Tactical analysis & discussion season 2022-23

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Agueroooo9320

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Use this thread to post and discuss tactics after every game.

Date 05-02-2023(Tottenham away)

Some issues are so clearly visible but unfortunately do not think we have solutions for that yet. but the main area that is causing cascading issues for us is up the wing. we have neither the fullback or the wingers to threaten the opponent from the wide areas. so they are happy to concede incredible amount of space out wide and simply clog up the middle of the park. watch how tottenham was happy to concede acres of space to bernardo and Jack because they are slow and cannot get behind with pace. so they just let them have space to receive the ball and then they can move out to them without fear of a cutback from the byline. if our wingers come inside we have no fullback to threaten the outside space. essentially we are non existent for the wide areas.

when this happens the opponent just needs to congest the space in the middle and make it a battle of intensity. this is where we have another problem. the energy from the midfield is completely gone. bernardo, gundo, KDB just do not have the intensity to press and then carry the ball. they are getting brushed aside. once a turnover occurs we only have 2 midfielders in the center because the two 8s are playing like two 10s high up to counter the opponent having numbers in the middle; which again is a result of us not having a threat on the wide area like I discussed above. Hence only Rodri with another false fullback Rico is protecting the center of the park. so we are getting outnumbered in the middle and also the opponent having the pace and the intensity in the center of the park can go straight to our backline. the backline now only has three players because of the other fullback being in the midfield. so there is always space on the sides for them to get behind or to split open our CBs for a through ball.


Conclusion: All our issues arise from us having no threat form the wide areas either from the wingers or our fullback. jack, bernardo, mahrez never have the threat to get behind and we have no natural overlapping fullbacks. until this is sorted we will have poor games.
 
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I think more than the wingers, our problem is midfield. Bernardo offers 0 offensive threat but tons of energy levels, while Gundo and specially KDB have tons of creativity and passing ability, but our defense gets exposed with them (plus we need Lewis to offer an extra body in midfield which means no Walker for counterattacks), so it's hard to get the right combination. That's why Pep is playing so much with inverted fullbacks, different formations, different midfield configuration, KDB as a second striker with Bernardo as a 6...

It's going to be hard to get the correct combination with these players right now.
 
We play with no risk. There is no desire to play the through ball. There is no use for haalands runs. He will eventually stop making them even though they are fucking perfect.

Every player is fine. They all have the ability to play aggressive attacking football. The tactics are grim. they are fucking grim.
 
city warrior said:
I think more than the wingers, our problem is midfield. Bernardo offers 0 offensive threat but tons of energy levels, while Gundo and specially KDB have tons of creativity and passing ability, but our defense gets exposed with them (plus we need Lewis to offer an extra body in midfield which means no Walker for counterattacks), so it's hard to get the right combination. That's why Pep is playing so much with inverted fullbacks, different formations, different midfield configuration, KDB as a second striker with Bernardo as a 6...

It's going to be hard to get the correct combination with these players right now.
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agree to an extent. but this is a secondary problem. if we had good wingers and fullbacks we can protect our lack of energy in midfield from KDB and Gundo. but since we have no threat out wide, the opponent can concentrate their energies on closing down and putting pressure in the middle and doubly expose the midfield.
 
madloaf said:
We play with no risk. There is no desire to play the through ball. There is no use for haalands runs. He will eventually stop making them even though they are fucking perfect.

Every player is fine. They all have the ability to play aggressive attacking football. The tactics are grim. they are fucking grim.
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well there is a reason for this. our midfielders are lazy and have lost their legs. hence they are afraid to lose the ball and go chasing it when they play a risky ball to Haaland. that is why they are playing safe passes not to lose the ball.
 
Agueroooo9320 said:
agree to an extent. but this is a secondary problem. if we had good wingers and fullbacks we can protect our lack of energy in midfield from KDB and Gundo. but since we have no threat out wide, the opponent can concentrate their energies on closing down and putting pressure in the middle.
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them two weren't on the frigging
pitch when we give their soft goal away today.
 
Agueroooo9320 said:
well there is a reason for this. our midfielders are lazy and have lost their legs. hence they are afraid to lose the ball and go chasing it when they play a risky ball to Haaland. that is why they are playing safe passes not to lose the ball.
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Good point - it could be that. Now, if only they had a manager who utilised his 4 defenders in a different way to stop the need for such tracking back all the time...
 
We always had Fernandinho / Rodri to play out the ball to from the back and either of those would then distribute the ball forward to more creative midfielders that would stick the ball through the middle, out on the wings with overlapping full-backs or other creative solutions. Now it feels like Rodri has a huge gap behind and in front of him and that players around him go hiding. It's like no one wants the ball any longer. It's extremely dire and I can't fathom that we are 2nd and only 5 (potentially 8) points off the top, because my god, we've been horrible this season.
 
Also, what signals does it send to have 3 captains on the bench (Gundo, KDB, Dias (?)). Isn't Walker the 4th choice and he has supposedly been vocal and not happy recently. I just hope Pep is not turning into a megalomaniac that feels immune to criticism and put unhappy players on the bench just to prove a point.
 
blue44 said:
them two weren't on the frigging
pitch when we give their soft goal away today.
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true that was Rodri. bet he was also looking leggy in the middle. but need to remember he was outnumbered there. we had only 2 men in the middle most of the time, Rodri and Rico while Spurs had a 4 or 5 man midfield at times.
 
It’s the style of play which is killing us. So slow and ponderous with no risk taking. We are now too easy to play against which was never the case. Teams can easily get set defensively and we are no longer able to pull them out of position with the ease with which we used to do. The winger/full back issue is very valid and a big contributory factor to this.
 
noirish said:
We always had Fernandinho / Rodri to play out the ball to from the back and either of those would then distribute the ball forward to more creative midfielders that would stick the ball through the middle, out on the wings with overlapping full-backs or other creative solutions. Now it feels like Rodri has a huge gap behind and in front of him and that players around him go hiding. It's like no one wants the ball any longer. It's extremely dire and I can't fathom that we are 2nd and only 5 (potentially 8) points off the top, because my god, we've been horrible this season.
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I addressed this also above how our 8s are playing like 10s high up because our wingers are on the touchline holding width because we have no overlapping fullbacks. this cascades into Rodri getting isolated.
 
Fuck all threat from midfield. Kev doesn’t score, gundo never gets anywhere near goal this season, Bernardo I’m totally lost with and Rodri isn’t there to score. Mahrez has been pretty good this season and for anyone to even try and pull Grealish into the problem is way off the mark when today he was the only player in our whole team who looked like he gave a crap.

Reality is our midfield is broken. We have no drive, no goals, no creativity. Teams know this and Grealish and Mahrez have two three men every time they get the ball. Unless Kev finds some form, this season isn’t going to end well.
 
blue44 said:
who's fault was that ?
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well course it was pep. but he has no solution to the wide areas at the moment. best I can think of is playing Jack in the middle with foden out wide. to have some pace out wide and also let the fullback other side rico or walker to overlap and put bernardo or gundo next to rodri.
 
I always have and always will hate playing with inverted wingers… it just breeds congestions and players taking the extra touch… I understand why we are currently playing it - if you want to control the middle of the park but our current system leaves massive gaps in our fullback areas

Has anyone noticed how little this side presses nowadays - we don’t look like a pep side at all at the moment
 
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