team, win lose or draw. When Utd put 4 past our EDS at the swamp some years ago, we still left the field having completely outplayed them at quality football & totally dominated possession. They had the winning plan, on the day, but we still showed that, on another day, we would turn them over, which we duly did, because our football was a higher standard.
Our football wasn't higher standard than Salzburg, or indeed than Utd's U 19s would be. It was dogshit.
Someone somewhere knows, whether that was down to a plan by the coach. If it wasn't, fair enough. If it was: sack him.