bluemanc said:
Very interesting but most of it wrong,the "tactically disciplined" game you talk about is what is causing a huge majority of our support problems,he fails to understand that with a front 4 like we have that even utd would struggle to cope with us IF we had taken the tactical initiative & not sat back & in doing so fail to provide support for our front men.
He may have been a tactical genius in another country but his failure to be tactically aware in this country when he is tested are mounting.
HE blew the league cup 1st leg semi & he blew the stoke fa cup 1st leg.
Tevez being fit & on fire has helped him BUT it's despite mancini not because of him we are still in the hunt for 4th place.
I thought he'd learnt his lesson but as did most Blues at the game on Saturday when he brought vierra on for AJ we could not beleve it
well I think it's time to watch that section of the match again. utd had us pinned back for the best part of 15 minutes. everything was going through the midfield to nani on the left. and he was teasing onuoha constantly. we couldn't get out of our half.
let's talk tactics.
before the change it was:
RB-----CB----CB----LB
--------DM-
-----------------DM
------------------------
--AJ-----------------CB
---------CT-----------
------------EA
ndj had sunk right back, and gone dead central. i swear he actually backed off from challenging someone about 2 yards infront of the D. it stopped scholes dancing through but it meant that it was a piece of piss for them to play the ball around in midfield. because aj was up the opposite end of the pitch and NDJ was so central and backing off, the angle for the pass out to nani was wide, wide open. he got level with onuoha time after time, right by the byline, and evra was sneaking forward in support.
NANI|RB----CB----CB----LB
-----------DM----DM
EVRA--UTD----UTD----UTD
so we go
NANI|RB-----CB-----CB-----LB
---VIERA-----NDJ-----BARRY
----UTD-----UTD-----UTD------
and all of a sudden, the pass is gone. we can double up on nani or track evra, or cut out the pass to the left. either way, we start winning the ball back and can push out. mancini had to do it, and it worked. the initial problem was that tevez didn't push out right, yes we lacked shape, but we got off the back foot and moved forward. viera makes our passing more positive and accurate, and he even ran into their box. we had a couple of very decent breaks. ten minutes later they've had to change to try another tactic, as we've shifted the midfield forward 20 yards, we now drop NDJ, and the period that followed, when shaun was on, was perhaps our best of the second half. the draw was nailed on at least, and it would have been a good point. viera did have problems keeping pace at the back but they didn't get back at us down the left wing.... until the last kick of the game.
apart from sticking zab in the same position I don't know what else he had to do. it worked well enough that we shaded the play. anything more than that either would have had to come in a bit of play from tevez, bellamy or ireland. the ideal would have been to stick someone with more energy in that role. in other words, the mythical box to boxer, who can do that job reliably but also carry the ball at place out of defence to start a counter,or just run at pace without it, to support someone else's break. we didn't have that option, other wise we would have played them from the start, supported the front men more, and probably never have let ourselves get pushed back so far in the first place.
I'd have liked to see us take the initiative too. but what could he have done? united brought on top technical players in the forward roles. different to what had been there before. one of them made a big difference. we did the same, but ours didn't quite create anything.