TV mate. TV.
Our inability to set up properly for big games
- Thread starter bluegaz13
- Start date
Dribble
Well-Known Member
Mate you can Lol until you shit yourself silly, but it changes nothing. You have no point to make, so after spending the day amusing yourself with your pointless posts, the most you can come with is Lol? Lol :-)
Game set and match mithinks, but a word to the wise, pull your head out, remove your blindfold and look at what's in front of you, the realisation of what is actually happening will set you free (but perhaps I'm being a little ambitious in your case).
Aww! Don't get all Karen on me mate. It's been a fun day of abject uselessness for me. I enjoyed every minute.Mate you can Lol until you shit yourself silly, but it changes nothing. You have no point to make, so after spending the day amusing yourself with your pointless posts, the most you can come with is Lol? Lol :-)
Game set and match mithinks, but a word to the wise, pull your head out, remove your blindfold and look at what's in front of you, the realisation of what is actually happening will set you free (but perhaps I'm being a little ambitious in your case).
BTW, I hope you won the argument too. :)
We dont really play with Silva on the wing though even if he does line up there according to the team sheet...... while I'd prefer we used wing players as wing players, we use Zabba/Sagna and Kolarov/Clichy as wing players with Silva/De Bruyne/Sterling all over the place. That in itself leaves holes defensively.
As was said, the team selections everyone is complaining about weren't in hindsight, to most here it was pretty clear prior to kick off that we were providing Leicester with the perfect set up.
ono
Well-Known Member
A few years back it was only the top quality teams with boundless energy like Dortmund who took the piss out of us. Now it appears to be any half decent pacy, pressing team. The rot will continue so long as we try and play a high line/incoherent pressing game with a team containing several fairly slow 30 odd year olds. Intact it will get worse.
Dribble
Well-Known Member
It's OK mate, the fact you're an armchair TV pundit who probably gets his take on the game from Garth Crooks and Stan Collymore explains it all. More fool on the rest of us for getting involved! :-)
Prestwich_Blue
Well-Known Member
It's very different watching a live game as you see everything going on, rather than what the director is showing you. You make some interesting points but to take the one about the high defensive line. The point of that is to compress the midfield, so that you can press the opponents high up the field. We usually play with our defensive line about 15-20 yards in front of the 18-yard box but what we don't do is have our midfield close enough to that line to make life difficult for our opponents. Our midfield, particularly players like Silva and Toure, simply don't work hard enough closing opposition players down meaning the defenders are too often exposed to opposition players coming at them, often with with equal numbers or even numerical superiority. We may have been playing a high defensive line on Saturday but Kante and Drinkwater had the run of midfield and were first to every ball. If we's had bodies in the right positions who were prepared to work as hard as those two, we'd have been fine.
But we didn't so they were able to come at us a number of times. On three occasions Joe Hart saved us when Vardy beat the high lines but any or all of those could have resulted in goals so it could easily have harmed us. And in any case, it's well know that the high line is easily countered by pace and long balls and it's no secret that's exactly the way Leicester play so it was asking for trouble to even try it unless we had a plan to cut off their supply. If we did, it wasn't much in evidence.
I agree the high line wasn't responsible for the first or last Leicester goals but look how far up the field Zabaleta and Otamendi were when they tried to tackle Mahrez. Under Pep, the back four would form a defensive screen so that if the first player were beaten, another one would cover. Yet Mahrez was able to skip past a number of players who weren't in any way organised to cover.
You may have convinced yourself that we had an effective plan and weren't actually that bad but any of us who were there would tell you that apart from the ten minutes after the first goal, we were a poor second all over the park.
Not to belabor the point, but saying we don't really play with Silva on the wing, even when he lines up there, is a cute way of saying Silva doesn't do his job when played wide.
And to be fair, Delph and Sterling actually do play there positions much more rigorously. The guy playing in the middle has freedom to roam towards the ball, guys playing wide don't unless they are switching wings ( at least that's how they claim Pep would want it.)
Let's not argue on yesterdays game. I think I have done enough of that today. Just opinions for the rest of the day :)
Yes. That must be it.
I think Silva is doing exactly what is asked of him, that is to roam infield and probe, which he generally does very well. We cant be using Sterling as a winger when Kolarov is bombing forward drilling crosses into shins. If we want Sterling as a winger then let Kolarov feed the ball to him, not take it upon himself. Unfortunately that is what Pellegrini is telling him to do.
I don't think anyone here is arguing over a quick fix, or any one particular problem. It's a combination of several issues that have us in this mess. Injuries to key players, too many games in a ridiculous schedule and an aging squad is a dire situation to be in. That said though, not changing the tactics or setting up to counter a certain opposition is certainly not helping us.