Is there a lack of intensity in our game? If so, how do we solve it?

It has always been said that to win the title 3 times running is so so hard. We are just tired mentally and physically. Injuries and aging has done us no favours. Take a deep breath,accept that some purchases are not quite good enough, refresh the squad and go again.
Remember, even as we struggle this season, we have won 5/6 of the last domestic trophies and there is still plenty of cup action to go at. Nil desperandum.
Oh, and get a decent left back, ffs.
 
alexmcity said:
There are two different aspects of intensity: the pace of running and the pace of passing the ball. The second is more important than the first. At some point in the 2nd half we started to play with more urgency and created 3-4 good chances, more than in the pervious 65-70 minutes. Pep's teams are mostly about the speed of thinking and passing. The latter wasn't quite there in the last months which indicates that the problem might be related also to mental tiredness. The thought that any dropped point might be fatal is a serious burden. Think Liverpool will get burned-out at some point this season too. The dream of the 1st PL title might help them to cope better though. Or, alternatively, make the burden even worse. A sudden collpase shouldn't be completely excluded.
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The Dippers don’t rely on speed of thought as much as we do. They don’t play the same passing game at all. I hate to say it but their system is probably less prone to mental tiredness. I do agree with you completely that it is at the heart of our current problems. Difficult to fix as well when you are playing a game every couple of days.
 
the big difference I can see this season compared to the last two is the possession and passes, we are not dominating possession the same and keeping the ball, Chelsea had more possession than us at home other weekend !

Either pep has changed tactics and the players cant get to grips with it or we have lost our sharpness. We don't look to have the skill to control the passing, we have to many players who give the ball away and cant pass to save their life.

Dominating possession can look slow at times, but done correctly you out play teams and as pep said if you keep the ball the other team cant score. If you cant dominate possession you need to be fast and hit the oppositions defenders at pace similar to what Liverpool are doing hence they grab those late goals.

We chased the ball down well for two seasons, now other teams are chasing us down. This season we will all but mirror peps first season, we need two good transfer windows and after that strengthen in two areas every year, we have fallen behind in squad strength due to injuries and players retiring or on the verge of doing so.
 
Even Pep can't seem to figure it out. It's hard to keep the intensity after winning seven titles in the last two years. If you look at Liverpool this year they are able to win those 1-0, 2-1 games, which we don't seem able to do. I hope the CL gets them motivated to at least get it done this year, sometimes you just need a break.
 
I thought we'd be up against it tonight but that was excellent.

Forget the title for the moment, let's just get back to playing football like that week after week.

The thing is we were so dominant that we could at times have literally just sat on the ball. We completely demoralised Burnley. I thought we were like that 2nd half against Newcastle too.
 
Burnley got their tactics totally wrong tonight and looked far more dangerous when their subs came on and harried us. That’s the way to get at us but it leaves teams open to the counter, which we looked better at exploiting tonight more than ever this season. Let’s hope we stuff the rags on Saturday now.
 
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