Vincent Kompany - 2016/17 performances

[Andrew___K]

I'm going to answer this point by point.

- I think you'll find that, once in control of the ball, as we were, Pep demands we get it forward quickly to get on the attack,

This is fundamentally not true, and if you actually think that, you haven't been watching us at all.

Pep wants his teams to keep hold of the ball for 15 passes in order for the team to find it's shape and to cause the opposition to lose shape - this has been detailed at length in many Pep articles and in Pep Confidential where Pep is directly quoted:

If there isn't a sequence of 15 passes first, it's impossible to carry out the transition between defence & attack.Impossible.
​

Not that it's a big deal (and slighly an off-top), but I'll correct you a little bit, if you don't mind. That piece about "15 passes in attack" is from 2013, Pep has significantly changed his approach since then. He has realised that the idea that worked perfectly for Barca's dwarfs is less productive with another squad and adapted, I'm sure it will be highlighted in the new Pernarnau's book. cleavers' point makes some sense, Pep in his late Bayern days and now at City tries to attack as quickly as possible, but with a good, well-prepared structure. So the truth is somewhere between - it's not Klopp's famous gegenpressing that results in an extremely quick but somewhat chaotic attacks, but it's not good old Pep of Barca days either. IMO Guardiola tries to combine the best elements from all approaches. He patiently builds attacks from the deep when the opposition is settled in defence, but switches on gegenpressing in transitional situations - I've noticed a lot of such things in the game vs Everton, for example. We sometimes won the ball high on the pitch and immediately attacked with speed, as the oppos were in 'dirty' positions, and we already had a superior team structure.
It's known that in his final year with Bayern Pep has implemented an 'old-school' tactics of crossing into the box and then working on 'second balls' - you can call it a version of proactive gegenpressing if you like. As you can see, it has nothing to do with the '15-passes rule', that quote is outdated, I'm afraid.

 

[The Northern Baptist]

Not that it's a big deal (and slighly an off-top), but I'll correct you a little bit, if you don't mind. That piece about "15 passes in attack" is from 2013, Pep has significantly changed his approach since then. He has realised that the idea that worked perfectly for Barca's dwarfs is less productive with another squad and adapted, I'm sure it will be highlighted in the new Pernarnau's book. cleavers' point makes some sense, Pep in his late Bayern days and now at City tries to attack as quickly as possible, but with a good, well-prepared structure. So the truth is somewhere between - it's not Klopp's famous gegenpressing that results in an extremely quick but somewhat chaotic attacks, but it's not good old Pep of Barca days either. IMO Guardiola tries to combine the best elements from all approaches. He patiently builds attacks from the deep when the opposition is settled in defence, but switches on gegenpressing in transitional situations - I've noticed a lot of such things in the game vs Everton, for example. We sometimes won the ball high on the pitch and immediately attacked with speed, as the oppos were in 'dirty' positions, and we already had a superior team structure.
It's known that in his final year with Bayern Pep has implemented an 'old-school' tactics of crossing into the box and then working on 'second balls' - you can call it a version of proactive gegenpressing if you like. As you can see, it has nothing to do with the '15-passes rule', that quote is outdated, I'm afraid.

'Gengenpressing'? Stop the world, I'm gegenoff

 

[domalino]

Not that it's a big deal (and slighly an off-top), but I'll correct you a little bit, if you don't mind. That piece about "15 passes in attack" is from 2013, Pep has significantly changed his approach since then. He has realised that the idea that worked perfectly for Barca's dwarfs is less productive with another squad and adapted, I'm sure it will be highlighted in the new Pernarnau's book. cleavers' point makes some sense, Pep in his late Bayern days and now at City tries to attack as quickly as possible, but with a good, well-prepared structure. So the truth is somewhere between - it's not Klopp's famous gegenpressing that results in an extremely quick but somewhat chaotic attacks, but it's not good old Pep of Barca days either. IMO Guardiola tries to combine the best elements from all approaches. He patiently builds attacks from the deep when the opposition is settled in defence, but switches on gegenpressing in transitional situations - I've noticed a lot of such things in the game vs Everton, for example. We sometimes won the ball high on the pitch and immediately attacked with speed, as the oppos were in 'dirty' positions, and we already had a superior team structure.
It's known that in his final year with Bayern Pep has implemented an 'old-school' tactics of crossing into the box and then working on 'second balls' - you can call it a version of proactive gegenpressing if you like. As you can see, it has nothing to do with the '15-passes rule', that quote is outdated, I'm afraid.

There is absolutely no evidence that he has changed what he says to Perinau are his "Three Fundamental principles" in his final year with Bayern, in fact having watched a lot of them after his announcement they were very much still using the 15 pass build up and if you've read the explanation of why he believes in the 15 pass rule, you'll realise that will never go away. It's core to his entire system, and to change it would be to completely depart from his "philosophy"

You talk about attacking as quickly as possible but with good structure - that's what he's always done. The 15 passes is what he believes is the minimum amount needed to get your defensive structure and compromise the opponents.

Then you say this "It's known that in his final year with Bayern Pep has implemented an 'old-school' tactics of crossing into the box and then working on 'second balls'" - which is just a bizarre thing to say because his plan from day 1 at Bayern was to play to the strenths of that squad and get crosses into Mandzukic/Muller - It's in the first chapter of the book in July 2013.

So to say it happened in his final year is just nonsense, it happened straight away.

Also int he same vein - "He has realised that the idea that worked perfectly for Barca's dwarfs is less productive with another squad" is absolute rubbish because he went in with a new approach for Bayern from day 1. He never tried to replicate Barcelona at Bayern.

Then you call it "proactive gegenpressing" which really doesn't make any sense as gegenpressing is always proactive, but also because gegenpressing and Guardiola are polar opposites. The entire point of Gegenpressing is to win the ball back immediately after you've lost it and attack before your opponent has regained their defensive structure.

This is the exact opposite of Guardiola who's first thought is always to regain your own structure, otherwise you are wide open to being countered - which is why Klopp's teams concede so many goals. They lack control which is what Guardiola values above everything.

Pep will never use Gegenpressing because it compromises your own structure to exploit the oppositions, and that's fundamentally opposed to his beliefs.




Some things will come up in the new book and I'm looking forward to it as the second year of Bayern did introduce some changes, but I can guarantee it won't feature Guardiola abandoning his core values as a coach. As he has said many times, his aim is to bring his style of football to new clubs and prove it works, not to completely change his fundamental principles in order to win.

 

[Eds]

IMO Kompany steps forward to give Bravo more room to receive the pass. He would then have been in a better position to possibly receive a pass from Bravo. Even if Kompany stayed still I think the pass would have been behind him anyway and he would have been under immediate pressure. If the pass was meant for Bravo it was shocking, if it was meant for Kompany it was even worse

 

[Rolee]

IMO Kompany steps forward to give Bravo more room to receive the pass. He would then have been in a better position to possibly receive a pass from Bravo. Even if Kompany stayed still I think the pass would have been behind him anyway and he would have been under immediate pressure. If the pass was meant for Bravo it was shocking, if it was meant for Kompany it was even worse

Exactly, Redmond is standing 5 yards away from Kompany in front of his own goal when Stones receives the pass, the pass to Kompany is never on. If he goes back to give Stones a better angle then he's on top of Bravo so decides to step forward to give Stones an easier pass to Bravo.

As for Sanè not being available, that's nonsense, he's not close to Stones but he's in 20 yards of space on the sideline, when Stones receives the ball it's just a matter of one touch to bring it to his right hand side and then a simple pass up the line.

One more thing, if Kompany was as I suspect stepping up to make more room for Stones pass to Bravo he needs to shout 'keeper' to Stones, don't know whether he did that or not.

 

[kaz7]

Vincent Kompany admits having to compromise with Pep Guardiola's medical staff as he strives for a solution to his injury problem. [Mail]
Vincent Kompany: "I've had to make one commitment to the medical staff, which was that I'd be honest towards them with my feelings."
Kompany: "[I told the medical staff] that I would listen to them when they made a decision. Before the game, they made the decision for me."
Kompany: "Maybe another day I would never have gone off after 70 minutes like I did but it's part of the bargain and it's for the best."

 

[FantasyIreland]

Good to see he is now listening to advice.
Given he is such a dominant character,i suspect his constant issues with niggles are primarily down to his 'i know better' attitude and his insistance on returning before his time.
I suspect he now has a manager who's personality rivals his own and who isn't afraid to tell him what he needs to hear - it might just resurrect his career.

 

[cleavers]

I'm going to answer this point by point.

- I think you'll find that, once in control of the ball, as we were, Pep demands we get it forward quickly to get on the attack,

This is fundamentally not true, and if you actually think that, you haven't been watching us at all.

Pep wants his teams to keep hold of the ball for 15 passes in order for the team to find it's shape and to cause the opposition to lose shape - this has been detailed at length in many Pep articles and in Pep Confidential where Pep is directly quoted:

If there isn't a sequence of 15 passes first, it's impossible to carry out the transition between defence & attack.Impossible.

I'm not going to argue, but you've a cheek saying I haven't been watching at all. I watch from the stands not on a TV, and I've seen with my own eyes, Pep telling them to get the ball forward quicker, in fact a number of times he's been telling Stones and Kolarov to hit it long in behind the defence, not all the time, but he does.

I know he likes to build the play, I didn't need you to tell me that, but passing it straight to their striker with a clear run at goal to score, I'm sure isn't part of that "build up", nor is diving in, in the opposition half, leaving no cover behind when you've missed the ball, and all our CB's have managed that one.

Stones is a clever footballer, probably (will be) one of the best defenders I will ever watch live, so I was having no dig at him with "poster boy", it was purely a joke in comparing to Vinny, who despite all he has given to this club too many seem to want to discard him like dirty dishwater, its that sort of thing that gets my back up, and as this was a thread about Kompany (not Stones) I felt the need to defend him, especially as it was his first game back from a number of serious injuries, and imho NO blame can be attached to him for the Southampton goal, NONE. Stones was culpable, because he didn't look in an attempt to pass back to Bravo, a laughable error that I hope he learns from, but all players make mistakes.

 

[B\connellblue]

The only player that didn't look comfortable in a back 3 was stones, that was evident all afternoon. Now he may well go on to become one of the best defenders in europe or he may not but at this moment in time he is like a child learning to walk, there will be plenty of falls along the way, On the other hand our captain and club legend has proved himself one of the best ever in the premiership over a lengthy period. He's tired of running whilst stones is still learning to crawl!!

 

[Dax777]

I wouldn't blame Kompany on the goal, but he was uncomfortable in his position.