How will opponents be set up?

[Dunne's own goal]

There's lot of pre-season (over?) optimism going on. Yes we've added pace and guile to our squad which was missing, but it hasn't really been tested yet against a really organised side who has a proper game plan and puts 10/11 behind the ball. Friendlies are friendlies and proper games are a whole different ball game remember that.

But going more on topic, most teams will setup cautiously even when they're at home and at Eastlands they'll go full on to survivor mode. 11 behind the ball, parking the bus etc. and it's not gonna be a walk in the park until we get a breakthrough.
But that leads me nicely to another issue which I believe we will like next season and I reckon Manuel's teams will (hopefully) start games lot brighter than Bobby's. with bobby we had the occasional game when we started brightly but usually it was pretty cautious opening 20. So hopefully this season we'll get to celebrate a lot more goals scored before our eyes at the South Stand!

Will be interesting to see how the scum will line up at Eastlands now that whiskey nose is gone.

I think you have a good point there, maybe we need to organise a behind closed doors friendly against a team and tell them to park the bus for us to work out ways to break them down

Lol not sure if ur serious or not but I reckon we really should prepare ourselves for those occasions!

 

[ifiwasarichfan]

Last season a lot of teams parked the bus against us because, to be fair, it worked - we had trouble breaking down packed defences and dropped a lot of points that way. But one of the reasons it worked was that we were over-reliant on Silva as a creative outlet.

If pre-season is anything to go by, we've got a lot more options going forward this season. How will that affect our opponents' game plans? I think just putting 10 men behind the ball and closing down Silva will work less well. MP's teams seems to be set up wider - having someone like Navas/Jovetic should stretch the defence a bit.

I think some smaller teams might actually play a bit more aggressively against us this season, because it'll be less likely they can hang on for a 0:0 or 1:0. Any ideas?

Hopefully with a goalkeeper and ten outfield players begging for mercy.

Apart from Everton who will twat us as usual.

 

[JahWorks]

we have more direct players with Navas and Jovetic now. No more Nasri backpassing the ball, Dzeko being dispossed and Silva being marked out of the game. Teams will still park the bus but we'll have wider, more creative options that will find a hole in the defence.

 

[pee dubya]

Same way teams normally do well against us, pressing like fuck high up the pitch, followed by dropping back to every man behind the ball.

Fernandinho will have a huge role for us next season, his agility, hard work, stamina and calmness on the ball should hopefully mean we find it easier to bypass teams pressing us.

 

[goat boy]

Navas will feature highly I suspect. To open a team up you've got to get a player on the ball behind their line, even if it's over by the touch line. This gives the opportunity for the cross and you'd expect aguero and the others to make the best of the chances. I can't think of many goals that we scored last season by getting around the outside/ back of a defence, I do think that will change.

If we're still able to create chances through the middle and be effective at set pieces, then the magic starts to happen as you're really testing every aspect of a defence. You're difficult to predict and the opposition has to gamble on where the ball travels next and your clear cut chances come from those gambles being wrong. By comparison, if you tend to follow the same patterns all the time those gambles pay off for your opponent and you score less goals. I'd start looking for a fast left winger now as we need to mix it up again 12 months from now :)