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Manager Ange Postecoglou

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Stateside Spur said:
A general problem I have noticed over the last few months is that for a pressing team, we don’t press very well at all.

We don’t win the ball in the attacking third too often, we’re late to closing down which gives them a little more time to pick out the pass to break our press, we foul needlessly in positions of strength that relieve pressure (Kulusevski is king of this).

Not sure if this is fatigue or tactical but we struggle mightily in this area in my view.
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Yes been saying that as well there is no real
Press. Only richi was doing it yday. No one else seemed bothered even after the subs.
 
El Capitan said:
There is some valid criticism here, we're seeing situations the last few weeks where eg. all of Bissouma + the fullbacks have gone forward with the attack/into the penalty area, the ball breaks, and we're left with a back two and then the chaos of trying to scramble back and defend it.

You can say you want to be an attacking team and take risks, ok. But the situation(s) I describe above are just wilfully naive and not really acceptable for a serious top tier PL team.

All of City, Liverpool, Woolwich, etc. will also say their aim is to attack and overwhelm and dominate games, but in 2020's football you have to be aware of transitions/counters and set up with them in mind. They will keep four or five players behind the ball, the eg. inverted fullbacks will sit as a midfield pivot rather than going wherever they like, they attack and dominate games whilst retaining some positional structure and balance. Having this aids control, if the ball breaks they have players there to instantly mop up, and means they can attack more.....

Linked to this is the pressing, those 5 seconds or so after a turnover of possession are crucial and in recent weeks we don't seem quite as dialled in as we could, and need to up the standards in this aspect.

Should say though to finish that it is a trade-off. There is no magic tactic/philosophy and they all have strengths and weaknesses. If you want to play in this manner then you will get counter-attacked and concede goals from it. But I do accept we could and probably should be a bit smarter in our approach, which doesn't have to mean changing the overall ethos and aim to dominate/attack.
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I think just playing 3 at the back would help with all this and let the rest bomb forward. 2 of the 3 could stay deep and the third could push into midfield where say bent or bias have vacated by going forward. I think it’s tweaks like that which will help.
 
LeddersKingers said:
I posted a few weeks ago about how entertaining we are and neutrals love watching us. The attacking football is great, but we are entertaining as we allow chances galore against us. Therefore our matches are like basketball matches, end to end stuff, so of course neutrals would prefer to watch us.

If Ange is to take us from top 4 contenders to rolling with the top 3 and competing or the title, then we need to adopt a more tactical approach less rooted in a 'belief how football should be played'.

That being said, I do think Woolwich, Liverpool, Man City have more quality than us; in depth and in the first 11, so as far as resources at his disposal, he is 2nd only to Villa. Ill be disappointed if we dont finish 4th. I think we will though, but in the long run we need to be more tactical and concede less goals. We shipped 63 league goals last year and are on track to concede 57 this year. We need to get it down to around 45 if we are to become an 80 points team to start with
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Thing is we played great football under poch and some of the best defensive records we’ve ever had! Same as city and dippers they attack but still manage to keep the back door relatively shut. Look at how they defend they have a few players in the centre circle are so when ever they lose the ball high they swarm all over the oppo to win the ball back. However that takes effort, desire and energy something our players don’t want do. City are great at you see so many times 2/3 players all swarming around the oppo player on the ball. We never do that!
 
My comment during the match was "this is just conte ball with the ball"

We didn't seem to want to score, just kept passing it around hoping the opposition made a mistake
 
Maureen said:
Thing is we played great football under poch and some of the best defensive records we’ve ever had! Same as city and dippers they attack but still manage to keep the back door relatively shut. Look at how they defend they have a few players in the centre circle are so when ever they lose the ball high they swarm all over the oppo to win the ball back. However that takes effort, desire and energy something our players don’t want do. City are great at you see so many times 2/3 players all swarming around the oppo player on the ball. We never do that!
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But why would you seemingly compare the best of Poch days with the worse of Ange days?
 
rusty said:
see a lot now are coming round, defenders need to be able to defend first,
he had a week to work on how we needed to play But what has the manager & coaching team done ?
Man City can play this way as they have Top players Celtic can because they play poor teams, We don't have that
We need a plan on how to play when teams park the bus, not just stand around the penatly box trying to get though 11 players, Open out the play to pull them out, play faster,
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Remember we struggled exactly the same v 9 man dippers.
 
JohnLondon said:
Bottom line is, no team is ever going to win the league who give away as many chances & ship as many goals as we do. Our fullbacks spend most of the game in the opposition half so when play breaks down, we are totally exposed down either flank. Wolves 2nd goal yesterday was a prime example of this. Play broke down & they countered quickly down our right where there was a huge gap for them to exploit. There were 4 Wolves attackers against VDV & Romero. VDV has to come out wide to the ball which leaves Romero trying to cover 3 Wolves players. What makes it worse is that we nearly conceded an identical goal a few minutes later.
I think it’s pretty telling that Vicario gets rave reviews after most games as he has pulled off a few first class saves but our keeper should not be getting worked as much as he does. You know you’ve got a problem when your keeper is having to pull off the number of saves that Vicario does in a game.
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Actually how many games have Vic or VDV been our best players?
 
Shadydan said:
Reports are saying that we are looking at Neto, we definately want to upgrade it.

I think Johnson will be fine, he's obviously a future investment, not sure what that means for Kulu though...
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His 22 ffs not sure when his 23! Neto I think is 23. So what makes Johnson one for the future aged 22 having cost £50M? I really don’t buy this shit about one for the future when you have spent £50M! Veliz at £15M or the you d kid we just bought our ones for the future. At £50M with plent of league football experience already he should be oven ready.
 
LeeMcl said:
☝️ 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 ?
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Set pieces need to be better, shots from outside the box and putting the ball in the mixer for someone like richi.
 
This is like manna from heaven for some people.

We are going through a poor spell and maybe struggling to impose a clear identity and strength of play but instead of people taking stock and looking at the bigger picture, the parasites are smelling a carcass.

Postecoglpu has been what we need and whilst some teams with lesser resources have looked more cohesive at times, it's also important to take a wide gaze.

It just feels that some posters want to be able to bemoan the state of the club, without any real idea of what being content would look like.

What a way to support a club.
 
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