What will work against us?

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bobom

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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?
 
I think the tendency has been to make it a physical contest in the second half to try and upset our tempo and composure. West Ham did it quite well although they were assisted by a ref who turned a blind eye for the most part. The rags tried it too but the difference was that the ref showed two quick yellow cards right at the start of the second half which pretty much upset their tactics, although they did get away with a few awful fouls and Rooney should have had at least three yellows. I wasn't at the home game today so maybe someone can clarify the Bournemouth second half but judging by Nolitos red I would wager they turned on the physicality...

So in summary I think most teams will try to rough us up to break the tempo, they may also try and play a bit of football too, but I think that will be largely ineffectual ;)
 
I think any team willing to exploit our desire to win the ball back instantaneously could cause us problems.... trying to win the ball back creates pockets of space, and any team smart enough to take advantage of that could give us a game!
 
I think we'll see against barca, if the high pressing doesn't work and they can still pass it about playing one touch football. You can't press for 90mins, it's a quick press and if you don't get the ball, get set up defensively. Both the of us will play similar, both got the players to pass it about with confidence even under pressure. I reckon that game will come down to the team making the least mistakes will win.
 
It will be between liverpool and us for pressing, we will beat Leicester for sure. we will be playing liverpool, chelsea and arsenal in Dec and that will decide the league.
 
DenisLawBackHeel74 said:
I think the tendency has been to make it a physical contest in the second half to try and upset our tempo and composure. West Ham did it quite well although they were assisted by a ref who turned a blind eye for the most part. The rags tried it too but the difference was that the ref showed two quick yellow cards right at the start of the second half which pretty much upset their tactics, although they did get away with a few awful fouls and Rooney should have had at least three yellows. I wasn't at the home game today so maybe someone can clarify the Bournemouth second half but judging by Nolitos red I would wager they turned on the physicality...

So in summary I think most teams will try to rough us up to break the tempo, they may also try and play a bit of football too, but I think that will be largely ineffectual ;)
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They didn't become overly physical. Broke play up at times with fouls that the weak ref didn't penalise with cards but they actually carried playing their way until the end to their credit. They hit the bar and had a couple of other chances to score in the last 10 when we had taken our foot off the gas.

I think that teams will target De Bruyne and Silva for the rough stuff.

For me though the only thing that will hinder us this season will be injuries if we are unlucky. It hit us hard last season with silva carrying a niggle injury all season and de bruyne missing the key part of the season.

Even then we finished 4th with players who a lot of the time looked like they couldn't give a shit. A manager who looked like he was falling asleep and very little team spirit.

This man is a different level and the team spirit is well and truly back.
 
Klopp had a good record against Pep in Germany and I can imagine Liverpool being a tough one. The big European clubs will obviously the biggest challenge, as they can play us at our own game...
 
bobom said:
Klopp had a good record against Pep in Germany and I can imagine Liverpool being a tough one. The big European clubs will obviously the biggest challenge, as they can play us at our own game...
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Barca and Bayern managed quite well....he will have a plan...
 
I reckon high pressing/swift counter attacking teams will cause us problems, got away with a few instances of poor defending and over committing better sides might punish us with. spurs AWAY will be a good test IMO.
 
I think someone is bound to see the best chance to turn the game and put the effort in is in the second half as we're slowing. So if we were playing a team like us I'd say try and soak up the pressure conserve energy and come at us with everything they've got in the second half the moment they see us taking the foot off the gas.

The problem for them is if they don't do the running to try and stop us then the game will be lost in the first half because we're that good we'll be out of sight if they don't play honest. There's also the fact that Pep's already highlighted that himself as something that needs improving, one of the reasons why we aren't there yet(there will be more things to improve that he sees I'm sure) so it wont be long before we play like the first half for the full 90mins.
 
The main thing that will work against us is Refs not protecting our players, then booking/sending off/retrospectively not seeing incidents.... Injuries and suspensions that result from poor refereeing will eventually fck us over.
 
havefaith said:
not if we win the ball it won't :-)
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Well that's the plan...... and to be quite honest, I've been really impressed with how much work-rate we put into it, and how well we manage to pull it off from kick off to the 90th minute! I'll be overly impressed if we can keep this up through the duration of the entire season!
 
What will work against us? Pep's old teams – Bayern and Barca. They've been doing it longer than our team has, they know all the weakpoints.
 
I'm just grateful that fat sam isn't around at club level. He would have found our achilles heel in no time. The blubbery old scamp.
 
mavsmcfc said:
What will work against us? Pep's old teams – Bayern and Barca. They've been doing it longer than our team has, they know all the weakpoints.
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That's a fair point we shouldn't expect to have our way against those teams but we'll be much better equipped to match them than any of our previous encounters, we're playing Pep's way and he is surprised how fast the team's progressing. He will also know how to highlight their weaknesses and he'll be the only manager that knows most of the players at all 3 clubs having worked with them which is a good advantage I imagine.
 
Tricky Dickys Right Foot Shot said:
Well that's the plan...... and to be quite honest, I've been really impressed with how much work-rate we put into it, and how well we manage to pull it off from kick off to the 90th minute! I'll be overly impressed if we can keep this up through the duration of the entire season!
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I'm with you all the way, work-rate seems to be improving with each game, can't believe our quality of play so quickly under Pep.
 
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