Al Hilal (N) | CWC | Post Match Thread

[BlueMonkey79]

Doesnt need dumping, needs a player with recovery pace. Asking Dias and Gvardiol to play 40 yards from the opponents goal is suicide.

What amazed me is they scored from our corner. Our last man was just in the opponents half.

We got another corner a few minutes later and Ait Nouri our last man was in the middle of the centre circle in their half.

Baffling!!

Not one of our defenders has electric pace. So why persist defending so high?. We are literally playing into the opponents hands. It's ok doing it to squeeze the distance of the 3 lines. But for that to be successful we need one hell of a press, which we don't possess anymore.

 

[samuelyeboah]

we are laughably bad in the air. every goal kick is so easily controlled by the opponent no matter who's their center forward. at one point gvardiol got bodied so hard he literally just gave up and started running back, preparing for the inevitable counter.

 

[noseve]

Doesnt need dumping, needs a player with recovery pace. Asking Dias and Gvardiol to play 40 yards from the opponents goal is suicide.

That's not the only problem with it though - an extreme high line compresses the pitch and makes it so easy for the opposition to sit in.

Pull back slightly, and it's inevitable that you'll draw them out, creating some space if not behind, at least between their lines.

None of this really helps the problems at the other end, of course

 

[levets]

An absolute defensive shit show. Dias and Akanji were miles off it. Koulibally’s goal came from a break, Dias blocked the shot and it went for a corner. Then he’s too busy congratulating himself to organise the defending of the corner; I knew we were going to concede without Haaland to head it clear. Dias, Akanji & Ake for centre backs are weak as piss in the air.

First half we had so much possession and should have had more to show for it. Dias (again) weak header straight at the keeper, Savinho round the keeper but a shit touch. Coupled with some great saves from their keeper, it was frustrating. We went in 1-0 up though fortunate the goal wasn’t ruled out. Still the 2nd half should see us stamp our authority. FORTY seconds after the re start we concede a comical goal, calamitous defending leaving another free header into an unguarded net. Then to make it worse, we camp out on the edge of their box, get a corner and its half cleared to our last man Ait-Nouri just outside the box. He attempts to head it back into the box, but his header is so weak, their man stops it and charges upfield and it’s 1-2. Too many players camped out on the edge of the box with no cover. Amateurish!

Erling equalises and then unlucky not to have got the winner. Extra time comes and Koulibally as described above puts them back in front. Cherki and Phil combine for a great equaliser, but we haven’t learnt from earlier mistakes. Again they counter, the ball goes left to an unmarked Lodi who has plenty of time to cross into the box, again where was Dias, Akanji and Ake as the HILAL player got in a great header that Eddy kept out but fell to Leandro for the winner.

Every time they countered us they could have scored. A couple of last ditch tackles saved us and we were rescued by a tight offside from conceding a penalty… Dias doing his ‘sliding in act’ again. We are still struggling to break down teams that want to play on the counter, we are too high and concede too many chances because of it. Hope we can figure it all out for Wolves away.
5 am get to bed and then struggle to get to sleep because I’ve gone past being tired and too hot. Complete shit show of a night

 

[rice10]

For me we have two glaring issues;

1 - the players we have bought are all good footballers but you could say the same thing about every single one of them “they’re not great defensively”. That was our entire issue last season we are not good enough when we don’t have the ball and not a single signing has been made to overcome that.

2 - does pep have any influence in the players we sign?! Because it is getting to point that we are wasting millions of pounds on players he just won’t play.

£50m on Nico and he is 7th choice CM
£30+m on Khusanov and he is 7th choice CB

Marmoush back up
Cherki back up
Reis back up to the back ups

How can we spend so much money on players and then Pep takes a look at them and decides actually they don’t fit what I want, or aren’t good enough.

 

[PistonBlue]

Didn't see the game but it seems our defensive issues still remain.
Crazy how simple it is to beat us, tactically speaking. Literally just look to hit us on the counter, you shoot, you score. Quite alarming really.

 

[DD]

Who's cheerleading?

I'm as pissed off as anyone with those mistakes last night, but some of those moaning at certain players, or having a go at Pep are the same people singing their virtues in previous games.

Sometimes you just have to accept that the opposition got it right, and we didn't.

But the issue is that over the last twelve months, way too often the opposition have got it right and we haven't. There's only so many times the same thing can happen before patience breaks.

 

[Brightwell Bros.]

More annoyed at that than the FA cup final. We have the players to fix the problems and if we don't why have we just blown a quarter of a billion pounds on them.

 

[Brightwell Bros.]

Didn't see the game but it seems our defensive issues still remain.
Crazy how simple it is to beat us, tactically speaking. Literally just look to hit us on the counter, you shoot, you score. Quite alarming really.

Kick it long into the channels. It's a tactic from 1899.

 

[BolinCell]

More annoyed at that than the FA cup final. We have the players to fix the problems and if we don't why have we just blown a quarter of a billion pounds on them.

Peps subs last night were not thoughtful, they were just a random throw of the dice. And out we went to a team with half our ability yet better organised.

 

[Worzel Gummidge#9]

Nor was I! Remarkably, whilst sitting in the car here reading your comment the fucking Wurzels and combine ‘arvester are playing on the radio! Not heard it in decades.

Haha, not sure what I was thinking using that as my profile name

 

[Zinchilla]

Didn't see the game but it seems our defensive issues still remain.
Crazy how simple it is to beat us, tactically speaking. Literally just look to hit us on the counter, you shoot, you score. Quite alarming really.

Agree. There’s been a lot of chat that the players aren’t up to it defensively, but they can be if the strategy & tactics are in place.

It was rinse and repeat last night, reminded me of Palace. As Bernardo said, every team that beats us plays that way. Al Hilal aren’t a team with better defensive players, but they came out with a strategy in the 2nd half. They rode their luck first half, and 1-0 down will have given them a sniff. Inzaghi used all their subs and every one of his players ran themselves into the ground. They had a spare man on the flanks every time they countered with a diagonal ball & we didn’t adapt, which feels like dogmatic arrogance.

Their goalie knocked a ball to their right and it opened us up, but we still didn’t heed the warning.

A bit of quality - Bounou, Koulibaly, Neves, and Savic - surrounded by players willing to die and we can be found out. Everything they did, from the way they surrounded the ref when decisions didn’t go their way to the way they killed time with feigned injuries had purpose. They wanted to win the game, whereas it felt that we also had one eye on the next round.

I think they may have killed themselves and become unstuck against Fluminense, particularly as their game management towards the end was inexperienced, but their $5m per man target was to send a message last night.

I don’t understand al the subs, save for Nunes and Gdvardiol being on yellows, but taking those two off made us worse, as we became unbalanced. Bernardo taking corners is now a plan, but it then leaves us with nobody covering any breakaway from corners if nobody else has been instructed to mark that space if the big men go up for a corner.

Don’t know how Savinho stayed on for the duration.

Don’t know why we don’t seem to learn and adapt.

I’m gutted and don’t agree that this is just a meaningless tournament. British teams were arrogant and dismissive of the World Cup and European Cup at their inception and look how they turned out.

 

[herrock]

What amazed me is they scored from our corner. Our last man was just in the opponents half.

We got another corner a few minutes later and Ait Nouri our last man was in the middle of the centre circle in their half.

Baffling!!

Not one of our defenders has electric pace. So why persist defending so high?. We are literally playing into the opponents hands. It's ok doing it to squeeze the distance of the 3 lines. But for that to be successful we need one hell of a press, which we don't possess anymore.

It is basic football intelligence, it cost us so many goals last season but we still keep defending the same

 

[jrb]

I'm worried the seat prices for next season might go back up by 43% now. ;-)

I bet Soriano and the other directors were looking forward to a semi-final pay day, or even a final pay day.

 

[Dave Ewing's Back 'eader]

Playing with that high a line we need at least one very quick defender who likes to put in a challenge and win the ball. If only we had someone like that lad Khusanov

The last player in the high line gets robbed and we're fucked. How many times have we seen that high line come to grief.

 

[eyalluvitt]

Didn't see the game but it seems our defensive issues still remain.
Crazy how simple it is to beat us, tactically speaking. Literally just look to hit us on the counter, you shoot, you score. Quite alarming really.

No other manager would set up like that against a team with electric pace, mind numbingly stupid and asking for what we got. Wonder if we even bothered researching how they play or arrogantly thought we can beat these standing on one leg

 

[city2]

Thought they were well organised had a plan and stuck to it rigorously defended well and were a much better team than we all thought and dismissed them as the easiest route to to final we got what we deserved in the end, I’m not going over City’s faults because we all know what is required to get back to where we were, over to Pep to sort.

 

[eyalluvitt]

But the issue is that over the last twelve months, way too often the opposition have got it right and we haven't. There's only so many times the same thing can happen before patience breaks.

Swap keepers, centre half’s or managers last night and we win. We were a shambles

 

[chesterbells]

For me we have two glaring issues;

1 - the players we have bought are all good footballers but you could say the same thing about every single one of them “they’re not great defensively”. That was our entire issue last season we are not good enough when we don’t have the ball and not a single signing has been made to overcome that.

2 - does pep have any influence in the players we sign?! Because it is getting to point that we are wasting millions of pounds on players he just won’t play.

£50m on Nico and he is 7th choice CM
£30+m on Khusanov and he is 7th choice CB

Marmoush back up
Cherki back up
Reis back up to the back ups

How can we spend so much money on players and then Pep takes a look at them and decides actually they don’t fit what I want, or aren’t good enough.

Don’t disagree with much of that, but I’d expect(hope) Cherki to usurp Savinho’s place in the starting line up very, very quickly

 

[eyalluvitt]

Thought they were well organised had a plan and stuck to it rigorously defended well and were a much better team than we all thought and dismissed them as the easiest route to to final we got what we deserved in the end, I’m not going over City’s faults because we all know what is required to get back to where we were, over to Pep to sort.

1st half they sat back and saw what we offered, 2nd half they unleashed Usain Bolt’s on the Zimmermen