How to tackle stoke...

[sh249]

The key for me is where we hold our defensive line. If we play as deep as we did against Spurs, we will lose. The long ball to the likes of Crouch and Kenwyne Jones is so easy to stop. All you have to do is play a high line - it completely nullifies the long ball, as Jones would be near the halfway line rather than near/in our box. The difficulty of doing that against Spurs would have been allowing space inbehind for Lennon to out-pace Zab, so i can appreciate that it was a fine balancing act against Spurs. But if Etherington is out, there is no excuse for not playing a high line. Pennant is not as quick as Etherington.

So that's the main thing for me. Play high up the pitch so that any long balls just go straight through to Joe Hart, and hence force Stoke to play with the ball on the ground. All things being equal, they cannot beat us at our own game.

Couldn't agree more.

Still our major flaw, I think - the tendency to defend along our own 18-yard line. As a defensive ploy, I don't think it's ever likely to be effective in the Premier League - certainly not sustainedly - as given the chance sides (esp. Stoke, Blackburn, Bolton etc.) will load big players into the box and launch balls in from everywhere - as opposed to Italy, for example, where sides will invariably try and play their way through more. My one criticism of Mancini would be that he doesn't appear to have yet cottoned on to this.

Defending so deep also makes the entire side more disjointed, as there are too many gaps between defence, midfield and attack, and this stops us from applying more pressure higher up the field - which is when we look at our best (and at times unstoppable). Case in point on Tuesday - for all that he may have been guilty of the odd bad (awful?) touch, Dzeko was at times on his own upfront, without another City player within 20-30 yards because we were sat too deep.

Play a higher line, apply pressure from the off, attack with pace and dynamism and we'll wipe the floor with them. Don't, and things could get extremely nervy!

 

[HellasLEAF]