West Ham United (A) | Sun 7th Aug | Post Match Thread

[Vienna_70]

Is the "Alternative Commentary" available anywhere yet?

 

[kippaxwarrior]

Did Walker played as a midfield all match?

With the ball we played 2-5-3 formation with Ake and Dias as the defenders and Walker, Cancelo and Rodri sitting in center midfield.

Grealish and Foden played as 2 out and out wingers with Gundogan and De Bruyne playing as 2 no 10's just behind Haaland.

This completely flooded the center of midfield and Rice(who I thought had a good game) and Soucek just couldn't cope and that sucked in the central defenders giving space behind. The key though was Grealish and Foden who hugged the touchlines stretching the West Ham defence leaving holes which Gundogan and De Bruyne exploited.

Out of possession Walker and Cancelo dropped back into the full back roles and Gundogan and De Bruyne joined Rodri in midfield BUT Foden and Grealish still kept wide making the pitch big.

The 2-3-5 formation was extremely popular in the 20's and 30's and that's why games during that time were high scoring.

You need intelligent players for this formation who know when to switch positions depending on where the ball is and luckily we have intelligent players!! This formation isn't played often as it's high risk but when it works like yesterday it's brilliant to watch and just shows how Pep evolves his tatcics depending on which players he uses.

Even Moyes said west ham just couldn't cope with us with that formation. I think we'll see this formation a lot in the coming months against teams who we know we will dominate possession against

 

[citymad]

Considering we had a short pre season and were a little below par against the dippers, yesterday was a really impressive performance against a very good team. Bringing in Kyle and Cancelo very narrow to help control the midfield was a clever tactic of Pep. You hardly ever see that. It nullified Rice's driving runs forward and freed up Kev to roam around. Obviously we can't use that all the time but you could see the team was happy with that tactic. Against wide speedy wingers thats never going to work but just shows you how Pep is always evolving this team and coming up with new styles. He's a genius.

 

[eyalluvitt]

Considering we had a short pre season and were a little below par against the dippers, yesterday was a really impressive performance against a very good team. Bringing in Kyle and Cancelo very narrow to help control the midfield was a clever tactic of Pep. You hardly ever see that. It nullified Rice's driving runs forward and freed up Kev to roam around. Obviously we can't use that all the time but you could see the team was happy with that tactic. Against wide speedy wingers thats never going to work but just shows you how Pep is always evolving this team and coming up with new styles. He's a genius.

Big difference from the end of last season when they caused us no end of problems

 

[ancoats]

To be fair the first was kind of similar, with the ball from gundogan albeit over a shorter distance.

Its going to totally disrupt how teams set up against us and give them something else to think about (can teams play a high line with that coming at you), with those runs of his from slightly deeper at such pace. Almost unplayable

It's the missing link for pep to have somebody with pace and power, but most of all an end product
teams will revert back to parking the bus again and just defend on the edge of the box or even just inside the box,
my only fear is far too much pressure will now be on his shoulders to produce every week.

 

[ancoats]

Haaland is the Viking, Ireland is superman

i did say that hahahaha

 

[citymad]

I watched the full game on City+ and (apart from a few individual errors, maybe down to not quite being up to speed) I thought we were fucking magnificent. West Ham are (at the least) a very decent team, and we made them look like Rochdale. I actually wonder if some of the loons who say City are 'boring' know what football is. I think they must prefer the sort of kick-and-rush stuff you see on Hough End.

The match thread honestly made me think most of our players were having a mare and that the team was shite. I don't know what more people expect.

100%! its a marathon not a sprint. Long season ahead of us including an intense world cup tournament. We need to preserve the bodies while we get into a rhythm. Excellent game management by Pep and the lads. We all know we can go up a notch at a flick of a switch when it's needed.

 

[cleavers]

MUEN saying Erling's pen went in off the post.
Don't think it did, did it?

It might have hit the post on its way in, but certainly not "in off the post".

 

[citymad]

It's the missing link for pep to have somebody with pace and power, but most of all an end product
teams will revert back to parking the bus again and just defend on the edge of the box or even just inside the box,
my only fear is far too much pressure will now be on his shoulders to produce every week.

Not sure about that, he seems to be super confident and relaxed about the whole thing. We may have to adapt for him and maybe let the opposition have the ball a little more so we can spring a break quickly ourselves. That's going to be hard for Pep to do but we may need to do that. It'll be interesting to see how it pans out against teams like Spurs and Arsenal who like a bit of possession themselves.

 

[shevtheblue]

Don't think we were great yesterday tbh, but it's completely to be expected given they've only had 2 pre-season games. It's going to take some time for the lads to get used to the new movement from Haaland, it's completely different to anything we have and actually i don't think we've ever had someone like that (even Aguero). The way he completely commits to runs is completely different. What the lads and Haaland will need to learn is, we don't always have to use that run but it can be a decoy for others who should start making runs as well.

I know there's some people on Twitter saying that Grealish played well, but we need more from him in the final 3rd. Getting the ball, driving and then turning round to lay it back is required sometimes but he really needs to mix it up with driving into the box/line and then following through with a delivery or shot. I wasn't sure about Foden on the right tbh, i know he's played there and done really well before but it seemed to be a bit counter-productive when you have a 6ft 4inch giant in the middle.