OB1 said:Exeter Blue I am here said:The bigger point with regard the footballing thing, is that our difficulties go way beyond Pellegrini not legislating for the opposition's strengths (if indeed that's true at all, when only last week for example he selected Sagna, a stay at home jockeyer, rather than fans favourite Zabaleta, a marauding diver inner, specifically to negate the threat of Hazard).
The club, under the overall stewardship of Txixi and Ferian, is in the process of installing a particular footballing philosophy - largely modelled, rightly or wrongly (and personally I think it's a mistake), on tika taka - throughout the entire club, from the U10's right the way through to the first team, and the problem that both the club and the manager has, is that the squad has been broadly assembled to play that way. Aggressive front foot defenders, full backs providing the width, intricate triangular passing moves to bring those full backs into play etc etc.
Whilst we have been horrendously unlucky with injuries, the squad is (and has been for 2 or 3 years) lacking when it comes to the fundamental attributes needed to adapt our playing style. Navas is the only winger at the club and the only attacking player with any real pace, and even he is horribly one dimensional; a push and chase merchant who lacks any kind of trickery to wrong foot opponents, which he why he so frequently cuts inside or turns and lays the ball backwards. The lack of pace and/or anyone who can dribble is a real handicap for us then in terms of our ability to counterattack, and indeed to drag parked buses out of position. And with regards the latter tactic, which the rags under Taggart used to circumvent by practising endless evil crossing drills at Carrington, we have no-one, bar Kolarov, whose presence weakens the team overall anyway, who can put in anything other than floaty inaccurate crap from the flanks; manna from heaven for the clod hopper centre halves at Burnley, Hull and Stoke.
Whilst Pellegrini's team selection on Saturday was inexcusable in both the inclusion of Dzeko and the expectation that Fernando, an out and out spoiler, should be considered capable of acting as a de facto attacking conduit, the team that played most of the 2nd half was the one that most of us would probably have picked from the off (given who was available), and yet whilst it looked more mobile and lively overall, it yielded barely any more goal scoring chances than the woefully unbalanced set of plodders did in the first half.
People keep seeming surprised that we can go to places like Chelsea and do well, and yet come unstuck against the lesser teams. The simple reason is that those lesser teams make it fantastically difficult for us, to the point that anyone and everyone below about 5th place parks a fleet of buses whenever they play us, and indeed the teams currently lying 1st, 3rd and 6th have all come to the Etihad this season and done it to us as well. We are uniquely ill equipped to circumvent this tactic for the reasons described, and whilst Pellegrini should rightly take criticism for some truly inexplicable team selections this season, I genuinely don't think that any other manager out there would fare significantly better with the players we currently have at our disposal. Whether that's Pellegrini's fault, or that of those above him doing the buying and imposing the philosophy, is harder to call IMO
Now that actually is a good post, from someone who genuinely knows what they are talking about; must be those coaching badges. However, I am not here to blow smoke up your hiney: I don't smoke and I'd need the kind of edifice that would excite Fred Dibnah to produce the required volume.
I do not entirely agree about tiki taka but I do think it needs a modification for use in this country. The aspects of keeping the ball, pass and move at pace and with intricacy are things that I believe in and are a good way to bring up players. I am also very much into the idea of dominating possession, both by having high pass completion but also by pressing aggressively when the ball is lost. One of our problems is that we have not achieved the levels of pressing I would like to see and that may mean that we take less risks in the attacking third. If we had greater confidence that we would win the ball back quickly, we might be prepared to try more of the difficult balls. We would also be helped in that regard - pressing - if we had more pace in the team and you have beaten me into complete submission on the point of having more pace in the team. That said, I still think we could make up for some of that lack of pace by moving the ball more quickly, which brings us back to the value of drilling players in txiki { ;-) } taka.
I do think we need to give ourselves the option of using real wingers, who have both pace and dribbling ability plus the aptitude to whip in those wicked flat crosses that you obsess over - part of looking beyond tiki taka. In the short-term, maybe there will be occasions where we use Kolarov as left winger and Navas / Milner on the right to fire balls in for Bony to attack but would Manuel go for that?
The other point I would dispute with you and others is the idea that Fernando was meant to be the attacking conduit in central midfield because he is the obvious guy to drop out when Yaya returns. Dinho was surely the guy expected to take that role? He did after all score 53 goals in 284 games for Shakhtar; hardly the stats of an out and out defensive midfielder. I barely saw him play for Shakhtar but I am sure those that did claimed he was more than just a DM there.
Excellent post, totally agree about our need to press.. the analysis actually points up the tactical elements that differentiate us from Barca, despite that fact that we have loads of talent... it's how we use that talent
We make shyte teams look good for the exact reasons stated above...
They always seem to get way too much space on the counter
