Damo put this on twitter for different reasons but it's a good clip to use to explain how close we are and what we're doing wrong.
Our use of Bravo and passing side to side and back to the GK draws Everton out. Pause the video at 02:28 game time. When Clichy gets the ball we've used Everton's press to create a situation where they have seven players focused to one area of the pitch. Clichy chooses the wrong option and passes to Sterling, who has no 'out' ball. He doesn't have a single option, and we concede a throw. If, Clichy is thinking quick enough (the biggest problem we have with fullbacks) he can choose a little pass to KDB to run onto, a pass into Yaya or a pass to Zabba. If he chooses the KdB or Yaya option, pause the video again at 02:31 when Silva comes into Picture. Forget where Sterling is now, as he wouldn't be there unless Clichy had passed to him, but look how much space Silva is in and he has a 3 on 3 with Aguero and Sterling.
If Clichy makes that pass to Yaya, Yaya can play first time to Silva and we've completely turned Everton inside out. Instead, he takes the wrong touch, has to then go down the line to a player with no options and the move is over. In fairness to Clichy, the ball back to him from Yaya is poor and he needs a touch, but his touch is poor.
I could be wrong, but this is how I see Pep's vision of how he wants to play, breaking down at the crucial moment because of bad decision making or passing execution.
We're still shit in both boxes, that's a given, but we're not a million miles away with the build up. We created a fantastic situation there and destroyed it ourselves, and it happens multiple times per game.
Sane is left footed. Pep had him purchased to play (primarily) on the left. He may have been used as an inverted (right) winger at his last club but he's a kid who can learn to play on his natural side.
Strange co-incidence that. I lived in and around Exeter for many years, and apart from the fact that I am too lazy, I feel I could have written that. I agree with pretty much everything you say there. Whilst I am not, just yet, in the 'bring Joe back' club, I do believe his passion was, looking back, a very positive asset which seems to be badly missed.You're right, but only up to a point in my book. Yesterday was something of a watershed moment for me. Against Chelsea we were the better team and should have won, and even at Klanfield we could have clawed our way back in, but yesterday had a feel of inevitably about it after no more than about 10 minutes. Defensively it was an even bigger shambles than Leicester and on that score the stats are racking up and telling a story. 9 wins from our last 22 games in all competitions. Going 1-0 down in 14 of those 22 games (8 times inside the first 15 minutes). Conceding 13 goals from the last 21 shots on target against us. Conceding to the opposition's first shot on target in 7 of the last 11 matches. There's only so much opprobrium you can heap on the players. They are all one year older than last season, not 10. We were poor defensively under Pellegrini, but what I've seen at the back this season has frequently been even worse. Yes, they're learning a new system (although increasingly I'm finding hard to actually decipher what that is), yes, it takes time, but - and perhaps because I've had far less previous exposure to Pep than you - I'm still surprised by the degree of faith on here in his preferred "system" and the general confidence, bordering on unswerving belief, that he will be able to make it work satisfactorily in this league, where everyone parks the bus, where everyone has a big, powerful lummox up front to relieve the pressure, and where everyone works like navvies against us. Bottom line though, Pep is the coach, and by general consensus the best in the business, and yet 30 odd games into the season our defence is all too frequently an absolute shambles and, crucially, showing precious little sign of improvement.
Whose fault is it that we started the season with 4 full backs well into their 30's, and with just 3 centre halves (and one of them the broken wreck that is Vincent Kompany), and with just 2 recognised strikers (and one of those a barely tested 19 year old Nigerian kid), and who decided that swapping a generally excellent and physically imposing keeper for arguably the most unconvincing shot stopper we've had at the club since Martyn Margetson was a good idea? I'm not saying it's all on Pep, indeed like you I believe it's 70% due to inheriting an ageing squad that can't do all the things he wants, but he has to cop some of the blame for what's going on. He spent £150m in the summer and, via Txixi, has been in de facto control of the comings and goings for over a year now. The players he did bring in were clearly purchased with a view to playing a certain way (including Bravo), but how are we to assess the judgement behind those purchases when 15 games into the season, the manager expresses surprise that everyone simply parks the bus against us, rendering our diddyman attacking assets neutral at a stroke, and then bypasses our press by the expedient means of lumping it over the top, where our comfortable in possession, but none too imposing physically and frequently exposed, centre halves find themselves getting out-jumped, outpaced and out muscled on a fairly regular basis. Most Blues could have told him that was going to happen, and indeed I relayed my fears to you in the summer about the prospect of the majority of teams in the league setting up against us like Celtic did in successive seasons against Barca (albeit that Vilanova was in charge for the second round I think, although they were still playing the Barca "way") in the Chimps League, beating them at Parkhead in precisely the way Everton did us yesterday, and only going down 2-1 and 1-0 to very late goals in 2 of the other fixtures. How could that have come as a surprise to him, and particularly to Txixi, who has been watching Premier League football non-stop for the last 2 and a half years?
Personally I think we're in relatively deep lumber at the moment and can't afford to carry on getting walloped in the fashion we did yesterday, when the players looked rudderless, and Pep shell shocked. He needs to buy a centre half, a left back, a defensive midfield powerhouse and a physically imposing striker in this window, if we are to have any real prospect of avoiding frequent repetitions of the events at Woodison and finishing 6th in a 6th horse race, and for his own sake if no-one else's Bravo has to be dropped. I don't doubt there will be accusations (not from you) of my being led by the media, but I hate the idea of fixed systems in this league, because they're only ever viable until someone figures out the antidote. You have to be able to play in a variety of ways and right now we just don't seem able to. We're great when the opposition tries to take the game to us and leaves oceans of space for KDB and Spanish Dave to have fun in, but when they set out to frustrate then the outcome is fairly predictable. Arsenal play decent football, not dissimilar to us you might argue, but how many times have they dug out last gasp victories this season by throwing the ball over to that big fucker Giroud? 4? 5? 6? City by contrast haven't scored a single late winner, unless you count the own goal against Sunderland on the opening day. That's how easily thwarted we are, and that shouldn't be the case when you've got players like Aguero, Silva, Ya Ya, KDB and the unfortunately now injured Gundogan at your disposal. I make no long term prediction and indeed no real comment on Pep (adverse or positive) at this stage, as the man has to be given a chance in this ultra competitive league, and there have been enough encouraging signs going forward to suggest he will get it right. Based on what I've seen this season so far overall however, I'd say that the successful implementation of Plan Pep is going to be far harder than anyone first thought, and thus far (defensively at least) it isn't just the players who've been below par
This huge space must be closed up for the visit of spurs on SaturdayAwesome and fully agree
The fullbacks are not fit for purpose at present and its here we are using games both cause of this type of thing and because they are then getting caught further up the pitch in similar situations, losing the ball/giving it away and then all teams do is exploit the huge space in behind them....
In Utd's day they were only competing against Arsenal and Liverpool, and for part of that time, Chelsea. Now half the Prem has multi-billionaire owners and they can sign decent players. United were comfortably stronger than most teams, and Giggs and co could make dramatic looking comebacks. Now you have the likes of Spurs and Southampton (and us) and it's not so easy to dominate. A few of our team were signed with FFP restrictions and we couldn't get the players suitable for SM's cheque book. These days the Burnleys of the league are in your face. We've allowed too many players to grow old together.Totally agree, going back to Utd, even at 3 down, you knew that they would just keep going and get at least something, this lot just "quit" yesterday, the manager looks broken, the team is average at best, complete overhaul is required which is going to take maybe 2/3 Windows, will pep be around for them, I'm not to sure
I think yesterday may be the final straw for Pep. I think after Leicester he agreed to compromise to a system the players felt more comfortable with because they weren't getting his preferred style quick enough. Now they've given up and thrown in the towel on their terms I think he will politely tell some of them to go fuck themselves, and focus on doing his thing with the few players he wants to keep next season.
Joe - Golden Gloves 4 years out of 5 (2nd the other year) - behind a team not focused much on defence in Pell's time. 5 years direct comparison with De Gea. Ok, write off De Gea's first year when he was finding his feet. Joe had a superior clean sheet record the other 4. Let's compare Joe and Neuer internationally. Joe has played some 6 fewer internationals than Neuer and has 6 or so more clean sheets. Neuer plays behind one of the greatest Germany defensive units of all time. No-one has rated the England defence for years ...... Phil Jagielka, Gary Cahill etc. Even in the latter stages of tournaments, Germany are playing significantly weaker opposition.Can't wait for joe hart to be sold and for all the club and fans to finally move on. No more pining for the English overrated keeper who have been dropped by out last three managers and had clanger after clanger in the euros. You fellas need to let go. It's not happening.
Silva plays exactly the Pep way - very similar to his role for Spain.Is alot of these issues also a case of the players not buying into peps system in regards to closing down pressing the opponents...the first 10 games when we were flying and everything was rosey you could clearly see this in our game,the games against Sunderland and the first half at old trafford spring to mind,all the players hunting in packs trying to win the ball back straight away after losing possession.
Is it just me or has that pretty much gone out of our game now?...
The players look like there pressing now just for the sake of it looking like there pressing without actually putting the real effort in to win the ball back.
I think at the moment we just have the wrong team to play this way and that's the issue pep faces.Silva,DeBruyne,Aguero Yaya all can not be assed or are not able to play this way..they were at the beginning of the season (bar yaya obvs cause he wasn't playing) when the new manager feeling was there and everyone was fresh at the start of the season..but it's gone out of our game now and that's a huge worry because that seems to be one of the main staples of peps philosophy.
For this we need more younger energetic players who belive in the system peps wants to play,which our squad is short of at the moment.
I think it's fair to say every player at the club are currently playing for the future under pep now.
And Peps reputation is on the line also.
You're right, but only up to a point in my book. Yesterday was something of a watershed moment for me. Against Chelsea we were the better team and should have won, and even at Klanfield we could have clawed our way back in, but yesterday had a feel of inevitably about it after no more than about 10 minutes. Defensively it was an even bigger shambles than Leicester and on that score the stats are racking up and telling a story. 9 wins from our last 22 games in all competitions. Going 1-0 down in 14 of those 22 games (8 times inside the first 15 minutes). Conceding 13 goals from the last 21 shots on target against us. Conceding to the opposition's first shot on target in 7 of the last 11 matches. There's only so much opprobrium you can heap on the players. They are all one year older than last season, not 10. We were poor defensively under Pellegrini, but what I've seen at the back this season has frequently been even worse. Yes, they're learning a new system (although increasingly I'm finding hard to actually decipher what that is), yes, it takes time, but - and perhaps because I've had far less previous exposure to Pep than you - I'm still surprised by the degree of faith on here in his preferred "system" and the general confidence, bordering on unswerving belief, that he will be able to make it work satisfactorily in this league, where everyone parks the bus, where everyone has a big, powerful lummox up front to relieve the pressure, and where everyone works like navvies against us. Bottom line though, Pep is the coach, and by general consensus the best in the business, and yet 30 odd games into the season our defence is all too frequently an absolute shambles and, crucially, showing precious little sign of improvement.
Whose fault is it that we started the season with 4 full backs well into their 30's, and with just 3 centre halves (and one of them the broken wreck that is Vincent Kompany), and with just 2 recognised strikers (and one of those a barely tested 19 year old Nigerian kid), and who decided that swapping a generally excellent and physically imposing keeper for arguably the most unconvincing shot stopper we've had at the club since Martyn Margetson was a good idea? I'm not saying it's all on Pep, indeed like you I believe it's 70% due to inheriting an ageing squad that can't do all the things he wants, but he has to cop some of the blame for what's going on. He spent £150m in the summer and, via Txixi, has been in de facto control of the comings and goings for over a year now. The players he did bring in were clearly purchased with a view to playing a certain way (including Bravo), but how are we to assess the judgement behind those purchases when 15 games into the season, the manager expresses surprise that everyone simply parks the bus against us, rendering our diddyman attacking assets neutral at a stroke, and then bypasses our press by the expedient means of lumping it over the top, where our comfortable in possession, but none too imposing physically and frequently exposed, centre halves find themselves getting out-jumped, outpaced and out muscled on a fairly regular basis. Most Blues could have told him that was going to happen, and indeed I relayed my fears to you in the summer about the prospect of the majority of teams in the league setting up against us like Celtic did in successive seasons against Barca (albeit that Vilanova was in charge for the second round I think, although they were still playing the Barca "way") in the Chimps League, beating them at Parkhead in precisely the way Everton did us yesterday, and only going down 2-1 and 1-0 to very late goals in 2 of the other fixtures. How could that have come as a surprise to him, and particularly to Txixi, who has been watching Premier League football non-stop for the last 2 and a half years?
Personally I think we're in relatively deep lumber at the moment and can't afford to carry on getting walloped in the fashion we did yesterday, when the players looked rudderless, and Pep shell shocked. He needs to buy a centre half, a left back, a defensive midfield powerhouse and a physically imposing striker in this window, if we are to have any real prospect of avoiding frequent repetitions of the events at Woodison and finishing 6th in a 6th horse race, and for his own sake if no-one else's Bravo has to be dropped. I don't doubt there will be accusations (not from you) of my being led by the media, but I hate the idea of fixed systems in this league, because they're only ever viable until someone figures out the antidote. You have to be able to play in a variety of ways and right now we just don't seem able to. We're great when the opposition tries to take the game to us and leaves oceans of space for KDB and Spanish Dave to have fun in, but when they set out to frustrate then the outcome is fairly predictable. Arsenal play decent football, not dissimilar to us you might argue, but how many times have they dug out last gasp victories this season by throwing the ball over to that big fucker Giroud? 4? 5? 6? City by contrast haven't scored a single late winner, unless you count the own goal against Sunderland on the opening day. That's how easily thwarted we are, and that shouldn't be the case when you've got players like Aguero, Silva, Ya Ya, KDB and the unfortunately now injured Gundogan at your disposal. I make no long term prediction and indeed no real comment on Pep (adverse or positive) at this stage, as the man has to be given a chance in this ultra competitive league, and there have been enough encouraging signs going forward to suggest he will get it right. Based on what I've seen this season so far overall however, I'd say that the successful implementation of Plan Pep is going to be far harder than anyone first thought, and thus far (defensively at least) it isn't just the players who've been below par