Discuss Pellegrini (Pt 3)

[Beezer]

Class act manager in my book. Glad he's with us.

The Bayern game was definitely the most embarrassing for all parties involved (manager, players, fans). I think he gambled that we could hold out against the press - it was a close game at half time - and then maybe impose our style. He was wrong. He found out that his team's preferred formation cannot overcome a well organized press. It appears he learned his lesson and has moved on. Defensively, we still are shaky, so there's more work to be done.

I have faith the Pellegrine Falcon! It may look like we are in a dive, but we've got 'em right where we want 'em!

 

[prestonibbo_mcfc]

I think you are drawing a cartoon, press-driven opinion of both managers there, if I'm honest. Mourinho is of course a great manager, and his teams usually over-achieve because of his methods. But Pellegrini also has a career of teams over-achieving, so I'm still very hopeful he'll do the same with this superb squad. It was very noticeable that Mr Kumbaya's squad were significantly fitter than Hard Man Pardew's last night, so it's not all flowers and early days off at Carrington.

But time will tell, and let's see how the season pans out.

Physical preparation and mentality are not the same thing. By all accounts Moyes also implemented a tougher training schedule than Taggart ever did which has led to stories of a rift with RVP and 'over training' - its possible that Kompany's early season problems also stem from over preparation in pre-season. Who knows.

However the pre-season physical preparation, which got everyone excited on here for reasons which still continue to elude me, are distinct from the mental environment that the man in charge creates. Moyes stepping up the physical training does nothing to give his team the same belief that Taggart gave them. Pellers is a less driven, less obsessive individual than Mancini (or a Benitez or a Mourinho or a Pep) and consequently the team is less driven to go the extra 1 or 2 percent that is the difference between success and failure at the highest level. It is not even a concious thing but you just settle at the level that is expected of you collectively and individually by the man in charge. And with Pellers this level is below what is needed to win trophies consistently.

How do you know this ? Just because his outside persona is not one and the same as any of other managers you have mentioned,
does not mean he is any less driven. I don't know if he is or is not, as I do not know him personally.

 

[adrianr]

I cannot understand the level of complacency shown by many on here. Our defending is a cause for concern. We harp on the quality of our attacking play and seem to believe that this justifies and excuses basic and frequent failure to apply consistently elementary defensive strategies. It is true that we play some lovely stuff, we dominate possession and we COULD have won every one of our league games. But we didn't. We have attacking players who can conjure a goal out of nothing: unfortunately we have a defence, whatever the personnel, can also concede a goal out of nothing. It has cost us 9 points already, but, we are assured, we can all be confident that there are signs things are improving. That a few wins and we'll be "back" in the top 3. And so on. I saw no evidence of greater defensive cohesion against Chelsea, or at Newcastle for that matter. Chelsea took advantage of two pieces of bad defending, Cardiff of 3 and Newcastle of 0. Moscow took advantage of one, but fluffed a last minute sitter. In three cases this season we have lost games in which we played well going forward, games we should not have lost. Now we look at the table, sneer at Liverpool, and deride Arsenal because they've only one team from the top half. Unfortunately this doesn't mean they will inevitably lose to higher placed teams. And when we look at our away form it can be alarming. We have played five PL matches. We have lost to the only side from the top half. We have played also the teams in 17th,16th, 15th and 13th. Our sole victory has come from the side in 15th. We drew with the side in 17th because they fluffed a couple of great chances we presented to them. We lost to the sides in 13th and 16th - their only home victories and virtually their only home goals! Everton, Liverpool and Spurs won at Villa Park with embarrassing ease. Pellegrini might work the miracle and we may win the next however many matches - but we can't afford to lose more than 2 or 3 in the rest of the season, and there is no evidence that the defending will stop throwing games away. So far we have shown you can look ver good.....and lose. Not once, or twice, but three times in 5 matches. Defend like schoolboys and it won't stop.

Fair post. It is admittedly already starting to sound like last season, just in reverse. Steadfast belief that the team will click, the defending will get better and we'll go on a run smashing all before us. Replace defending with attacking and you've got last season in a nut shell. Never happened then either.

 

[George Hannah]

I have faith the Pellegrine Falcon! It may look like we are in a dive, but we've got 'em right where we want 'em!

I think he's run out of fuel!

 

[supercity88]

People are not being complacent in regards to how poor our defending is. Those that support Pellegrini are well aware that things have to improve. You can have the most organised defence in the world but when your goalkeeper runs for a ball he shouldn't come for, you will concede. When a defender gets beaten too easily by a player, it leaves the rest under pressure. Whilst our defensive organisation has not been where we would expect it, individual errors have been frequent and costly. You would expect that a settled back four and goalkeeper would, after time, become more organised and individual mistakes would be eradicated. We have not had a settled back 4. Garcia, Lescott, Demichelis, Nastasic, Boyata, Kompany. Considering how young this season is, we have had to shuffle so much. When our manager is a believer in a high line and man marking and we are used to a zonal system, combine that major change with the unsettled defence and you would expect things to be a little muddled at times.

When you look at chances conceded though, we have actually defended very well. It is just errors by certain individuals that have costed us goals each and every time. Stop the errors and we will stop conceding. The manager has to obviously coordinate the defence to stop those errors too and I think he will. He has tried to rotate but in an ideal world Pellegrini would have been able to play Hart, Zab, Komp, Nasty, Clichy, Fernan, Yaya in every league and champions league game. The trouble is players have been injured or under performed. Time and stability will see us improve. When you look at a 0-0 draw where you created 20 chances, you would say right we are creating chances the goals will come. In exactly the same manner, you look at us conceding barely any chances on goal per game and say right, the clean sheets will come. Call it individual error, call it lack of stability, call it early days. Whatever you want to call it, the stats suggest that clean sheets are not too far away.

 

[George Hannah]

"no clean sheets no Werthers Originals for you lot"

 

[OB1]

People are not being complacent in regards to how poor our defending is. Those that support Pellegrini are well aware that things have to improve. You can have the most organised defence in the world but when your goalkeeper runs for a ball he shouldn't come for, you will concede. When a defender gets beaten too easily by a player, it leaves the rest under pressure. Whilst our defensive organisation has not been where we would expect it, individual errors have been frequent and costly. You would expect that a settled back four and goalkeeper would, after time, become more organised and individual mistakes would be eradicated. We have not had a settled back 4. Garcia, Lescott, Demichelis, Nastasic, Boyata, Kompany. Considering how young this season is, we have had to shuffle so much. When our manager is a believer in a high line and man marking and we are used to a zonal system, combine that major change with the unsettled defence and you would expect things to be a little muddled at times.

When you look at chances conceded though, we have actually defended very well. It is just errors by certain individuals that have costed us goals each and every time. Stop the errors and we will stop conceding. The manager has to obviously coordinate the defence to stop those errors too and I think he will. He has tried to rotate but in an ideal world Pellegrini would have been able to play Hart, Zab, Komp, Nasty, Clichy, Fernan, Yaya in every league and champions league game. The trouble is players have been injured or under performed. Time and stability will see us improve. When you look at a 0-0 draw where you created 20 chances, you would say right we are creating chances the goals will come. In exactly the same manner, you look at us conceding barely any chances on goal per game and say right, the clean sheets will come. Call it individual error, call it lack of stability, call it early days. Whatever you want to call it, the stats suggest that clean sheets are not too far away.

My thoughts, almost, exactly. My ideal back four would probably differ slightly, with Richards over Zab. I say probably because Richards has played so little and Zab has improved as a player since Richards was last regularly available so it is harder to compare them.

Also, I am honestly not sure whether the best approach at the moment is to put out what the manager sees as the traditional best back four or one that features Pants and Demichelis, due to the recent error prone nature of some players. Either way, some stability to the back four would be welcome.

 

[Didsbury Dave]

People are not being complacent in regards to how poor our defending is. Those that support Pellegrini are well aware that things have to improve. You can have the most organised defence in the world but when your goalkeeper runs for a ball he shouldn't come for, you will concede. When a defender gets beaten too easily by a player, it leaves the rest under pressure. Whilst our defensive organisation has not been where we would expect it, individual errors have been frequent and costly. You would expect that a settled back four and goalkeeper would, after time, become more organised and individual mistakes would be eradicated. We have not had a settled back 4. Garcia, Lescott, Demichelis, Nastasic, Boyata, Kompany. Considering how young this season is, we have had to shuffle so much. When our manager is a believer in a high line and man marking and we are used to a zonal system, combine that major change with the unsettled defence and you would expect things to be a little muddled at times.

When you look at chances conceded though, we have actually defended very well. It is just errors by certain individuals that have costed us goals each and every time. Stop the errors and we will stop conceding. The manager has to obviously coordinate the defence to stop those errors too and I think he will. He has tried to rotate but in an ideal world Pellegrini would have been able to play Hart, Zab, Komp, Nasty, Clichy, Fernan, Yaya in every league and champions league game. The trouble is players have been injured or under performed. Time and stability will see us improve. When you look at a 0-0 draw where you created 20 chances, you would say right we are creating chances the goals will come. In exactly the same manner, you look at us conceding barely any chances on goal per game and say right, the clean sheets will come. Call it individual error, call it lack of stability, call it early days. Whatever you want to call it, the stats suggest that clean sheets are not too far away.

My thoughts, almost, exactly. My ideal back four would probably differ slightly, with Richards over Zab. I say probably because Richards has played so little and Zab has improved as a player since Richards was last regularly available so it is harder to compare them.

Also, I am honestly not sure whether the best approach at the moment is to put out what the manager sees as the traditional best back four or one that features Pants and Demichelis, due to the recent error prone nature of some players. Either way, some stability to the back four would be welcome.

Richards over Zab for me, too, particularly with the pushed-on full backs we use as part of the new style of play - which is another factor here that means the back four need to work harder and be suprememly organised. But Zab's great defensively and rarely poses a problem organisationally. And modern managers do rotate full backs more than any other position because of the energy they use up. Kolorov still causes us problems. He's an accident waiting to happen.

Kompany and Nastasic for me, every week they are available. I really can't call it on the keeper but I'm going to say Pants.

 

[JoeMercer'sWay]

"no clean sheets no Werthers Originals for you lot"

"So which of us is going to do this bloody "Just for Men" advert then?"

 

[cibaman]

I think the choice of RB depends on who plays on the right of midfield. Zabaleta is the better option at RB when Navas plays. His passing game is superior, provides much better service for Navas. I think he's also generally the better option if Nasri plays. We can be a bit exposed defensively with Richards-Nasri. But if we're going all out attack tomorrow then Richards-Nasri is the more attacking option. I think Richards has his best games in tandem with Milner, who provides cover and service for him when Micah bombs forward.