My question is, does he have a Plan B? It's all gegenpressing, Firmino as a sort of false 9, full-backs getting high up the field, pinning opposition wide players back and pinging accurate crosses in. It works, in the same way Ferguson's tactics worked, because they had the right players who were very good at playing the system.
Gegenpressing is a hard tactic to counter; you have to be exceptionally good to play your way out of it & even we struggle to do it. But you can't do it for 90 minutes, as the history of our games there have shown.
In 2019/20 we were 2 down within 15 minutes;
In 2017/18 we went behind inside 10 minutes;
In the CL game we were 2 down in 20 minutes;
In 2016/17 we went behind inside 10 minutes.
Generally we've looked the stronger in the last 20 minutes of those games but it was also a characteristic of those games that we'd completely go to pieces for 10 or 15 minutes.
Pep has adapted (although not always effectively) and though we weren't comfortable in that first half, we got through it. Having changed things in the second we took the game to them, with the outcome that they (and their keeper particularly) went to pieces under our pressure.
I'm dubious whether Flopp can make the fundamental changes required to his system to get them back on track. He hasn't got the tactical flexibility that Pep has shown throughout his career. If the brute force gegenpressing approach
doesn't work, is there. anything else in Flopp's cupboard? I suspect the answer is no.
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