Mancini's selection and tactics

[greasedupdeafguy]

Personally, I believe the eagerness and drive to succeed in Europe has had a huge effect on our tactics.

Of course we would love to play the simple 4-4-2 but it's common knowledge this outdated formation cannot go far beyond England. Moreover, we do not have the proper midfield setup for this system. Reference the Rags' midfield and ours. The Rag's midfield is heavily generated around work ethic and work rate, ours is on flair, physicality and ball retention. And our wingers, if we even have any, are pacy, nor direct-running enough to play the strengths of a 4-4-2's wide midfield.

Thus, Mancini is trying out a new formation/tactic that is to stabilise us in Europe. Last season, we attempted an all-guns blazing tactic which resembles a 4-2-2-2, brought us huge success domestically. But in Europe, the entire tactic got found out. It was weak on counters and a good attacking move can easily outplay the flat midfield.

I'm not intelligent enough, nor resourceful enough to know whether what Mancini's tinkering is right nor wrong, regardless of 3-5-2, 4-2-3-1, etc, but I'm just saying, with last season's formation, (WHICH actually, if you noticed, before Samir went out, we started with it against Madrid) we wouldn't even go far in Europe. Probably an odd win against Ajax or Dortmund, but another team like Napoli, and we are left for dead.

-- Thu Sep 27, 2012 3:44 am --

4-3-3 would suit us perfectly if we signed a world class winger and a top quality deep lying midfielder. We should have spent the 50 million on those two positions instead of what we did in buying quantity over quality.

Bale? They wouldn't sell, and Bale wouldn't leave.

United have won the CL twice using 4-4-2 and Spurs have been very successful with it. With the right personnel it can work.

 

[waspish]

Think he looks at Napoli game last season and thought that's the way to go

 

[Bill]

dont know if this has been posted but i saw it and lifted it from another site.
interesting read how other forums feel.



Bobby's apocryphal quote in the press following the humiliating defeat to Aston Villa may only partially be explained away by bad grammar.

He was talking of course about the touchline row with Paul Lambert the Villa boss, the usual handbags-type stuff Bobby routinely engages with (see Moyes, Fergie, Wenger, Pulis etc). Our esteemed majordomo has never been averse to the odd bit of winding up, and the odd wave of the imaginary yellow card, so beloved of the 'continentals' as my dad would have put it. Affronted by Lambo's response, he proclaimed himself 'tired of this manager'.

But perhaps he didn't see the irony of how his words would appear, particularly when captured in a soundbite, in which the full vowel-mangling of his accent could be brought to bear on a seemingly straight forward English phrase. Perhaps he didn't realise that many City fans, smarting from the defeat, and also from the incredibly lacklustre start we have made (following our incredibly lacklustre activity in the transfer window) might themselves be saying 'I am tired of this manager.'

Heresy! Sacrilege! Burn him at the stake! Yeah I got all that when I dared to suggest in the forums we were a worse team than last year; dared to intimate that we had done poor transfer window business by buying inferior clones of the people (De Rossi, Martinez, Hazard) we really should have bought. Opprobrium rained down on me when I further suggested that it would not all 'sort itself out' as is the stock-in-trade City fan's response (in a thread entitled 'Have We All Gone Mad?' - in which I expressed my befuddlement at the average fan's lack of ambition for the team and paralysis in the face of FFP.)

So where are we now? Seven serious games in and we are in seriously worse shape than we were at the end of last season. This is why:

1) Formation

What the hell Bobby is doing with 4-4-2 makes no sense to me at all. If he was 'experimenting' with 3-5-2 in the close season, with a view to using it - why hasn't he? We murdered Chelsea and Arsenal using it. Kolarov turned from a rubbish defender into a worldbeater, Yaya could get forward, and we looked fluid. Plus we had enough midfielders to drop back and help the defence. And why abandon 4-2-3-1 in any case?

2) We Need A Settled Side

But even if he used a different system - for f**k's sake find your best team and stick with it! We won the Championship by winning the last eight games with virtually the same 11. This is not rocket science.

3) The Case For The Defence

It's a fallacy that the defence have become crap - they are just ruthlessly exposed by a formation which doesn't play to their strengths. Southampton was a warning we got away with, Liverpool only just, but Madrid found those weaknesses and ultimately exploited them. And I don't buy that we deserved to win - they murdered us for the entire first half and were lucky not to get a hatful. As were Arsenal in the first half last week.

4) Players Past Their Sell-By Date

Kolo Toure. This man should never be allowed near a football pitch again. He is a walking disaster. Richard Wright. Can ANYBODY explain why? Maicon. Gareth Bale knew last year what the rest of us know now. Joleon Lescott. A shadow of the man he once was and now nearing 30. Costel Pantilimon. We love to call him 'pants' because he actually is. Oh - and they're all defenders - go figure. We keep all these and sell...

5) Nigel De Jong

Legend, lord and God. We should never have sold him and should have broken the bank to meet his wage demands. Garcia is a lightweight by comparison and Rodwell not on the same planet. We should have stuck with the Baz-Nige-Yaya axis that allowed the back 4 to look to so good.

6) What do all these have in common?

They are decisions made by Mancini. Now I'm actually NOT saying 'get rid of him' on the back of a few poor results - we need continuity right now, to build a dynasty. But I AM saying that maybe he's too dogmatic, maybe (as the Hart quote proved last week) he doesn't like dissenters (see Kiddo, the famous yes-man to Fergie and Platty - hardly a critic. Lombardo the half-time pizza-man.) Maybe he has lost some perspective on things and seeks to blame the players' lack of effort for what are effectively his own tactical and political mistakes.

So step it up, Bobby, before someone higher up does get tired of you.

 

[Ragnarok]

dont know if this has been posted but i saw it and lifted it from another site.
interesting read how other forums feel.



Bobby's apocryphal quote in the press following the humiliating defeat to Aston Villa may only partially be explained away by bad grammar.

He was talking of course about the touchline row with Paul Lambert the Villa boss, the usual handbags-type stuff Bobby routinely engages with (see Moyes, Fergie, Wenger, Pulis etc). Our esteemed majordomo has never been averse to the odd bit of winding up, and the odd wave of the imaginary yellow card, so beloved of the 'continentals' as my dad would have put it. Affronted by Lambo's response, he proclaimed himself 'tired of this manager'.

But perhaps he didn't see the irony of how his words would appear, particularly when captured in a soundbite, in which the full vowel-mangling of his accent could be brought to bear on a seemingly straight forward English phrase. Perhaps he didn't realise that many City fans, smarting from the defeat, and also from the incredibly lacklustre start we have made (following our incredibly lacklustre activity in the transfer window) might themselves be saying 'I am tired of this manager.'

Heresy! Sacrilege! Burn him at the stake! Yeah I got all that when I dared to suggest in the forums we were a worse team than last year; dared to intimate that we had done poor transfer window business by buying inferior clones of the people (De Rossi, Martinez, Hazard) we really should have bought. Opprobrium rained down on me when I further suggested that it would not all 'sort itself out' as is the stock-in-trade City fan's response (in a thread entitled 'Have We All Gone Mad?' - in which I expressed my befuddlement at the average fan's lack of ambition for the team and paralysis in the face of FFP.)

So where are we now? Seven serious games in and we are in seriously worse shape than we were at the end of last season. This is why:

1) Formation

What the hell Bobby is doing with 4-4-2 makes no sense to me at all. If he was 'experimenting' with 3-5-2 in the close season, with a view to using it - why hasn't he? We murdered Chelsea and Arsenal using it. Kolarov turned from a rubbish defender into a worldbeater, Yaya could get forward, and we looked fluid. Plus we had enough midfielders to drop back and help the defence. And why abandon 4-2-3-1 in any case?

2) We Need A Settled Side

But even if he used a different system - for f**k's sake find your best team and stick with it! We won the Championship by winning the last eight games with virtually the same 11. This is not rocket science.

3) The Case For The Defence

It's a fallacy that the defence have become crap - they are just ruthlessly exposed by a formation which doesn't play to their strengths. Southampton was a warning we got away with, Liverpool only just, but Madrid found those weaknesses and ultimately exploited them. And I don't buy that we deserved to win - they murdered us for the entire first half and were lucky not to get a hatful. As were Arsenal in the first half last week.

4) Players Past Their Sell-By Date

Kolo Toure. This man should never be allowed near a football pitch again. He is a walking disaster. Richard Wright. Can ANYBODY explain why? Maicon. Gareth Bale knew last year what the rest of us know now. Joleon Lescott. A shadow of the man he once was and now nearing 30. Costel Pantilimon. We love to call him 'pants' because he actually is. Oh - and they're all defenders - go figure. We keep all these and sell...

5) Nigel De Jong

Legend, lord and God. We should never have sold him and should have broken the bank to meet his wage demands. Garcia is a lightweight by comparison and Rodwell not on the same planet. We should have stuck with the Baz-Nige-Yaya axis that allowed the back 4 to look to so good.

6) What do all these have in common?

They are decisions made by Mancini. Now I'm actually NOT saying 'get rid of him' on the back of a few poor results - we need continuity right now, to build a dynasty. But I AM saying that maybe he's too dogmatic, maybe (as the Hart quote proved last week) he doesn't like dissenters (see Kiddo, the famous yes-man to Fergie and Platty - hardly a critic. Lombardo the half-time pizza-man.) Maybe he has lost some perspective on things and seeks to blame the players' lack of effort for what are effectively his own tactical and political mistakes.

So step it up, Bobby, before someone higher up does get tired of you.

I despair sometimes, really. We are only 7 ( SEVEN , SABA', SAAT, ZEVEN, SEPT, SIETE, SIEBEN, SYV, SETTE) games into the season. I can understand this if it were seven games from the end ( even that is not necessarily a time to panic as last season proved ) but seriously, A LOT OF YOU NEED TO GET A FUCKING GRIP

 

[hgblue]

In Mancini's defence, he wanted Hazard, De Rossi, Martinez, Thiago Silva, etc, and he ended up with pale imitations. If he had been given his targets (or just a couple of them), we wouldn't be having this discussion imo.

 

[Didsbury Dave]

That post is very good, Bill, and I agree with all of it except for one crucial thing.

The 3-5-2 is not right for us.

There's no way Mancini will go anywhere until summer at the very least, but he's been a disaster since we won the title.

 

[salfordblues]

What forum was the post above from?

A few points about this article:

First, the author has decided on the basis of 2/3 games that all of our signings are finished/ can't cut it. This is a complete kneejerk reaction. Make the judgement around Christmas time when they've had a chance to bed into a new side.

I don't understand this formation argument. He says we haven't used 3-5-2, did he not watch the Liverpool game? We played it and it plainly didn't work.

He then suggests that we need a settled side (a point I can agree on), refers to the last 8 games (when I really think he means 5/6) of last season and then goes onto talk about NDJ. To quote the author:

We should have stuck with the Baz-Nige-Yaya axis that allowed the back 4 to look to so good

The settled first 11 that compelted those last 5/6 games didn't have the axis of Baz-Nige-Yaya as De Jong only started one out of the last five games.

 

[Ragnarok]

What forum was the post above from?

A few points about this article:

First, the author has decided on the basis of 2/3 games that all of our signings are finished/ can't cut it. This is a complete kneejerk reaction. Make the judgement around Christmas time when they've had a chance to bed into a new side.

I don't understand this formation argument. He says we haven't used 3-5-2, did he not watch the Liverpool game? We played it and it plainly didn't work.

He then suggests that we need a settled side (a point I can agree on), refers to the last 8 games (when I really think he means 5/6) of last season and then goes onto talk about NDJ. To quote the author:

We should have stuck with the Baz-Nige-Yaya axis that allowed the back 4 to look to so good

The settled first 11 that compelted those last 5/6 games didn't have the axis of Baz-Nige-Yaya as De Jong only started one out of the last five games.

Hey, you are getting in the way of a good Mancini bashing.

 

[taconinja]

What forum was the post above from?

A few points about this article:

First, the author has decided on the basis of 2/3 games that all of our signings are finished/ can't cut it. This is a complete kneejerk reaction. Make the judgement around Christmas time when they've had a chance to bed into a new side.

I don't understand this formation argument. He says we haven't used 3-5-2, did he not watch the Liverpool game? We played it and it plainly didn't work.

He then suggests that we need a settled side (a point I can agree on), refers to the last 8 games (when I really think he means 5/6) of last season and then goes onto talk about NDJ. To quote the author:

We should have stuck with the Baz-Nige-Yaya axis that allowed the back 4 to look to so good

The settled first 11 that compelted those last 5/6 games didn't have the axis of Baz-Nige-Yaya as De Jong only started one out of the last five games.

Hey, you are getting in the way of a good Mancini bashing.

There's still quite a few people that need to get it out of their system. You wouldn't think that people would still be bitter over losing an argument they made years ago, but here we are.

 

[Anonymous]

In Mancini's defence, he wanted Hazard, De Rossi, Martinez, Thiago Silva, etc, and he ended up with pale imitations. If he had been given his targets (or just a couple of them), we wouldn't be having this discussion imo.

That's not a defence of anything!

Can we please put to bed this myth that the reason we've started slowly is because Mancini wasn't given ANOTHER 150 million plus to spend. It's bullshit and it's the wrong mentality for us supporters to have. The rags have been there or thereabouts in Europe and the league for the last 5 years, winning fuck knows how many trophies along the way. They've signed nobody of any serious note for fucking years. And they've been selling their best players, one of them to us.

We need to get a grip of our transfer expectations and start addressing the thought that maybe, just maybe, our underperforming squad need to sort their shit out and start playing to their abilities. Whether they are unmotivated, or disorganised, or a combination of the two - the answer is in on the training pitch not in the transfer market.