Our record against 10 men under Pep

supercity88 said:
We had the wrong players on the ball. Pep wants as many midfielders on the pitch as possible and he had the chance to live that dream, but kept defensive players on despite Arsenal having no threat. Watching Dias, Walker and Kovacic consistently just play it sideways was tough work. We needed Bernardo, Foden, Gundogan in those positions and could have pushed the defensive players in the box and looked to treat the 2nd half as an aerial bombardment and just look to find space for players who could score from outside the box or cross to bigger players in it.
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When have you seen a Pep side, during his entire management career, use "aerial bombardment" as a tactic??
You only have to look at our corners to see it's not a great tactic for the team.
You're asking players who've been trained relentlessly in possession football, looking for the spaces, to suddenly morph into Wimbledon c. 1990. It isn't happening and supporters should realise that after 9 seasons
 
supercity88 said:
I think Pep was confident the players would find a way through and was still concerned about the counter attack. It's rare you come up against a team that goes down to 10 and doesn't look to have any outlet for a counter though, so we needed to be a bit more risk adverse.

I could understand keeping Walker on for the counter, but Dias should have come off and we could have put on another creative player. Arsenal were leaving a lot of space outside the box, leaving the opportunity to shoot but Dias didn't fancy it at all and Kovacic isn't the best either. Having someone like Gundo or Foden in the same space to shoot would have been far better. Get the big lads around Haaland to help block the Arsenal defenders and create a shooting lane for people outside the box.

Easy in hindsight. Got the equaliser in the end, but should have won the game from that position.
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I think Pep feared possible set pieces for Arsenal and decided to keep the big defenders. Still, he could play Dias and Gvardiol in their box when we were in control and have them there for Arsenal set pieces. Not pushing Gvardiol a bit closer to Haaland and letting Dias pass the ball around the box were probably mistakes on Pep's part.
 
WesthoughtonJohn said:
When have you seen a Pep side, during his entire management career, use "aerial bombardment" as a tactic??
You only have to look at our corners to see it's not a great tactic for the team.
You're asking players who've been trained relentlessly in possession football, looking for the spaces, to suddenly morph into Wimbledon c. 1990. It isn't happening and supporters should realise that after 9 seasons
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When have you seen a Pep side play a whole half against 10 men who had no striker and 8 players in the box?

It was a completely different game to one I've ever seen before, under Pep or anyone else. I don't know many, if any teams who having lost their number 10 take off another attacking player for a defender.

Pass pass pass wasn't working and something else was required. We had loads of opportunities to shoot from the edge of the box but the wrong people in those areas. Whether from a cross or just by having bigger players in the box to hassle the Arsenal defenders, we needed something different.
 
A team going down to 10-men isn't the blessing it once was. In my opinion anyway.

As soon as Trossard was sent off yesterday, I knew the second half would be even more tedious than the first. It causes teams - who are already conservative against us - to go into consolidation mode and basically have no thought other than sitting even deeper than they already are.

I don't care what anybody says either, trying to break down a line of 10 players sat no more than 20 yards in front of their goal is near-on impossible. Hence Pep's delight after the game yesterday that we eventually managed it.

It's not down to Arsenal's brilliance, it's down to sheer volume of numbers they had in such a small area of the pitch.

The opposition going down to 10 men is brilliant, if they continue playing how they originally were. But teams don't do that anymore. Teams revert from 'having a go' to simply surviving. Makes for a truly terrible watch.

Plus it creates even more time-wasting than we already see. I dread a red card unless we're already winning.
 
Fucking idiotic yesterday leaving four defenders on an our centre backs taking 13 shots between them in the second half. Kova was no better either.
 
WesthoughtonJohn said:
When have you seen a Pep side, during his entire management career, use "aerial bombardment" as a tactic??
You only have to look at our corners to see it's not a great tactic for the team.
You're asking players who've been trained relentlessly in possession football, looking for the spaces, to suddenly morph into Wimbledon c. 1990. It isn't happening and supporters should realise that after 9 seasons
Click to expand...
Would agree if we hadn’t taken 33 shots in the second half, most of which were wild row Z specials. That wasn’t exactly a masterclass in possession based football.
 
WesthoughtonJohn said:
When have you seen a Pep side, during his entire management career, use "aerial bombardment" as a tactic??
You only have to look at our corners to see it's not a great tactic for the team.
You're asking players who've been trained relentlessly in possession football, looking for the spaces, to suddenly morph into Wimbledon c. 1990. It isn't happening and supporters should realise that after 9 seasons
Click to expand...

Pep is flexible enough to try different things. That possession based, patient football works fine in 99% of the cases doesn't mean other tactical approaches can't work in extreme cases, such as when the opposition is down a man for an entire half. We are not direct in most games in order to control counters, but vs 10 men the arguments against direct attacks are less convincing. If Pep can play Bernardo at LB, he can try more direct, chaotic football in attack vs 10 men, too.
 
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