How do you play through teams that park the bus? We don't seem to get all that many clear chances in some of these games. Speeding up our passing would help of course.
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Manager Ange Postecoglou
- Thread starter The Fighting Cock
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Weve been in a rebuild for 20+ years mate
Every season has been a “transitional season”
We’re tired.
Age old dillema..... Finding the hi-quality young player who (along with their agent) is happy to ride the bench most weeks is easier said than done. Get CL and strike gold x 2 scouting-wise then maybe......... (It's the same landscape that's caused plenty of people to be shitting themselves over Dragusin's lack of game-time already)
I take your point about positional aptitude (i.e. inverted FB v trad FB) but the vast majority of clubs experience a degree of drop-off in quality between #1 option and their back-up counterpart.
Broader point; it's harsh to pin it all on Ben & Royal not being up to snuff when to your admission Maddison (and Biss.... And Son.... And Kulu aside from his goal and another opportunity) weren't on-song either.
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Every single team struggles against park the bus teams. Most of the time you end up winning (or getting something atleast) due to law of averages when it comes to chance creation.
But every now and then you fail to win. Liverpool had it against Luton. City also lost to Wolves. Woolwich lost to West Ham. It happens.
We didn't help ourselves by playing too slow. If we played with the same intensity as against Sheffield United when they parked the bus against us, we'd have got something from the game.
Shit happens. Let's make sure it doesn't happen again
I feel like we’ve just got to come straight out of the blocks and blast teams like that from minute 1 of a game. The longer it’s 0-0, the more encouragement low block teams have that they’re still in the game, so they’ll park the bus and wait to hit us on the break which we have no answer for, and it’s very hard to wrestle back control once the other team is sat in.
My post from the match thread which I think is relevant for this thread too as it points to some of the things that need fixing.
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Few thoughts from me.
- There will be some inevitable overreaction to this result. Anyone questioning Ange as the right man for the job or trying to deny we’re moving in the right direction is a fool. There’s so much to be positive about here.
But….
- It’s been a long time since we played particularly well. We’ve obviously had injuries but our performances since Xmas have been really poor and have been masked by good results. Injuries and international duty partly to blame or course, but I don’t think that tells the whole story. We’re just not sharp enough right now.
- At the moment we feel very easy to defend against once the opposition has their shape set. They congest the middle of the park, allow us to funnel the ball out wide and get wide players on the ball that aren’t really good one on one. Invariably those wide players come back into the congested area and the process starts all over again. No team gets their wide players in one on one situations more than us IMO, but we don’t have the players to take advantage.
- I said it in the pre-match thread and I stick with it that we’re a better side with Son through the middle. He was awful today (as were all the front 3) but sitting behind the Wolves goal in the first half, it was clear that meat heads like Dawson and Kilman just looked sooo comfortable knowing that Richarlison doesn’t have the speed to spin them in behind. It’s a dream for CBs and only further congests that central area we’re trying to play through. We’ll be a better team when Son is through the middle IMO.
- Goals conceded is becoming an issue. I don’t feel like we’re poor defensively as a side but the goal record isn’t good enough at all. Both goals today pretty fucking infuriating and allowing Wolves another good counter from our corner minutes after they went 2-1 up left me screaming. Too many goals feel sloppy.
- We’ve scored plenty of goals this season, but the difference in quality between our forward options and those of the top 3 is where the real difference lies right now. I think the problem is really compounded by the lack of a wide player who can go either way and really attack the full back one on one.
- Son, Madders still both very rusty. Maddison in particular just doesn’t look anywhere near as sharp as he did early in the season. Need him back on form asap.
- Our passing looks very different from the first few games of the season. It’s definitely slower and I feel like it’s a lot lower risk. First few weeks some of the MF triangles were a joy to watch, I’m not seeing much of that at the moment. We need our passing to be snappier and riskier. As above, we can’t allow opposing teams to get in their shape as we really struggle to break them down.
Lots of stuff for us to work on. We’re not a million miles away but the pattern of games over recent weeks has looked eerily similar even if results have varied. Tactically we don’t look anywhere near as sharp as we should be right now.
PS Neto today and Mitoma last week would transform this team with their ability one on one. Exactly the types of player we’re missing.
——————————————-
Few thoughts from me.
- There will be some inevitable overreaction to this result. Anyone questioning Ange as the right man for the job or trying to deny we’re moving in the right direction is a fool. There’s so much to be positive about here.
But….
- It’s been a long time since we played particularly well. We’ve obviously had injuries but our performances since Xmas have been really poor and have been masked by good results. Injuries and international duty partly to blame or course, but I don’t think that tells the whole story. We’re just not sharp enough right now.
- At the moment we feel very easy to defend against once the opposition has their shape set. They congest the middle of the park, allow us to funnel the ball out wide and get wide players on the ball that aren’t really good one on one. Invariably those wide players come back into the congested area and the process starts all over again. No team gets their wide players in one on one situations more than us IMO, but we don’t have the players to take advantage.
- I said it in the pre-match thread and I stick with it that we’re a better side with Son through the middle. He was awful today (as were all the front 3) but sitting behind the Wolves goal in the first half, it was clear that meat heads like Dawson and Kilman just looked sooo comfortable knowing that Richarlison doesn’t have the speed to spin them in behind. It’s a dream for CBs and only further congests that central area we’re trying to play through. We’ll be a better team when Son is through the middle IMO.
- Goals conceded is becoming an issue. I don’t feel like we’re poor defensively as a side but the goal record isn’t good enough at all. Both goals today pretty fucking infuriating and allowing Wolves another good counter from our corner minutes after they went 2-1 up left me screaming. Too many goals feel sloppy.
- We’ve scored plenty of goals this season, but the difference in quality between our forward options and those of the top 3 is where the real difference lies right now. I think the problem is really compounded by the lack of a wide player who can go either way and really attack the full back one on one.
- Son, Madders still both very rusty. Maddison in particular just doesn’t look anywhere near as sharp as he did early in the season. Need him back on form asap.
- Our passing looks very different from the first few games of the season. It’s definitely slower and I feel like it’s a lot lower risk. First few weeks some of the MF triangles were a joy to watch, I’m not seeing much of that at the moment. We need our passing to be snappier and riskier. As above, we can’t allow opposing teams to get in their shape as we really struggle to break them down.
Lots of stuff for us to work on. We’re not a million miles away but the pattern of games over recent weeks has looked eerily similar even if results have varied. Tactically we don’t look anywhere near as sharp as we should be right now.
PS Neto today and Mitoma last week would transform this team with their ability one on one. Exactly the types of player we’re missing.
Yes, if we don't score reasonably early they can just stay back / counter attack and don't have to try to do anything to get back in the game and stretch their lines.
Unfortunately, they did it twice against Wolves this season. Only two ways past a low block that I can think of. If you play fast, against a low block you have to play even faster, movement and speed. Other option is a target man who can unsettle and smash through with quick and creative players in and around him. We don’t have one of them, so it’s fast fast fast, what we saw yesterday was crap and slow. Annoying isn’t it ?
Every season throws up similar results too......... Look no further than the majority of Man C's losses over the years.
The flipside too is why when you get Luton facing up to Sheff U or Brentford v [insert similar cloggy/stubborn lower table team] its not un-common they find themselves getting their ass kicked cos they're obliged to play a way that doesn't suit them.
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Different kind of game though.
Yesterday we quite simply dominated the ball with nothing to show for it. What was it, 71% possession!?
They weren't really low block at the Molineux. They were just the better team, helped by the fact we had no Romero, van de Ven, Udogie, Maddison or Richarlison and it took two last minute goals to beat us.
Then I’m sorry, you don’t know what a true rebuild entails.
Sugar never rebuilt anything , was just sticking plaster on bullet wounds for a decade. Levy then didn’t do anything for his first 3 years and stupidly thought the Hoddle nostalgia appointment would move the needle.
Since then Levy has overseen 3 actual squad overhauls where we lower the average age significantly;
Arnesen & Comolli, (you can make an argument for these two periods merging),
Baldini & Mitchell era
Now this Paratici and Lange project.
The likes of Redknapp, Mourinho, Nuno and Conte are not and will never be rebuilders.
Yeah we don't ever change to suit the circumstances until we need to change the game and throw as many players forward as we dare. Or we bring on PEH to make the midfield more defensive when we're winning.
Of course he didn't
What was he expected to say? "This job is a piece of piss, mate, and I'll succeed where all who've gone before me failed"
It's in his own interests to lower expectations of the fans. The lower he can set them, the more slack he'll get
We've only had about 200 rebuilds during Enics tenure ....
Not true. I wouldn’t describe the Sugar years or the early Levy years as rebuilding, neither the Redknapp years and certainly not 2017-22.
WIN NOW owners would be better. Or even win something, sometimes owners
Or maybe we're being impatient and give them another quarter of a century to get things right
They have got a gripe tbf!.....
Next you'll be telling us without Sons goal, we'd be loads of points worse off too!