Tactical analysis & discussion season 2022-23

[toffee balls]

I don’t like this team..
Far too fucking soft , small and lacking bollox.

Not to worry.

 

[teddykgb]

It starts at the back, not the wing. Our build up is slow and broken. The CBs who are playing aren’t getting the ball forward quickly and every team is standing off of them happy to let them play tika taka with each other. Rodri and Lewis being 5 yards apart passing back and forth is easy to defend with 10 behind the ball but we aren’t finding forward passes from them or the CBs.

 

[Agueroooo9320]

I always have and always will hate playing with inverted wingers… it just breeds congestions and players taking the extra touch… I understand why we are currently playing it - if you want to control the middle of the park but our current system leaves massive gaps in our fullback areas

Has anyone noticed how little this side presses nowadays - we don’t look like a pep side at all at the moment

our middle of the park has lost all the energy. KDB and gundo have no legs. bernardo has no spirit. time to get some energy into the midfield next summer. preferably 2 midfielders.

 

[Bluefen]

It starts at the back, not the wing. Our build up is slow and broken. The CBs who are playing aren’t getting the ball forward quickly and every team is standing off of them happy to let them play tika taka with each other. Rodri and Lewis being 5 yards apart passing back and forth is easy to defend with 10 behind the ball but we aren’t finding forward passes from th or the CBs.

Agree with this stones and Laporte are much quicker at playing out from the back and put us on the front foot

 

[blue44]

well course it was pep. but he has no solution to the wide areas at the moment. best I can think of is playing Jack in the middle with foden out wide. to have some pace out wide and also let the fullback other side rico or walker to overlap and put bernardo or gundo next to rodri.

Im in work tomoz cocker
been.on the pop all day.
lets just agree the genius fked up.

 

[willipp]

I don’t like this team..
Far too fucking soft , small and lacking bollox.

Not to worry.

I agree with lacking bollocks. It says something when Jack is the only one looking up for it. Far too soft and far too accepting in the result.

 

[ayrshire_blue]

Would it be fair to suggest that, the so so performances and drop off from usual standards began last season and not this?

I know it's accelerated somewhat, but signs were there in numerous games last season. That Everton away springs to mind, won 1-0 but the intensity was really poor and we created so little. That's just one example of a few performances which I thought were concerning. Ultimately they didn't matter last season and only the results were important - but now we are where we are today and we need to put our finger on where it began and why it began.

Losing games is fine (well, not fine but y'know), but the sheer lack of intensity, failure to dominate a game and failure to create much of note isn't what we've been used to with Pep. Prior to last season, if we lost games it tended to be defensive lapses and failure to take chances, sometimes several of them, in a given game. These days when we lose (or draw) it tends to be because we're not giving teams a proper go.

 

[Damanino]

my big worry that these kind of tactical issues will be punished so much in CL and likely a lot lesser side will do that to us. I think another Monaco, Lyon , Spurs type of elimination is front of us.
if we have to face Napoli for example, on current form with the speed and press they play with, they would let Rodri have only half the time he had on the ball today and even that caused him playing an awful game.

and dont underestimate Leipzig either if we are not careful and be 100% for that tie or try to play rotated team vs them rather than the best 11 (well whats the best 11 these days for us, one of the main issue we have) than we could be in trouble.

 

[Agueroooo9320]

Would it be fair to suggest that, the so so performances and drop off from usual standards began last season and not this?

I know it's accelerated somewhat, but signs were there in numerous games last season. That Everton away springs to mind, won 1-0 but the intensity was really poor and we created so little. That's just one example of a few performances which I thought were concerning. Ultimately they didn't matter last season and only the results were important - but now we are where we are today and we need to put our finger on where it began and why it began.

Losing games is fine (well, not fine but y'know), but the sheer lack of intensity, failure to dominate a game and failure to create much of note isn't what we've been used to with Pep. Prior to last season, if we lost games it tended to be defensive lapses and failure to take chances, sometimes several of them, in a given game. These days when we lose (or draw) it tends to be because we're not giving teams a proper go.

well if I remember correctly this started last season when sterling or jesus was getting benched. same happened in the Villa game we had no width and then sterling came on to give a cross. zinchenko also came on and played wide to stretch the pitch. safe to say teams have caught onto our setup and are now simply allowing our wingers to have the ball out wide and clogging up the box.

 

[Agueroooo9320]

my big worry that these kind of tactical issues will be punished so much in CL and likely a lot lesser side will do that to us. I think another Monaco, Lyon , Spurs type of elimination is front of us.
if we have to face Napoli for example, on current form with the speed and press they play with, they would let Rodri have only half the time he had on the ball today and even that caused him playing an awful game.

and dont underestimate Leipzig either if we are not careful and be 100% for that tie or try to play rotated team vs them rather than the best 11 (well whats the best 11 these days for us, one of the main issue we have) than we could be in trouble.

Leipzig have very fast and intense players. I am dreading that game with the state of our midfield.

 

[Palerider]

In 20/21 we won the title with 83 goals 32 conceded. So average score was 2.18 0.84.
In 21/22 we won the title with 99 goals 26 conceded. So average score was 2.60 0.68
So far this year we have 53 goals 21 conceded. So average score of 2.52 1.00
Our centurion year, as close to perfect as we will ever get was 106 scored 27 conceded. So average score of 2.79 0.71

So, for me, our issues are not scoring but conceding too many. Looking at historic premier league tables the key to being champions is to concede very few goals. Now, I know that sounds obvious but on analysis, it is our defending that is weak. I can find 8 competitive games this season where we have concede 2 or more. That's 8 games where we needed to score 3 goals to win!

 

[teddykgb]

well if I remember correctly this started last season when sterling or jesus was getting benched. same happened in the Villa game we had no width and then sterling came on to give a cross. zinchenko also came on and played wide to stretch the pitch. safe to say teams have caught onto our setup and are now simply allowing our wingers to have the ball out wide and clogging up the box.

Again, the wingers are getting the ball late and taking on 2 and 3 men. Watch Arsenal and how they are getting the ball to their wingers early in space to attack a retreating back line. We rarely hit the long diagonal any longer and almost never isolate a winger in a true 1 v 1. When we are slow back to front our wingers will be staring at too many men to beat and will have to recycle. The wingers are a symptom not the cause of the problem.

I’d prefer wingers on their strong side who go outside the double team but we either need to press better and win the ball for quick transitions or build up faster if we want wingers to have the ability to attack a man. I do think our wingers are slow, one footed and too predictable but it probably wouldn’t be that much of a problem if we weren’t so slow begetting them the ball

 

[Brendan110_0]

John Stones being injured is a big issue.

 

[Millwallawayveteran1988]

In 20/21 we won the title with 83 goals 32 conceded. So average score was 2.18 0.84.
In 21/22 we won the title with 99 goals 26 conceded. So average score was 2.60 0.68
So far this year we have 53 goals 21 conceded. So average score of 2.52 1.00
Our centurion year, as close to perfect as we will ever get was 106 scored 27 conceded. So average score of 2.79 0.71

So, for me, our issues are not scoring but conceding too many. Looking at historic premier league tables the key to being champions is to concede very few goals. Now, I know that sounds obvious but on analysis, it is our defending that is weak. I can find 8 competitive games this season where we have concede 2 or more. That's 8 games where we needed to score 3 goals to win!

We haven’t kept 2 consecutive clean sheets in the Prem since the first two games. Sums it up. We concede easy goals, like today, this makes Pep more cautious because he can’t trust the defence or midfield currently as they are sloppy/too slow and all our attacking threat is therefore diminished.

Add to that the clear player issues - Cancelo and I would imagine from the amount of time they are spending out of the side, 1/2 others. I’m also not having this Foden situation either. Trained Thursday/Friday but suddenly too ill to be on the bench.

 

[Leeky]

Use this thread to post and discuss tactics after every game.

Date 05-02-2023(Tottenham away)

Some issues are so clearly visible but unfortunately do not think we have solutions for that yet. but the main area that is causing cascading issues for us is up the wing. we have neither the fullback or the wingers to threaten the opponent from the wide areas. so they are happy to concede incredible amount of space out wide and simply clog up the middle of the park. watch how tottenham was happy to concede acres of space to bernardo and Jack because they are slow and cannot get behind with pace. so they just let them have space to receive the ball and then they can move out to them without fear of a cutback from the byline. if our wingers come inside we have no fullback to threaten the outside space. essentially we are non existent for the wide areas.

when this happens the opponent just needs to congest the space in the middle and make it a battle of intensity. this is where we have another problem. the energy from the midfield is completely gone. bernardo, gundo, KDB just do not have the intensity to press and then carry the ball. they are getting brushed aside. once a turnover occurs we only have 2 midfielders in the center because the two 8s are playing like two 10s high up to counter the opponent having numbers in the middle; which again is a result of us not having a threat on the wide area like I discussed above. Hence only Rodri with another false fullback Rico is protecting the center of the park. so we are getting outnumbered in the middle and also the opponent having the pace and the intensity in the center of the park can go straight to our backline. the backline now only has three players because of the other fullback being in the midfield. so there is always space on the sides for them to get behind or to split open our CBs for a through ball.


Conclusion: All our issues arise from us having no threat form the wide areas either from the wingers or our fullback. jack, bernardo, mahrez never have the threat to get behind and we have no natural overlapping fullbacks. until this is sorted we will have poor games.

This coupled with no ball playing out defenders in Stones or Laporte

 

[Palerider]

We haven’t kept 2 consecutive clean sheets in the Prem since the first two games. Sums it up. We concede easy goals, like today, this makes Pep more cautious because he can’t trust the defence or midfield currently as they are sloppy/too slow and all our attacking threat is therefore diminished.

Add to that the clear player issues - Cancelo and I would imagine from the amount of time they are spending out of the side, 1/2 others. I’m also not having this Foden situation either. Trained Thursday/Friday but suddenly too ill to be on the bench.

If we have unhappy players then get rid. Arsenal and United have both got rid of disruptors and thrived. If it means one step back to move two forward then it needs to done. No one is bigger than the club. But that is if there are disruptors!

 

[madloaf]

In 20/21 we won the title with 83 goals 32 conceded. So average score was 2.18 0.84.
In 21/22 we won the title with 99 goals 26 conceded. So average score was 2.60 0.68
So far this year we have 53 goals 21 conceded. So average score of 2.52 1.00
Our centurion year, as close to perfect as we will ever get was 106 scored 27 conceded. So average score of 2.79 0.71

So, for me, our issues are not scoring but conceding too many. Looking at historic premier league tables the key to being champions is to concede very few goals. Now, I know that sounds obvious but on analysis, it is our defending that is weak. I can find 8 competitive games this season where we have concede 2 or more. That's 8 games where we needed to score 3 goals to win!

We scored 16 goals in 3 games. Take those away and what are the stats? You only need to score one more than the other team. Now, goal difference matters - as we know full well - but it doesn't prove how you are playing.

 

[Leeky]

my big worry that these kind of tactical issues will be punished so much in CL and likely a lot lesser side will do that to us. I think another Monaco, Lyon , Spurs type of elimination is front of us.
if we have to face Napoli for example, on current form with the speed and press they play with, they would let Rodri have only half the time he had on the ball today and even that caused him playing an awful game.

and dont underestimate Leipzig either if we are not careful and be 100% for that tie or try to play rotated team vs them rather than the best 11 (well whats the best 11 these days for us, one of the main issue we have) than we could be in trouble.

Leipzig are on fire, I wouldn’t look too far ahead

 

[skillman]

Passing for the sake of it. Everything Pep has always been against and been absolutely adamant that isn’t what his teams do. But we are.

All in the name of control.

 

[Blue Maverick]

like whom? we have no one who has fast acceleration. only foden to a extent but even he is being forced to hugh the touchline because we have no natural fullbacks.

Put Grealish on the right at last he can cross it in