Our Defence

blueinsa said:
Apologies mate, I read it as only the bottom 6 have conceded more thus far this season.

Look, I agree its not good enough defensively right now it really isn't but i think its too simplistic to just blame the manager. I have pasted up Ferrans comments on how we will play and defend several times and he makes it clear it wont always work and that it a long, learning process for everyone.

Whether we like it or not, the Barca blueprint is there and the club is not going to deviate from that plan with us hopefully one day surpassing them and making it the City blueprint. Ferran is quoted as saying they wanted Pellegrini in because they trusted him to implement the plans they want and it looks like he is doing just that. results and performances at times might lead many to think what fucking plan? but its there and you can see what they want. I've just made the comment on another thread about the work rate required for a high defensive line and pressing all over the pitch and we are miles away from it right now with this crop of players who still decide it seems whether to turn up or not sometimes. they did it with Bob and now with Pellegrini.

Im not making an excuse for the manager with the above, im just saying what i think is at play at the club right now and of course, come the summer and hopefully Pep, they have the next man and their man who they hope can take it to the next level.
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i saw what you posted yesterday (good read)

However i will say this - they are wrong to try and play this way at the present time...they may want to play like that but with the present players we cannot do it......we have forward who can press in sterling and KDB (but are not doing) and Kun (who is ok at it but not in comparison to say a tevez) but Bony is rubbish at it and Kelechi we just don't know

Our midfield isn't dynamic enough....fernando and yaya are terrible at it while ferna and delphi are ok but those two linked with non pressing from the forwards causes huge gaps to appear. Silva is good at stealing the ball but more in that he takes a player by surprise and not by pressing

Kolorov is woeful at it and gets turned and then looks like he is running through treacle

There are the centre halves who are getting a pasting at the moment but they are trying to dive into gaps and press that are just too much doe to the situation in midfield. We look better when we are complicit and there have been games when we do this sometimes but its not sustainable with the players we have

I get that this is the way the club wants to play and i also like it that way but with the repent crop of players we are struggling....and players like yay get hung out to dry because he is being asked to do something he is really not very good at.....we are stuck between two systems...one the club wants to play and one the players are better at and w are playing neither.....

The answer is to change and adapt for now and then a huge overhaul is needed:

Yaya will go (we know that)
Fernando just doesn't fit into that either
delphi gives us that energy but I'm not sure he has the class to take us to the very top (but a good squad player so he possibly stays)
nasri - feel sorry for him with his injuries but he doesn't fit into the pressing game - he relies on possession based football
kdb and sterling fit various systems

As for the defence

Kolorov - has to go....awful at it and then cant recover
MDM - just hasn't got the legs to do it and gets left for dust far too easily
the rest need proper coaching in it besides VK
 
Who actually coaches our defence?

I am assuming that a club in our position recruits the very best coaches available, or is it just a case of Pelle using the guys he has used for years?

If the pundits on TV can see the glaring issues then surely the coaching staff can, or is it a case that Pelle is happy for us to be so open at the back as he believes we can just outscore teams?
 
I think people are imagining Vinnie as some miracle cure that is going to fix everything, but they are probably going to be disappointed. He was probably the worst of our CB's last year, there was genuine debate as to whether he was finished. Then we start the season playing brilliantly, with him and Mangala keeping 6 clean sheets in a row and looking pretty unbothered and some now see him as being crucial to the defence. (yes we also got a clean sheet against the rags when he came back, but that's hardly an achievement)

I honestly don't think it's an individuals problem, I think it's an entire team problem. We don't defend as a team at all, so will always put far too much pressure on whoever we have in defence. We let people pick passes, we give them space to run into and we just hope that the defenders can win every single individual battle. It's so easy to play against and it's forcing the defenders to do far too much, while the midfield doesn't do nearly enough. I don't see it getting any better until we get a new manager tbh, it's a problem that's been here for as long as Pellegrini has, but it's just getting more exposed as our midfield struggles more and more to control games.
 
simon23 said:
i saw what you posted yesterday (good read)

However i will say this - they are wrong to try and play this way at the present time...they may want to play like that but with the present players we cannot do it......we have forward who can press in sterling and KDB (but are not doing) and Kun (who is ok at it but not in comparison to say a tevez) but Bony is rubbish at it and Kelechi we just don't know

Our midfield isn't dynamic enough....fernando and yaya are terrible at it while ferna and delphi are ok but those two linked with non pressing from the forwards causes huge gaps to appear. Silva is good at stealing the ball but more in that he takes a player by surprise and not by pressing

Kolorov is woeful at it and gets turned and then looks like he is running through treacle

There are the centre halves who are getting a pasting at the moment but they are trying to dive into gaps and press that are just too much doe to the situation in midfield. We look better when we are complicit and there have been games when we do this sometimes but its not sustainable with the players we have

I get that this is the way the club wants to play and i also like it that way but with the repent crop of players we are struggling....and players like yay get hung out to dry because he is being asked to do something he is really not very good at.....we are stuck between two systems...one the club wants to play and one the players are better at and w are playing neither.....

The answer is to change and adapt for now and then a huge overhaul is needed:

Yaya will go (we know that)
Fernando just doesn't fit into that either
delphi gives us that energy but I'm not sure he has the class to take us to the very top (but a good squad player so he possibly stays)
nasri - feel sorry for him with his injuries but he doesn't fit into the pressing game - he relies on possession based football
kdb and sterling fit various systems

As for the defence

Kolorov - has to go....awful at it and then cant recover
MDM - just hasn't got the legs to do it and gets left for dust far too easily
the rest need proper coaching in it besides VK
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Excellent post mate and completely agree.

My use of Ferrans quotes as an excuse for the manager are not me agreeing with them, its just the way I see the club operating right now for better or worse and whilst i see it being a success for years to come, its causing us pain right now and i dont like it either.
 
blueinsa said:
Excellent post mate and completely agree.

My use of Ferrans quotes as an excuse for the manager are not me agreeing with them, its just the way I see the club operating right now for better or worse and whilst i see it being a success for years to come, its causing us pain right now and i dont like it either.
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so don't you think the manager and the coaches should adapt to what we have at the moment cause i think if we do then we would run away with the league

Im not sure how much influence then that MP has if this is the case and that then causes another real concern for me
 
simon23 said:
so don't you think the manager and the coaches should adapt to what we have at the moment cause i think if we do then we would run away with the league

Im not sure how much influence then that MP has if this is the case and that then causes another real concern for me
Click to expand...

Im saying that Pellegrini was brought in because they trusted him 100% to implement the plan to the letter.

Im saying he is doing exactly what he is being told to do right now.

i dont like it or agree with it but it is what it is and the club i believe have accepted they might lose a few and suffer some pain because of it but with what we have and what we are against, it should be good enough to still bag us some silverware.

Pellegrini was always keeping a seat warm for Pep and its something ive said for nearly 3 years.
 
KippaxCitizen said:
It starts with the striker and other forwards. We have no pressing game at all and don't defend narrowly from the front neither. We are spread out as a team a lot and therefore there are large gaps everywhere. From there we often just have two central midfielders. Klopp and Hughes (and whoever the Swansea manager was yesterday) sussed out that playing with no striker and dropping the extra man (flase 9 if you like) deep gives them more numbers in midfield than us. So Yaya and Fernandinho are going to struggle.

Then still before getting onto the centre halves Pellegrini is asking four 30+ year olds - none of which (possibly Clichy to be fair to him) have any real pace - to bomb up and down the wing all game. But because we have a lot of gaps around the pitch teams can counter attack us quickly and when that happens our full back are out of position and can't really get back quickly. Could you imagine the difference to our team Alex Sandro and Seamus Coleman would make? But we don't have them and Pellegrini expects our full backs to do the job they can. What can often hell with this is the defensive mids covering the fullback area. But if there's 2v3 or 2v4 in centre mid, they can't do that.

Then the centre halves. They are hung out to dry by everything above often, but also they don't seem to be drilled on moving up and down together. The difference to what we used to see with Kompany and Lescott to any partnership we have now is stark. They are also often to wide apart too as they are worried about a missing full back.

At times our defending is absolute chaos. I think it's poor and is the reason I can't take to Pellegrini. Even the most attack minded elite managers pay huge attention to detail to defending. We don't seem to at all.
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I watched clichy chase one of the Swansea team yesterday, right in front of us. His face was contorted with effort but he looked like he was running in treacle. A couple of times he chose not to contest headers, he just didn't bother jumping. He clearly is either still carrying an injury or is a long way off match fitness.
 
mansour's tow ropes said:
+1

I'm no expert but surely the first thing to cut out is to stop the diving in by the centre halves, just tell them to stay rooted to their position and hold their line with each other, when the player gets within 25 yards of goal that is the time to press them, not 40+ yards from goal.
Click to expand...
This does my head in. Couple it with a high line and it's a recipe for disaster and has proven so. I hate watching the defenders and midfielders try to nick the ball from the player leaving themselves the wrong side. It's amateurish and isn't working.
We need to just delay, stand the man up and get numbers back.
 
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