Our inability to set up properly for big games

I don't mean any disrespect but I honestly can't work out whether you're an intelligent guy who really knows his football tactics or just someone who speaks nonsense in bullshitty riddles and wins arguments because people lose the will to live let alone argue.
Could be both or neither. :) And I don't take offense. You have been honest in your exchange and I appreciate that. Most aren't.
 
Liverpool?
Even if I agreed he didn't against Liverpool, the fact that he has against a majority of the other teams he has played, even when it fails, suggests the claim is still LOL moment.

We really can't believe these school boy claims can we?
 
Yet he set up against Sevilla (A) as we should set up against every CL team and every PL side in the top 8. So Pellers can do it.[/QUOTE]

and Roma away last season, both with Yaya nowhere near any defensive duties, so yes he can do it but is far to arrogant to do it in the premier league where in my opinion he disrespects all the oppositions abilities thinking his way will beat anyone. until he learns to protect his defence we will struggle in all the big games coming up
Believe it or not I still feel we will win the league but only if he changes his wrong ways
 
Could be both or neither. :) And I don't take offense. You have been honest in your exchange and I appreciate that. Most aren't.
You're a good sport anyway and fair play to you for fighting the manager's corner when many seem to think he's lost his mind.
 
Even if I agreed he didn't against Liverpool, the fact that he has against a majority of the other teams he has played, even when it fails, suggests the claim is still LOL moment.

We really can't believe these school boy claims can we?
So we can agree at least that he blew it against Liverpool.
What about Stoke, any comment there?
The Liverpool game was a big game and to lose the way we did was humiliating for the club,players and fans alike. It can't be simply written off as just one game we lost.
Liverpool is then followed by Leicester a major loss you seem happy to pass off on the back of a couple of errors by DM, whereas over the 90 mins we were outplayed,out thought and outclassed.
Wake up and smell the coffee mate.
 
So just Sevilla then?

I was about to point out Sagna not being a CB, but I see you did so yourself. Which is the point I was trying to make with this exercise. These believes held by many simply don't hold up under mild scrutiny. Talk less a rigorous one.

Let me do you one better.

Stoke v City

Hart Kolarov Otamendi Demi Sagna Fernando Fernandihno DeBryune Silva Sterling Bony.

Square pegs in square holes. Still we got punked. These claims never hold up under the light of scrutiny. :)

But it never stops folks from believing it though. They just move to something different to moan about. At Stoke, it was why not start Kelechi over Bony, and Delph over Fernando, and Navas. You know we always win when he plays :)

I've said it many a time on many a thread. The standard format is to take what rudimentary personel selection Pellars doesn't make and claim its the cause. And thus, Pellars suck.

Let's be clear here, I hold no position on whether Pellars suck or not, just saying the claims often made for why he does are mostly reached after the fact.
I'll sum this up for you. The fact that no team in history has ever gone unbeaten irrespective of which players they have or what tactical formation they use shows your points have more holes in them than a sieve.

Where have I said that any system is infallible or unbeatable? You seem to completely miss the point that everyone is making. What is happening isn't just a one off, it's been a steady predictable decline which most fans and more importantly most opposition managers have been able to see coming, so picking out one match against Stoke away (who we traditionally struggle against) to underpin your point is more than a little disingenuous of you.

Let me give you an example; We beat Newcastle 4-0 at home so in his infinite wisdom, Manuel decides to start with Milner and Fernando in a midfield 2 against Barcelona 3 days later! What kind of footballing madness was this? As soon as every fan I know who saw the line up, we knew what was coming next and Barca must have thought it was April's fools day and the only person who seemingly couldn't see this was Manuel so what is there to defend? This wasn't down to the players, this was pure dogmatic Manuel. I'll tell you what the script is, outside of the first 5 matches this season and Villa and Sevilla away tell me when we've looked convincing like our old self?

Irrespective of what's in front of you, you will always present a counter argument because that is just who you are, a person who argues for the sake of arguing presumably because you have little else to occupy your time. You also claim you hold no position on whether Manuel sucks or not, well if this is the case, why the hell are you hogging this thread? Nowt better to do? Enjoying the limelight?

What Manuel is doing to our team sucks, which baffles me all the more because he's always been a manager that I've rated. Perhaps this gig was a step too far for Manuel and he was too eager to prove a philosophical point because he had by far the strongest squad in the League to enable him to do so, who knows? What I do know though is I'm seriously pissed off with our shaky performances this season and no amount of useless stats from you or claims we're still in 4 competitions or using injuries as an excuse will change that, because I like a lot of other fans believe irrespective of our issues, we should still be putting up a better level of performance than we've seen in the main so far this season.
 
So we can agree at least that he blew it against Liverpool.
What about Stoke, any comment there?
The Liverpool game was a big game and to lose the way we did was humiliating for the club,players and fans alike. It can't be simply written off as just one game we lost.
Liverpool is then followed by Leicester a major loss you seem happy to pass off on the back of a couple of errors by DM, whereas over the 90 mins we were outplayed,out thought and outclassed.
Wake up and smell the coffee mate.
I have a question, by got it wrong tactically, do you mean his team lost?
 
Please explain.
Ok I spelt causal wrong - my android device sadly - however...

Correlation and Causation in defending

Struggling to defend in one aspect of the defensive game e.g. defending a high line against ANY opposition - in this case Vardy and Mahrez) has a positive correlation on our inability to defend ANY situation against the same team.

This happens everywhere in human physiology. Failure or panic in one aspect of our lives spreads to other related aspects of our lives and there is nothing you can do about it unless you happen to be:
1. A psychopath -or-
2. Located deep into the autistic spectrum where the mind is so attuned to doing something well that nothing can effect it's performance.

This positive correlation has been determined to exist by many, may years of human experiments.
Now whether you believe this positive correlation is a fluke or a causal relationship (i.e. the first triggers the second) depends on the nature of the two tasks and on how closely related the two tasks are.

The presence of stress caused by one activity definitely is ONE causal relationship on the performance of other similar activities. There are years and years of scientific evidence to back this up. For example:
https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?q=psychology+when+a+positive+correlation+is+actually+a+causal+relationship&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&as_vis=1

So unless you care to state that stress has no effect on defending it is a FACT that there is a causal relationship between defending a high line badly and defending other situations. Of course you may simply continue to state that the two are not related or you may state that our defenders are psychopaths or defensive savants.
 
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I'll sum this up for you. The fact that no team in history has ever gone unbeaten irrespective of which players they have or what tactical formation they use shows your points have more holes in them than a sieve.

Where have I said that any system is infallible or unbeatable? You seem to completely miss the point that everyone is making. What is happening isn't just a one off, it's been a steady predictable decline which most fans and more importantly most opposition managers have been able to see coming, so picking out one match against Stoke away (who we traditionally struggle against) to underpin your point is more than a little disingenuous of you.

Let me give you an example; We beat Newcastle 4-0 at home so in his infinite wisdom, Manuel decides to start with Milner and Fernando in a midfield 2 against Barcelona 3 days later! What kind of footballing madness was this? As soon as every fan I know who saw the line up, we knew what was coming next and Barca must have thought it was April's fools day and the only person who seemingly couldn't see this was Manuel so what is there to defend? This wasn't down to the players, this was pure dogmatic Manuel. I'll tell you what the script is, outside of the first 5 matches this season and Villa and Sevilla away tell me when we've looked convincing like our old self?

Irrespective of what's in front of you, you will always present a counter argument because that is just who you are, a person who argues for the sake of arguing presumably because you have little else to occupy your time. You also claim you hold no position on whether Manuel sucks or not, well if this is the case, why the hell are you hogging this thread? Nowt better to do? Enjoying the limelight?

What Manuel is doing to our team sucks, which baffles me all the more because he's always been a manager that I've rated. Perhaps this gig was a step too far for Manuel and he was too eager to prove a philosophical point because he had by far the strongest squad in the League to enable him to do so, who knows? What I do know though is I'm seriously pissed off with our shaky performances this season and no amount of useless stats from you or claims we're still in 4 competitions or using injuries as an excuse will change that, because I like a lot of other fans believe irrespective of our issues, we should still be putting up a better level of performance than we've seen in the main so far this season.

An excellent post. Pellegrini the engineer has largely been proven to be anything but. What I find even more incredible given the subject is that we cannot even take throw ins properly and we have a manager who has continually allowed the goalkeeper to hoof aimless balls up to the smallest striker in the league. The distribution from Hart is absolutely scandalous. This is without touching on the debate about slow build up or other examples of the engineers tactical ineptitude.
 
The 4-1 at Spurs keeps getting dragged up as an example, but frankly it was a bit of a fluke scoreline, we hammered them first half, and but for several dodgy decisions, and a host of missed chances, we could easily have gone in at HT 3 or 4-0 up, quite probably the best we've played all season in that first half. So second half we had to chase a game, and we got picked off, we were pretty woeful I'll agree, but lets not re-write the
An excellent post. Pellegrini the engineer has largely been proven to be anything but. What I find even more incredible given the subject is that we cannot even take throw ins properly and we have a manager who has continually allowed the goalkeeper to hoof aimless balls up to the smallest striker in the league. The distribution from Hart is absolutely scandalous. This is without touching on the debate about slow build up or other examples of the engineers tactical ineptitude.
Ok I spelt causal wrong - my android device sadly - however...

Correlation and Causation in defending

Struggling to defend in one aspect of the defensive game e.g. defending a high line against ANY opposition - in this case Vardy and Mahrez) has a positive correlation on our inability to defend ANY situation against the same team.

This happens everywhere in human physiology. Failure or panic in one aspect of our lives spreads to other related aspects of our lives and there is nothing you can do about it unless you happen to be:
1. A psychopath -or-
2. Located deep into the autistic spectrum where the mind is so attuned to doing something well that nothing can effect it's performance.

This positive correlation has been determined to exist by many, may years of human experiments.
Now whether you believe this positive correlation is a fluke or a causal relationship (i.e. the first triggers the second) depends on the nature of the two tasks depends on how closely related the two tasks are.

The presence of stress caused by one activity definitely has a causal relationship on the performance of other
similar activities. There are years and years of scientific evidence to back this up. For example:
https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?q=psychology+when+a+positive+correlation+is+actually+a+causal+relationship&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&as_vis=1

So unless you care to state that stress has no effect on defending it is a FACT that there is a causal relationship between defending a high line badly and defending other situations. Of course you may simply continue to state that the two are not related or you may state that our defenders are psychopaths or defensive savants.




very good reply but you know what happens, he`ll out at you as you cross the bridge
 
................Otamendi Sagna
Zabba .................................. Clichy

...... Fernandinho ........ Delph

Silva ............. Yaya ............... Iheanacho

...................... Aguero

That's what I'd have started with. A lot more pace in that line up and a lot more threat. Sterling would be used as a sub for Yaya if we were chasing the game by pushing Silva central and Fernando would be used as a sub for Yaya in a 3 man holding set up if we were up. This isn't hindsight either, it was clear before the game that the line up chosen was too slow and although Clichy had played mid week, Kolarov was coming back from injury so it was more of a risk playing him in my opinion.
 
................Otamendi Sagna
Zabba .................................. Clichy

...... Fernandinho ........ Delph

Silva ............. Yaya ............... Iheanacho

...................... Aguero

That's what I'd have started with. A lot more pace in that line up and a lot more threat. Sterling would be used as a sub for Yaya if we were chasing the game by pushing Silva central and Fernando would be used as a sub for Yaya in a 3 man holding set up if we were up. This isn't hindsight either, it was clear before the game that the line up chosen was too slow and although Clichy had played mid week, Kolarov was coming back from injury so it was more of a risk playing him in my opinion.
Id have liked to see Fernando alongside Delph and Dinho in place of Yaya,otherwise,bang on.That team would have given a much better account of itself imo.
 
Ok I spelt causal wrong - my android device sadly - however...

Correlation and Causation in defending

Struggling to defend in one aspect of the defensive game e.g. defending a high line against ANY opposition - in this case Vardy and Mahrez) has a positive correlation on our inability to defend ANY situation against the same team.

This happens everywhere in human physiology. Failure or panic in one aspect of our lives spreads to other related aspects of our lives and there is nothing you can do about it unless you happen to be:
1. A psychopath -or-
2. Located deep into the autistic spectrum where the mind is so attuned to doing something well that nothing can effect it's performance.

This positive correlation has been determined to exist by many, may years of human experiments.
Now whether you believe this positive correlation is a fluke or a causal relationship (i.e. the first triggers the second) depends on the nature of the two tasks depends on how closely related the two tasks are.

The presence of stress caused by one activity definitely has a causal relationship on the performance of other
similar activities. There are years and years of scientific evidence to back this up. For example:
https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?q=psychology+when+a+positive+correlation+is+actually+a+causal+relationship&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&as_vis=1

So unless you care to state that stress has no effect on defending it is a FACT that there is a causal relationship between defending a high line badly and defending other situations. Of course you may simply continue to state that the two are not related or you may state that our defenders are psychopaths or defensive savants.
Ah! You've laid it on thick here with the fallacies: Correlation as Causation, appeal to authority, and a red herring counter.

No, I'm not biting. The statement was the supposed 'highline' had no direct effect on the goals conceded. I.E Goals were not conceded due to a breach of the high line.

Increased levels of stress in defending is simply a red herring. Playing the game at all, increases the stress level of the defenders. Conceding early, increases their stress levels too. That by the way happened before we we took control. Or had our defenders playing up with the team.

FFS, Not getting calls affects the stress levels. The weather, affects the stress levels. All these events have a positive correlational effect on the stress levels of the participants. Yet no one is arguing God caused the goals.

So increased stress is a non sequitur.

But I appreciate the link though: I found this article:

'Do we really know what makes us happy? A review of the economic literature on the factors associated with subjective well-being'

To be well worth the click.
 
Id have liked to see Fernando alongside Delph and Dinho in place of Yaya,otherwise,bang on.That team would have given a much better account of itself imo.

I actually thought a lot of our decent play was going through Yaya in that advanced position and he does link well with Silva. His ability to make those runs and use his strength to keep the ball is not matched by anyone in the squad. He just cant be trusted to fill holes in the midfield any longer.
 
I actually thought a lot of our decent play was going through Yaya in that advanced position and he does link well with Silva. His ability to make those runs and use his strength to keep the ball is not matched by anyone in the squad. He just cant be trusted to fill holes in the midfield any longer.
If we are using hindsight insight here. The best call would probably have been to only play one of Yaya or Silva as the CAM, but not both.

And Silva against Leicester, in hindsight should never play on the wings. His penchant for eschewing structural rigidity made us mad easy to get at.

And While I thought Yaya would habe been better in that CAM role, I wouldn't fault those who'd rather have Silva there instead. But tactically Yaya would seem the better choice, if nothing else, but to have some size up top on those jump balls. From clearances. We lost practically all of them bar 1.

On the wings, definitely Sterling on the right and the Ian on the left. Dihno in the middle with Fernando.

Defensively, Sagna on the right and Clichy (Left). I'd have left the CBs as is. And on corner kicks I would have had Yaya on Huth.

But that's all in hindsight :)
 

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