RB Leipzig (A) | Post Match Thread

I think the problem lies with our front three more than midfield.
Grealish assists and goals stats say it all. Never gives the ball away but creates nothing.
Mahrez blows hot and cold. Neither he or Grealish get the ball across to EH, both always cut back in on their preferred foot. They never mix it up and swap wings mid game.
It’s all been said about Haaland , but as a trio they don’t gel.
Something has to change.
I would Foden an extended run on the left.
He worked well with EH early season. He is direct, sees a pass and can score.
 
bluemoon32 said:
Away draw in CL isn't a particularly bad result, the opposition were decent but no more than that
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Pre-game a draw is a decent result

At 8:45 last night when the tie (never mind the game) should be over its a poor result

I couldn't believe how bad Leipzig were in that first half and I couldn't believe how bad we were in the second half (although nowhere near as poor as Leipzig had been in the first 45 minutes)
 
Tolmie scores said:
I thought it was a goid game last night, with two good technical teams. Id take a draw any day. First half our shape and willingness to attack was a breath of fresh air. They reacted very well. Pressed certain players and left others alone, they made good choices and deserved the draw. Possible oen for us at the death? Why nobreplays? All in all an enjoyable game (and it is a game afterall,).
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TBH I didn't enjoy it much. And I don't mean them scoring, which tbh I fully expected and then just though "yep".

I thought our passing and ball retention in the first half was excellent - truly impressive in fact - so I enjoyed that a bit. But I watched and saw what I've seen for weeks now, no real threat, no expectation that we were going to start banging the goals in, or even a goal. Noticeable that our only goal came from their mistake, and yes I know if my aunt had bollocks etc, but were it not for that 1 mistake, we'd have lost.

So overall, tbh, I found it quite boring. This sense that we could play for 3 hours without scoring, just passing it around aimlessly for hour after hour.

In the the 10 minutes when Leipzig were on top, they looked vastly more threatening than we did in the other 80. Fast, dynamic, pacy. Something we just don't do any more. Even when we broke on the counter with Leipzig all out of position, Grealish had a simple through ball to Haaland, but no, stopped on the half way line, stood around a bit and passed it backwards. Predictable, and very very dull.
 
bluedreamer said:
I think the problem lies with our front three more than midfield.
Grealish assists and goals stats say it all. Never gives the ball away but creates nothing.
Mahrez blows hot and cold. Neither he or Grealish get the ball across to EH, both always cut back in on their preferred foot. They never mix it up and swap wings mid game.
It’s all been said about Haaland , but as a trio they don’t gel.
Something has to change.
I would Foden an extended run on the left.
He worked well with EH early season. He is direct, sees a pass and can score.
Click to expand...
Phil will definitely start Saturday, so here's hoping mate
 
bluedreamer said:
I think the problem lies with our front three more than midfield.
Grealish assists and goals stats say it all. Never gives the ball away but creates nothing.
Mahrez blows hot and cold. Neither he or Grealish get the ball across to EH, both always cut back in on their preferred foot. They never mix it up and swap wings mid game.
It’s all been said about Haaland , but as a trio they don’t gel.
Something has to change.
I would Foden an extended run on the left.
He worked well with EH early season. He is direct, sees a pass and can score.
Click to expand...
I think playing the inverted wingers really doesn't help. 95% of the time both Grealish and Mahrez cut back inside and keep possession rather than try and create something that ends in the ball being delivered into the box. Nearly every time it revolves around the ball being in central positions, and allows the opposition to play narrow and stifle any space Haaland might have.

When City have the ball teams just focus on stopping City through the middle by allowing the wide men to just cut back inside, force the ball inside to Gundo / Rodri knowing there is little chance they can hurt you and cut off the central passing lanes to Haaland making it almost impossible to play him in.

Look back to earlier in the season when we scoring a lot of goals and Haaland looked unstoppable. Didn't really come from central areas, came from balls into the box for him to attack. Deep early balls from wide mostly from Kev, but even those have dried up. We have regressed so far from that early play that Haaland doesn't have a bloody clue where to attack at the moment and we need to change that.
 
Mr HJ said:
I'd agree with this especially about Bellingham. Since the return from the World Cup something has been slightly off. We were very good prior to the break so I don't agree with those who say this year has been a bust but several things, just very subtle things have made us far less of a threat.

Last night was a perfect example of our recent form - they are a decent side and we stifled them through possession. However, we didn't really create a great deal. It occurs to me that our more dynamic players seem to have fallen out of favour a bit - example:

Pep decided to play with a supporting striker and chose Riyad instead of picking a player who understands how vital linking up with a fellow forward is - that guy (Alvarez) has done that since he came out of the womb and would in my opinion would have got more out of Erling. Riyad is arguably having his best period but I've always thought he plays more for Riyad than the team - hence why his assist numbers are not as high as they should. I've never seen a wide forward go back so many times in games - I know I'll get pelters for that opinion but to me it's a fact.

Because Pep perceives that we are a team without pace he picks a midfield that is brilliant at keeping the ball but lacks the drive or the will to play early passes forward. Bernie has been fantastic but now loves to turn inside and out - problem is whereas David would do that much further up the field causing all sorts of mayhem Bernie does it inside our own half. Gundo too has a first instinct to play back & forth with a centre back rather than turn and drive forward. It's odd because when he does drive forward he is brilliant - is that age or what he is being told to do?

I'm not saying the players are all of a sudden poor, far from it. I firmly believe that it's just a subtle tactic that needs to change. We need to get back to the first half when we got the best out of Kev, Erling, Phil and others.

Of course it could be much worse - I'm gong to call a few folks at Anfield to ask how things are going for them this week.
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We were not very good before the break lost to a shit Liverpool and put in a limp performance home to Brentford. What kept us going was the Haaland goals which are now drying up.
The fact we are in a better position to the dippers is I suppose something of a consolation. The team appears to need an urgent revamp and sadly that may also mean a new man at the helm. But football as we know is a strange beast and we could still prosper in the coming months.
 
I don't know how people can go from the siege mentality and backing Pep's press conference before the Villa game, to throwing him under the bus after two draws and saying we might need a change. Pep has publicly acknowledged that we need pace and I fully back him to rebuild our squad. It's not easy to lose a big name every year he's been at the club and still do as well as we have.

2016: Joe Hart
2017: Pablo Zabaleta
2018: Yaya Toure
2019: Vincent Kompany
2020: David Silva
2021: Sergio Aguero
2022: Raheem Sterling
 
shevtheblue said:
The biggest problem in our team, and Pep went on to mention it in the post-match, is lack of pace. This in turn causes him & the players to be over the top with control, because they know they can't recover as quick as they used to. So we now have a monster up front who wants to attack space constantly, but the rest of the team (inc the manager, although he keeps saying they need to give him the ball) who refuse to pass to him due to fear of turnovers. Don't get me wrong, turnovers are a huge problem for us, but i don't think the answer is to try & have 90% possession because what happened against Forest & Leipzig will happen. Giving instruction for possession and control over everything leads to what we are seeing at the moment, a fear of turnovers and a fear of taking chances, like playing Haaland in behind when he's making runs.

If you think back to early on in the season when Haaland was scoring for fun, it was because we were taking risks. Obviously we were conceding at times because of this as well, there just needs to be a fair balance until we can get some pace back into the team.
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We really do need more pace in this team. Grealish isn’t exactly slow but he’s not got proper pace, but he was by far the fastest of the five behind Haaland last night. I think that’s a problem we’ve faced this season.

While Jesus and Sterling had their faults (and it’s not like I wish we didn’t sell them or want them back) but we didn’t replace their pace in wide areas (since Jesus often played wide for us last season) and our general demeanour is that of a slow team now.

Even Álvarez who is faster than the others we have, isn’t fast. But what he has is desire and tenacity to his work rate.

Foden should be fit now so he needs to start playing regularly again. He, Haaland and Walker are the only players with any pace in the whole squad. I’d play him in attacking midfield with de Bruyne and see how he does. He’ll certainly try and pass to Haaland more than Bernardo and Gundogan did last night, especially in the second half.

Stones isn’t far away either so I’d love to see this line-up soon and see what happens:
————————-Ederson——————
Walker——Stones——Dias——Aké
—————————Rodri———————
————-de Bruyne——Foden———-
Álvarez———Haaland———Grealish

Doesn’t have to be every week as we have a lot of games and don’t want to burn them out (de Bruyne needs more tests than he’s getting as it is, plus Mahrez often scores so don’t leave him out long term). But just see how it goes with Foden in midfield.
 
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John Wayne said:
I don't know how people can go from the siege mentality and backing Pep's press conference before the Villa game, to throwing him under the bus after two draws and saying we might need a change. Pep has publicly acknowledged that we need pace and I fully back him to rebuild our squad. It's not easy to lose a big name every year he's been at the club and still do as well as we have.

2016: Joe Hart
2017: Pablo Zabaleta
2018: Yaya Toure
2019: Vincent Kompany
2020: David Silva
2021: Sergio Aguero
2022: Raheem Sterling
Click to expand...
*+Fernandinho
 
RayCTID said:
The fresher legs might of not taken fully on board what Pep wanted from the game
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That’s true. He’s done it a few times over the years now where he’s not made any changes as I think he’s trying to drive home the point to the players he gave instructions to from the start to enact what he’s told them to and doesn’t let them off for not doing it by taking them off, he wants to see if they can work it out for themselves.

Sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes he’s right to do it annd the players should be doing better and others he isn’t right and should make the changes.

But I understand the reasoning behind why he does it.
 
Hard to argue that on the balance of play a draw wasn't a fair result. However, with my City hat firmly on, if we score their equaliser it (quite rightly) gets chalked off for 'climbing' and, at the other end, if that hits one of our defenders it's (again quite rightly) a nailed on penalty.
 
I think Pep has mentioned his reasons for not using subs before also. I don't particularly remember the exact reason but something to do with the flow/intensity etc. Not saying I agree with him though.
 
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