Our inability to set up properly for big games

[Dax777]

I would say that Clichy recycles the ball as well as being better defensively, wheras Kolarov boots it in the direction he is facing, as hard as he can. When it works it's great. most of the time he is just depriving a better player of the ball.

I wholeheartedly agree with this. In my evaluations of Kolarov as a talent, the above I find often to be true.

And to that effect, I'd pick Clichy over him every time if both are healthy and available. But in a game in which one had played 3 days earlier, I'm not inclined to question the judgment of someone who chooses to pick Kolarov.

Furthermore, the fact that Kolarov wasn't particularly poor on defense in this game, gives me pause to moan about his selection. Regardless of my overall analysis of his talent as a footballer.

 

[Dax777]

I made it to the second sentence where you say that I agree that the high line had no impact on the score line whereas I thought I made it quite clear that I didn't agree at all. It affected the pattern of the match so who is to say what effect it had on the final score line. You probably think that is a ridiculous thing to say, what with them not scoring directly from playing the ball behind into Vardy but I think your view on that is way too simplistic and you are failing to understand obvious nuances in football. I can only conclude from that one point that although you type fucking shit loads of words and like to sound very clever, that maybe you're not. Anyway, hurrah, you win because I can't even be bothered reading beyond that second sentence.

I apologize. I get carried away with these things. I should not expect others to read my long essays. That's not why we are here. I get it.

My point was that we agree that no goal conceded was as a direct result of the high line. The rest of the vomit youbdidntbresd and I understand why, really just delved into the nitty gritty of what we did.

I'll give you the short version: We really didn't play a high Line!

 

[r.soleofsalford]

Having Pep will make a difference, but just because Pep is so good doesn't mean that Pellegrini is so bad.

Pep has somewhat a sizable amount of haters at Bayern too (quite an unreasonable lot in my opinion), and I hope that when Pep comes, some loons here will not turn against him in bad times like they did Pellegrini.

i`ve seen at first hand pelligrini`s team selections, imo he is that bad. just in case you`ve forgotten 4-1 against spurs, 1-4 against liverpool, 2-0 destroyed against the might stoke perhaps as bad a performance as i`ve seen since the start of the mancini days if not the hughes day, how many time has manuel got a tune out of this team

 

[Dax777]

Very intrigued to see the facts of that two man midfield working against sides of equivalent ability, or against sides that press and counter quickly. Especially over the past year or so.

Chelsea.

 

[BlueAnorak]

I applaud your attempt, but you can accuse me of saying 'black is white' when I've in fact done no such thing.

We are both in agreement, that the high line hard no impact on the scoreline.

Your point now is that the high line gave them confidence and made us nervous. An acceptable supposition, but not necessarily factual. But I wouldn't belabor that point. Rather, I'd answer your question:

Because we are the home team, and generally a possession based ( due to the fact our best players: Silva and Yaya) are predisposed to incisive passing, we slowly possess the ball and try to find holes to penetrate. When we do that our team moves up as a unit, on which the last defender is around midfield. This is normal with almost all teams in possession.

Even Leicester did the same thing when the possessed the ball but weren't in counter mode. Huth and Morgan come up to the half line. On 2 occasions, 1 by Yaya, and another by Silva, when we turned them over, both players immediately tried to hit it quickly over the half line and create a counter. On both occasions, one with Aguero, and the other Sterling, both strikers were on the correct side of the play. Again here, the issue was poor positioning bybour strikers and poor delivery by our mids. Even though Leicester's was there to be taken advantage of.

The point here is simple. The high line for the most part is a function of possesion. As teams move up together when they have the ball. Even Leicester does.

But let's get tactical here, since unlike vmist you seem up for it. By and large the, the high line was a none issue. We scooped up most of the lose balls because of Ota and Demichelis positioning. Vardy got free 3ice. The first was simply an error by Demichelis, I will explain in a second. But let me give you the tactical plan as it played out.

Generally, if you watched tactical cam this was obvious by the way, we played an 'over and under' on Vardy. Meaning 1 CB played a step being him and the other played next to him or a step ahead. To accommodate this 2 V 1. Fernandihno man marked Okazaki. Literally followed him around bfor a great portion of the game. 6 jump balls BTW the 2 in the first half alone.

So on most of Leicester's long ball attempts or hoofs to Vardy, Leicester was 1 out of 11. The shot Joe came out to block and Otamendi cleared. Only early ball that worked for them. Again I'll repeat, they were 1 of 11 attempts.

On that 1, Demichelis made the error. Generally, who plays ahead of Vardy, and who plays behind was dependent on what side of the half Vardy was on. If he was on the right Ota played ahead and Demi dropped, if he is on the left, Ota drops and Demi plays ahead.
On the initial ( and only) Vardy break over the top Demi assumed Vardy was crossing into his area, and thus his turn to step up, but Vardy was in the middle and he should have stayed back and wait til Ota switched Roles. But Albrintons ball was early and caught tlineg trying to switch roles. Again this was an individual error, not a tactical one.

Now let's talk about Vardys other chances in our box. The second occurred with 5 players in our box, Albrighton slid a true ball to a cutting Vardy who hit the side net. Good build up by Leicester. Nothing to do with high line though.

On a 3. Vardy on the left, Demi challenges, and Vardy beats him for pace, but Ota blocks his shot, exactly like the over and under is supposed to work.

4 Vardy goes right side, Otamendi challenges him, Vardy beats Ota for pace going towards the line and puts in a deadly cross.

So when I say the high line was not instrumental to the scoreline this is what I mean.

The facts simply don't bare out that claim. Already, 2 or 3 posters have hut on some of the more instrumental factors in the game.

Leicester counter and how knowledgeable they are at what they are supposed to do.

Our meandering build up. Our strikers not attacking the box.

Our leisurely defending by wide players.

Poor positional movement. Again by our wide mids.

But up until around page 10. The moan was about Yaya in a 2, starting Kolarov over Clichy, starting Demi over Sagna and playing a high line. Most of these moans (excluding Demi who's lax defense gave up 2 goals) really missed the key issues by a wide margin.

Contrary to popular opinion, I am not playing clapper for Pellars, just simply trying to be factual about what went wrong and where. Rather than the rinse and repeat dotribe that has too often passed for analysis here.

You really do talk absolute rubbish.
Of course the high-line defence had an effect on the scoreline.
Of course a one man DM in front of it (Fernandinho) with YaYa failing to track back or picking up runners had an effect on the scoreline.
They ALL had to run around a lot chasing down problems often thanking Joe Hart for bailing them out. During this time they often did a pretty good impression of a flock of headless chickens.
It is a FACT that a defence that does not get any time to for it's members to assess their current position and talk to each other is more likely to concede than one that does. Pick your coaching badge - defending as a team is based on continual self-assessment and talking to one another.
We never got a grip of Vardy and Mahez till Celina came on. We never got a real chance to do the defensive talking and especially the assessment stuff till then.
To state this didn't affect the rest of our defending is just 100% moonshine.

 

[Dax777]

Mate, I honestly think he wants to win more and go out on a high, why wouldn't he?

The problem is Dogma.

Manuel has displayed a stubborn streak which is built on the foundation of a rock solid belief that 442 with our squad was/is the right way to go.

He wants to prove his way will ultimately be successful as this will cement his legacy. Anything else in his mind will be seen as an admission of failure leaving him open to the criticism that he won a double because he had by far the strongest squad in the Premier League and not because he himself made a significant and tangible difference to the squad bequeathed to him.

Is this a good time to point out we've played 4231 twenty times this season and 442 only 5 times, or am i being a dick for notbletting this fugazi analysis pass for fact?

 

[cleavers]

....forgotten 4-1 against spurs

The 4-1 at Spurs keeps getting dragged up as an example, but frankly it was a bit of a fluke scoreline, we hammered them first half, and but for several dodgy decisions, and a host of missed chances, we could easily have gone in at HT 3 or 4-0 up, quite probably the best we've played all season in that first half. So second half we had to chase a game, and we got picked off, we were pretty woeful I'll agree, but lets not re-write the first half when we were largely excellent.

Liverpool, Stoke, and Leicester can rightly be be held up as examples of utter shite, but using the Spurs scoreline is a bit of a cheap shot.

 

[Dax777]

You really do talk absolute rubbish.
Of course the high-line defence had an effect on the scoreline.
Of course a one man DM in front of it (Fernandinho) with YaYa failing to track back or picking up runners had an effect on the scoreline.
They ALL had to run around a lot chasing down problems often thanking Joe Hart for bailing them out. During this time they often did a pretty good impression of a flock of headless chickens.
It is a FACT that a defence that does not get any time to for it's members to assess their current position and talk to each other is more likely to concede than one that does. Pick your coaching badge - defending as a team is based on continual self-assessment and talking to one another.
We never got a grip of Vardy and Mahez till Celina came on. We never got a real chance to do the defensive talking and especially the assessment stuff till then.
To state this didn't affect the rest of our defending is just 100% moonshine.

2 goals from set plays, another from a fast break in which the player beat 2 defenders.

Factually speaking, you are wrong. None of the 3 goals was a DIRECT result of the high line. But feel free to claim otherwise.

Your insults by the way are more on point than your analysis of the game. I do talk a lot of rubbish, and moonshine when made right is tasty. I'll give you that much ;)

 

[Neville Kneville]

The 4-1 at Spurs keeps getting dragged up as an example, but frankly it was a bit of a fluke scoreline, we hammered them first half, and but for several dodgy decisions, and a host of missed chances, we could easily have gone in at HT 3 or 4-0 up, quite probably the best we've played all season in that first half. So second half we had to chase a game, and we got picked off, we were pretty woeful I'll agree, but lets not re-write the first half when we were largely excellent.

Liverpool, Stoke, and Leicester can rightly be be held up as examples of utter shite, but using the Spurs scoreline is a bit of a cheap shot.

It's fair commnt about the first half, but the level of shite we descended into, was even worse than v Leicester, & mainly involved the same people.

A loss is a loss, it happens, but that kind of shiteness is just unacceptable.

 

[dancity19]

The 4-1 at Spurs keeps getting dragged up as an example, but frankly it was a bit of a fluke scoreline, we hammered them first half, and but for several dodgy decisions, and a host of missed chances, we could easily have gone in at HT 3 or 4-0 up, quite probably the best we've played all season in that first half. So second half we had to chase a game, and we got picked off, we were pretty woeful I'll agree, but lets not re-write the first half when we were largely excellent.

Liverpool, Stoke, and Leicester can rightly be be held up as examples of utter shite, but using the Spurs scoreline is a bit of a cheap shot.

The first half we were much better, yes. But in the second half they could have had about 7. Definitely not as bad as the others, as you say, and probably because we had to chase the game, but the fact is we still got spanked by a rival, and has to be mentioned. Could have been worse.