Discuss Pellegrini (Pt 4)

[FantasyIreland]

At Sunderland, the biggest miss was Fernandihno, his drive has been key to us improving as much as we have until that game, and he links the play very well, and he also seems to make Yaya work harder.

I don't think Yaya works harder,he's just afforded the time and space to play and subsequently dictate.

Barry,to a lesser extent,allowed him similar.

 

[St Helens Blue (Exiled)]

North west hack here..

Pellegrini umfortunately gave spurs all the ammo they need in what he said last week.
He's done the teamtalk for Spurs..
As I said..an uninspiring dour manager who is a yes man to the board.
Still I will support him and the team as I always do with my family tomorrow.

 

[blueinsa]

Do either of you think that it's down to lacking a certain amount of urgency, especially away from home, when Vinny's not in the side?

Urgency shouldn't come down to missing a player, every player should have that desire to work their arses off every game and really put a shift in.

Oh don't get me wrong - i'm not saying that it's acceptable - but I do feel like Vinny tends to have that capacity to make a surging run forward and inject a bit of tempo into our play. Similar to Yaya really in that respect.

I'd love to see stats for distance covered by players in say our away game at Sunderland in comparison to say Stoke.

A big problem for me is ownership of the ball at times. In that i mean we constantly see Silva and Nasri and even Aguero in a forward position having to drop back towards the midfield to pick up the ball and start an attack but the fact they have dropped back means there is no one up if you get my drift?

We far too often see this happening with 10-15-20 passes with us going nowhere at times because key players are having to do it all whilst many are happy to just give it to them and not do any of the work.

 

[Anonymous]

A big problem for me is ownership of the ball at times. In that i mean we constantly see Silva and Nasri and even Aguero in a forward position having to drop back towards the midfield to pick up the ball and start an attack but the fact they have dropped back means there is no one up if you get my drift?

We far too often see this happening with 10-15-20 passes with us going nowhere at times because key players are having to do it all whilst many are happy to just give it to them and not do any of the work.

I do see what you're saying, although I reckon we're more direct and more happy to get the ball wide and get it into the box than we were last season.

In terms of the comments about work rate - that's why i'm interested in the stats - because I do think it's hard to judge if a team is working hard enough or not when the opposition are sat incredibly deep leaving few gaps to play into.

 

[JoeMercer'sWay]

Do either of you think that it's down to lacking a certain amount of urgency, especially away from home, when Vinny's not in the side?

Urgency shouldn't come down to missing a player, every player should have that desire to work their arses off every game and really put a shift in.

Oh don't get me wrong - i'm not saying that it's acceptable - but I do feel like Vinny tends to have that capacity to make a surging run forward and inject a bit of tempo into our play. Similar to Yaya really in that respect.

I'd love to see stats for distance covered by players in say our away game at Sunderland in comparison to say Stoke.

I don't think distance covered really says much, because Sunderland sat in so much it warps the results. For example for all Bayern's dominance against us we had very similar distance covered stats, the key difference that our passing, even our short passing was horrendous in the first half in that game.

Better indicators were the number of crosses, passing the buck to Navas and Kolarov instead of guys like Yaya really taking control of the game, they were anonymous. Sunderland didn't really make sense in approach and especially the 2nd half approach and some big players didn't perform, Nasri tried to fill in for Silva but we didn't have anyone making Nasri's normal contribution to supplement Samir.

I think if Demichelis was a few years younger he might try those runs, because he's good on the ball, but in reality I think with our defensive frailties it'd be nice for our centre backs to just focus on defending. Fernandinho makes a huge difference but to fully exploit his box to box ability you need a man holding, which is why I think the diamond at Sunderland with Milner box to boxing and Garcia just holding like at Chelsea would have been far more effective.

I'm really curious as to how we set up tomorrow and I reckon AVB will try and control the midfield and if they get a foothold 3 v 2 then we could be in big trouble. I want to see a top class manager and a top class tactician tomorrow, and the fixes to our defensive problems, he's had two weeks to work on these issues and it's the last break he's had till the Spring pretty much, he needs to have sorted it.

 

[Phil1]

North west hack here..

Pellegrini umfortunately gave spurs all the ammo they need in what he said last week.
He's done the teamtalk for Spurs..
As I said..an uninspiring dour manager who is a yes man to the board.
Still I will support him and the team as I always do with my family tomorrow.

It's the worst cliché in football the whole "He's done the team talk for them"
What he said was right, he wasn't disrespectful, just answered a question honestly. I agree with him, Spurs will be lucky to finish top 4, they certainly won't be challenging for the title.
He does come across as dour, i'll give you that, but it's what's said and done with the players that counts, not how the gobshite press perceive him.

 

[Anonymous]

I don't think distance covered really says much, because Sunderland sat in so much it warps the results. For example for all Bayern's dominance against us we had very similar distance covered stats, the key difference that our passing, even our short passing was horrendous in the first half in that game.

Better indicators were the number of crosses, passing the buck to Navas and Kolarov instead of guys like Yaya really taking control of the game, they were anonymous. Sunderland didn't really make sense in approach and especially the 2nd half approach and some big players didn't perform, Nasri tried to fill in for Silva but we didn't have anyone making Nasri's normal contribution to supplement Samir.

I think if Demichelis was a few years younger he might try those runs, because he's good on the ball, but in reality I think with our defensive frailties it'd be nice for our centre backs to just focus on defending. Fernandinho makes a huge difference but to fully exploit his box to box ability you need a man holding, which is why I think the diamond at Sunderland with Milner box to boxing and Garcia just holding like at Chelsea would have been far more effective.

I'm really curious as to how we set up tomorrow and I reckon AVB will try and control the midfield and if they get a foothold 3 v 2 then we could be in big trouble. I want to see a top class manager and a top class tactician tomorrow, and the fixes to our defensive problems, he's had two weeks to work on these issues and it's the last break he's had till the Spring pretty much, he needs to have sorted it.

Always interested in your perspective on games mate ... even if we don't always agree.

Regarding tomorrow, I'm not sure we have systematic defensive problems. We will play the same very high line we have played all season at home. I know this will probably anger you, but I bet a penny to a pound we set up with two forwards and the midfield two of Yaya/Dinho.

It'll be a cracking game, and as I said in the match day thread I can see it being a high scoring draw.

 

[blueinsa]

A big problem for me is ownership of the ball at times. In that i mean we constantly see Silva and Nasri and even Aguero in a forward position having to drop back towards the midfield to pick up the ball and start an attack but the fact they have dropped back means there is no one up if you get my drift?

We far too often see this happening with 10-15-20 passes with us going nowhere at times because key players are having to do it all whilst many are happy to just give it to them and not do any of the work.

I do see what you're saying, although I reckon we're more direct and more happy to get the ball wide and get it into the box than we were last season.

In terms of the comments about work rate - that's why i'm interested in the stats - because I do think it's hard to judge if a team is working hard enough or not when the opposition are sat incredibly deep leaving few gaps to play into.

Pace and tempo are the only things to counter a side with 10 men behind the ball and determined to defend.

They want us to fuck about with it in front of them all day long and until we ramp it up and really get at them for 90 mins and allow our technical ability coupled with that tempo and pace to do the job we will struggle.

 

[St Helens Blue (Exiled)]

North west hack here..

Pellegrini umfortunately gave spurs all the ammo they need in what he said last week.
He's done the teamtalk for Spurs..
As I said..an uninspiring dour manager who is a yes man to the board.
Still I will support him and the team as I always do with my family tomorrow.

It's the worst cliché in football the whole "He's done the team talk for them"
What he said was right, he wasn't disrespectful, just answered a question honestly. I agree with him, Spurs will be lucky to finish top 4, they certainly won't be challenging for the title.
He does come across as dour, i'll give you that, but it's what's said and done with the players that counts, not how the gobshite press perceive him.

He may as well have said spurs are shit..because in essence that is how avb will put it over to his team.
3pts is a must tomorrow,but then again it was in the four aways we have lost.

 

[cleavers]

At Sunderland, the biggest miss was Fernandihno, his drive has been key to us improving as much as we have until that game, and he links the play very well, and he also seems to make Yaya work harder.

I don't think Yaya works harder,he's just afforded the time and space to play and subsequently dictate.

Barry,to a lesser extent,allowed him similar.

Probably, which is why I said "seems to". The work rate of one player can be infectious, but it clearly can make others look better anyway.

I thought Fernandihno started slowly, but has quickly found his feet, and is a key player already, it was very noticeable at Sunderland that we missed him, he does more than Barry, well has a far wider range of skills.

I do think that we need to work harder away from home, whoever we are playing, and if we do that, we'll be hard to stop.

The other thing about the Sunderland game was the lack of clear cut chances created, again probably down to missing Fernandhino, who links play very well.