I think that we'll struggle the most against teams that high press. Against Swansea, Celtic and Spurs we've had our toughest games.What tactics are going to work best against us? Probably the hardest challenge we've had so far was the second half at the swamp against a big, strong team hoofing it forward.
The options seem to be press like crazy (but leave space behind), park the bus (and counter attack), or try to play stylish football. I'm really looking forward to the Liverpool, Leicester and Arsenal matches for these reasons. What do you think well work best?
yes, like 2 out of 12 or something ...
if you're trying to deny the negative trend whenever De Bruyne doesn't play, it's pretty pointless imo.
In particular, the availability (or not) of KDB had nothing to do with our loss against Spurs. Watch Pep's post match interview and listen to what he had to say on the subject.No, 5 wins from 14 in all comps, 3 draws ( one of them draws was the LC final )
I'm not trying to deny anything, I'm just putting it into context because I don't like sensationalism on the back of stats.
In particular, the availability (or not) of KDB had nothing to do with our loss against Spurs. Watch Pep's post match interview and listen to what he had to say on the subject.
We lost against Spurs because our pivot in the first half was so awful that we could not build play from the back and because we had no defensive cover. Stones/Otters/Zabba/Kolarov were under huge pressure in the first half with no help from our pivot - each of these players made errors, big errors; two of those errors (Zabba for the first, Otters and Fernando for the 2nd), led to goals from the opposition. And several other dangerous situations arose as well due to extremely poor play from Fernando - we were bailed out by offsides or by very poor decision making on the part of the attacker three or more times more in the first half.
Perhaps so.I think Marriner facilitated them too. On average ball is in play for around an hour every game, we had 58% possession, in other words we had the ball for 34/35 minutes in the game, when you consider Spurs 20 fouls that works out at a foul every 1minute 45 seconds. It's no wonder we couldn't find any rhythm when Marriner allowed them to constantly foul without caution.
This isn't a 'it was the ref's fault' post but I do feel that Marriner facilitating their bullying tactics helped them dominate us in the first half.
Perhaps so.
But even with a ref more prone to blow the whistle, I think that the Spur's high press would still have been extremely effective against a defense that featured Fernando as our pivot.