Player topic: Eliaquim Mangala (2014/15)

[chris85mcfc]

Do you honestly think we play attacking football?

I don't think I've ever seen a team playing attacking football with a complete lack of pace and width

I suppose it's lucky that we don't have a complete lack of pace and width then.

Probably just as lucky that attacking football isn't judged on how fast you move the ball nor how how wide you play. Otherwise counter-attacking football would be very confusing.

Does that even make sense?

 

[Deleted member 58678]

Zouma, like chav Terry, plays with two defensive midfielders sat in front of him. That would make any centre-back look good, even Alan Kernaghan!

Well that's what we should be doing then. Not just for his benefit, the whole defence has been a shambles for a long time.

I can see exactly why he was hoofing it up yesterday. Liverpool were pressing high up the pitch to force a mistake, and our passing game was nowhere near what it should've been. I'd have been worried about trying to play it out from the back in that situation too.

Football is about balance. To increase the defensive strength you have to take away from the attacking creativity.

Mancini put 2 defensive midfielders in front of a back four which made us defensively strong but we also struggled to create chances and passed around the edge of the box for great swathes of the game. We also couldn't counter with any particular speed when we won the ball back outside of hoofing it to an attacking player because there was nobody to "link" the defensive midfielders who were sat deep and the attackers up front. As Dzeko isn't great at holding up the ball and Aguero is two foot tall, I'm not sure this is really something that would challenge most professional managers.

We play attacking football. This means that we're going to be weaker defensively than some may like. This isn't a Pellegrini thing, it's how the owner wants all of his clubs in the City Football Group to play. Once people come to terms with this it will be far easier for all concerned.

Barcelona have scored 70 league goals and conceded just 15 this season. Where is their balance? They score and don't concede. There could be a few changes to the way we play and we'd concede far less without having to hamper our attacking style too much at all.

When we won the title in 2012 we scored 93 goals and conceded just 29. Scored a load and didn't concede too many at all. We had proper team defensive tactics, two holding players sometimes yet still scored 93 goals. That was the fourth best goals scored by a champion side in Prem history yet we could defend.

 

[flb]

Well that's what we should be doing then. Not just for his benefit, the whole defence has been a shambles for a long time.

I can see exactly why he was hoofing it up yesterday. Liverpool were pressing high up the pitch to force a mistake, and our passing game was nowhere near what it should've been. I'd have been worried about trying to play it out from the back in that situation too.

Football is about balance. To increase the defensive strength you have to take away from the attacking creativity.

Mancini put 2 defensive midfielders in front of a back four which made us defensively strong but we also struggled to create chances and passed around the edge of the box for great swathes of the game. We also couldn't counter with any particular speed when we won the ball back outside of hoofing it to an attacking player because there was nobody to "link" the defensive midfielders who were sat deep and the attackers up front. As Dzeko isn't great at holding up the ball and Aguero is two foot tall, I'm not sure this is really something that would challenge most professional managers.

We play attacking football. This means that we're going to be weaker defensively than some may like. This isn't a Pellegrini thing, it's how the owner wants all of his clubs in the City Football Group to play. Once people come to terms with this it will be far easier for all concerned.

Barcelona have scored 70 league goals and conceded just 15 this season. Where is their balance? They score and don't concede. There could be a few changes to the way we play and we'd concede far less without having to hamper our attacking style too much at all.

When we won the title in 2012 we scored 93 goals and conceded just 29. Scored a load and didn't concede too many at all. We had proper team defensive tactics, two holding players sometimes yet still scored 93 goals.

Thats the nail on the head fella, perhaps we should write it in chalk on a blackboard outside Txki's office just to remind him there's more than one way of playing attractive attacking football and winning football matches without conceding loads of goals.

In fact why not send Manuel a video of the title winning season under Mancini, after all every little helps.

 

[malg]

I think he's starting to settle, we look far more stable when we have Yaya & Fernandinho sat in-front of our back four.

Kompany on his form this season, can't be easy to play alongside, rash and spontaneous are not traits we're use to seeing in him.

To be honest, I've always thought Kompany dived in too much, and made rash decisions. I just considered it to be part of who he was. The only problem now is that the midfield cover isn't there.

 

[teddykgb]

I think he's starting to settle, we look far more stable when we have Yaya & Fernandinho sat in-front of our back four.

Kompany on his form this season, can't be easy to play alongside, rash and spontaneous are not traits we're use to seeing in him.

To be honest, I've always thought Kompany dived in too much, and made rash decisions. I just considered it to be part of who he was. The only problem now is that the midfield cover isn't there.

And he won a lot of those challenges, which turns mistakes into "proactive defending". Kompany has been horrifically unlucky this season, the number of times the ball has bounced horribly for him is nearly unbelievable. I think he and Mangala can make for a great pairing, I like Mangala in almost a sweeper role, using his size and speed to clean up any mistakes made by his more attacking partner. If our FBs weren't so damned far forward and unable to cover it might even work.

 

[Damocles]

Well that's what we should be doing then. Not just for his benefit, the whole defence has been a shambles for a long time.

I can see exactly why he was hoofing it up yesterday. Liverpool were pressing high up the pitch to force a mistake, and our passing game was nowhere near what it should've been. I'd have been worried about trying to play it out from the back in that situation too.

Football is about balance. To increase the defensive strength you have to take away from the attacking creativity.

Mancini put 2 defensive midfielders in front of a back four which made us defensively strong but we also struggled to create chances and passed around the edge of the box for great swathes of the game. We also couldn't counter with any particular speed when we won the ball back outside of hoofing it to an attacking player because there was nobody to "link" the defensive midfielders who were sat deep and the attackers up front. As Dzeko isn't great at holding up the ball and Aguero is two foot tall, I'm not sure this is really something that would challenge most professional managers.

We play attacking football. This means that we're going to be weaker defensively than some may like. This isn't a Pellegrini thing, it's how the owner wants all of his clubs in the City Football Group to play. Once people come to terms with this it will be far easier for all concerned.

Barcelona have scored 70 league goals and conceded just 15 this season. Where is their balance? They score and don't concede. There could be a few changes to the way we play and we'd concede far less without having to hamper our attacking style too much at all.

When we won the title in 2012 we scored 93 goals and conceded just 29. Scored a load and didn't concede too many at all. We had proper team defensive tactics, two holding players sometimes yet still scored 93 goals.

City then and Barca now are at the top of their game. We aren't. We concede goals because when you play an attack minded game, there is a tiny distance between giving away a goalscoring opportunity and not. In a more defensive system, you can give the ball away without conceding a goal scoring opportunity.

That's the point I was making about balance - it's a risk/reward system. It's great when everything is going well and not so great when everything isn't.

I'll give a good example and point at a high defensive line. A high defensive line who is willing to push up the pitch quickly is part of our style, and pretty much a given more any team wanting to outscore the opposition and dominate possession. This is because it puts more players and more options in the opponent's half so they can find space based on movement and passing.
If you lost the ball however, you now have a gap of 40 yards between your last defender and your keeper which is exploitable.
You can drop the defensive line a little bit deeper and not use your fullbacks as essentially wingers starting 10 yards back, but the problem then is that you'll lack options in the final third when in possession. But you're safer from counter attacking.

As I say, it's risk/reward and we're on one end of the spectrum where we're punished for every mistake. You can argue as others have that we don't currently have the staff to pull this off in our team to the level that we want, but I'd point to last season where we managed it with much of the same squad. In fact last year was some of the best and most organised defensive performances I've ever seen from City and we were ridiculously quick at using the offside trap to neuter teams, even to the point we were catching flicks ons from corners offside. That is stupidly drilled and quick.

We have an issue this year that I believe is down to our fullbacks and how we have used them poorly in terms of fitness, with them not really having the legs to get up and down the pitch which means Kompany, Mangala and Demichelis are having to charge all over the pitch and adding to the uncertainty and disorganisation. In addition to this, the defensive work of Navas is heavily overstated and he's getting plaudits because he is someone who is noticeably defensive rather than effectively defensive. The Navas/Zab partnership isn't working at the moment and there's again arguments on who is trying to do the others job too much.

Above this, we've got attacking problems where the lack of replacement for Dzeko in our rotation had lead to everything from formation changes to slotting a square peg in a round hole. To put not too fine a point on it, we aren't scoring anywhere near the goals that we should be doing and again there's arguments there on how much fitness/injuries has contributed to a lack of fluidity, against the arguments that we're lacking the pressure from midfield that Yaya brought last year and allowed the orchestra ahead of him to play. Maybe it's because Fernandinho isn't giving Yaya the same support or the "tag team" option for who goes and stays.

But this is all irrelevant to most people because we're no longer even having sensible arguments like this. Everybody is pointing at huge, poorly defined concept and using words that mean very little then saying "this is the problem". Any form of critical eye on the actual football has disappeared and instead people are trading media cliches on how the manager is at fault or the board or somebody else. Because these opinions are lazy and require absolutely no knowledge or thinking to state rather than attempt to identify something in our footballing performance that might be different or why that might be so. I keep saying it - it's an expression of impotent rage.

We're second in the league and apparently we're shit and we need to sack the manager. Surprising that we managed to win all of those games that put us in second really, in such a simplistic world

 

[BigOscar]

Surprisingly, despite our shambolic defending, we are actually only on target to concede one more goal than last year, and only 4 more than in Mancini's failed title defence. We are however on target to be about 22 goals shy of last year though (which would still be 14 more than in 12/13 where we scored a pretty pathetic 66)

 

[CityFan94]

Another good performance last night, another clean sheet too.

7 clean sheets in his last 15 starts in the league.

Mangala should start every game between now and the end of the season. He's the future.

 

[FantasyIreland]

I was working last night so missed the game.......but its great to hear others getting on board with this lad,he definitely has the ability and now he is 'settling down' it will become increasingly apparent imo.

As ive said previous,him and Denayer could be a dream pairing.

 

[Gareth Barry Conlon]

He has to play every game now as he is the future. Hard lesson learnt with Boateng!!!! Play this lad every game from here on in, let Kompany and MDM fight it out to play with him.

Next year I’d keep MDM as cover but bring Denayer back in to play as a defensive midfielder but also as CB cover. For the 16/17 season I’d love us to have Komps, Mangala and Denayer as the 3 main centre backs. We could be sorted for the next 5 to 10 years if those two fulfil their potential.