You make fair points.
I suppose two questions I’ll have to ask then is, do you enjoy watching us play?
If Jose doesn’t win a trophy this year do we give this turgid style of football another chance?
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I suppose two questions I’ll have to ask then is, do you enjoy watching us play?
If Jose doesn’t win a trophy this year do we give this turgid style of football another chance?
Fucking brilliant post exactly this whole thing is not a mutually exclusive thing
Cheers!
Not really, but I think I can see what he’s trying to do - concentrate on the defence and build a strong foundation.
I would give him at least another season, yes.
But can understand fully why some wouldn’t be keen.
Aye, but we haven’t though. Does that not point to a performing defence?
As for XG putting us 7th, I assume that includes our attacking XG? So if our defensive XG is being vastly outperformed, are we underperforming up front? Meaning the defence isn’t the problem?
Not really goals scored roughly in line with XG, it just erases some of the more freakier "undeserved" results from this season.
XG Table
Man City 42 (from 16)
Liverpool 39 (17)
Chelsea 35 (17)
Man U 33 (17)
Brighton 29 (17)
Aston Villa 28 (15)
Tottenham 28 (17)
Leicester 27 (17)
West Ham 26 (17)
Differences to actual, has us drawing with Woolwich (-2) drawing with Everton (+1) beating Fulham (+2) losing to Man City (-3) beating Newcastle (+2) beating West Ham (+2) So home games we should have gained 2 more
drawing with Burnley (-2) losing to Chelsea (-1) drawing with Southampton (-2) drawing with Liverpool (+1) so gaining 4 less points away from home.
So net effect of one less win, one more draw, scoring 2 more and conceding 5 more
Fair do’s. Not a massive XG fan myself, but interesting nonetheless.
They're not mutually exclusive. If the team's tactics are geared to emphasise and enhance our ability to defend, and we are still letting in cheap goals against teams like Fulham and Palace, does that mean the defense is actually doing its job properly? With the amount of possession we surrender, shouldn't we at least be able to keep out a Fulham side lacking their only decent attacking talent?
Whether or not the strikers etc are taking their chances doesn't really change that our defense is leaking goals we should not be leaking, especially from set pieces. If we hadn't conceded a goal against Fulham, Wolves or Palace, those 1 goal leads would have been enough for 6 more points and we'd be top.
I'm not trying to throw players under the bus here either, by suggesting we've got shitty defensive players. But something, whether it be the quality of the players, the selection tactics, the overall tactics or the training sessions, something is frequently resulting in us losing leads and therefore points.
So however you slice it, the defense is still a problem.
Definitely not mutually exclusive, I was just interested in what the figures were and couldn’t be arsed doing a Danny.
I believe that the defence is not only doing well, but over performing. A thought that is pretty much confirmed by the outperforming of XG.
At the same time, I don’t think we have much of an issue up front, again, XG would agree with that.
So it really only leaves us with the midfield. Are they creating enough for the forward players? Are they protecting the back line properly? Doesn’t seem so.
PEH seems to always be playing wonderfully well, so we are down to the other two midfield slots. I fully believe Tanguy will be a star when he hopefully gets fitter. And I also believe if we get either a combative midfielder to play beside PEH or a creative one to play beside Tanguy, we’ll absolutely fly.
Presently, Sissoko, Winks or GLC don’t seem to be the answer.
As for tactics and training sessions, we just aren’t doing that this season. No team has the chance as games are coming thick and fast. Every manager bemoans this in interviews and there’s no way we are any different. Just get by this season and hope to go on a run.
The ironic thing about that West Ham game is that it was the sitting back that led to the collapse - and his answer has been to double down on that approach since then
We're outperforming our XG and XGA(gainst) by about 3 goals apiece.
We're conceding an average amount of goals from set pieces - so that's not really a concern it just seems high because we are not conceding much in open play.
When we're attacking teams we don't concede goals - it's not until we sit back and invite teams on to us that we eventually do concede. The more time on the ball and territorial advantage you give the opposition the more you put yourself at risk of making defensive mistakes and conceding from set pieces in dangerous positions - everything points back to the decision to sit back and concede possession and let our opponents deep in to our half
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I'm not as much a fan of using XG as a yardstick as some folks, so I tend not to care about whether or not we're outperforming it, but I would argue that we would 'expect' to beat Fulham, and we didn't. I would 'expect' us to not concede a goal against the 17th-most offensive side in the league especially when they are missing their only decent forward, and yet we did.
I don't think it's the fault of the midfield, nor even the defenders, but the defense overall, including the tactics and mindset. As others have said, I don't mind us playing Keep Out against the big teams, attempting to catch them on the break, but against Fulham this simply should not be happening. We have a perfectly capable midfield, and I believe a quite capable back line, but when they are being told to play a certain way which invited pressure and builds the opposition's confidence, we get results like the last one.
I think it's time we just went back to defending in a different way (depending on the oppo), rather than endlessly trying to juggle midfield selection to try and find a flawless combination, or blaming the players for not executing the game-plan properly. It seems to me more likely that the game-plan is the flaw.
No amount of XG out-performance is going to overcome that, for me. It's not the midfield that's the issue but what they (and they rest of the team) are being asked to do which hands control of the game to teams we should be smashing to pieces.
This does seem to be a problem for every team, failing to smash the others. We drew with Fulham a couple of weeks after Liverpool did the same thing. I don’t think anyone expects to smash anyone this season.
Except me, as I think we’ll batter fuck out of SU on Sunday.
Mourinho wants his team to play a certain way and that can't be done without the suitable players.
Current squad lacks the playmaker required in the dual pivot and doesn't have the elite CBs to play a high line. Hojbjerg is very limited offensively and Winks isnt good enough. Maybe GLC can replace winks and play alongside Ndombele with Hojbjerg behind both.
Without those kind of players (particularly the playmaker), the team can't build play from the back (lose the ball too easily under pressure), lack rhythm and pace, can't shorten the field, and, are easily reduced to long balls and counter attacks.
If GLC instead of Winks can't fix it, then the shit show will continue. Top 4 will be almost impossible.
Current squad lacks the playmaker required in the dual pivot and doesn't have the elite CBs to play a high line. Hojbjerg is very limited offensively and Winks isnt good enough. Maybe GLC can replace winks and play alongside Ndombele with Hojbjerg behind both.
Without those kind of players (particularly the playmaker), the team can't build play from the back (lose the ball too easily under pressure), lack rhythm and pace, can't shorten the field, and, are easily reduced to long balls and counter attacks.
If GLC instead of Winks can't fix it, then the shit show will continue. Top 4 will be almost impossible.
This is why we need another manager Poch
I agree that Poch did some great things with some of the young players very early on, but personally I think that over his tenure, it wasn’t the case.
Of the youngsters that came through under him (I’ll give him Kane for his progress under Poch) and Dele, but the only other one I can think of is Winks.
The likes of Carol, Townsend, Bentaleb, Mason, Onomah, Sterling, Edwards, Oakley Booth, Amos, Georgio, CCV, KWP, Luongo, Frederiks, Pritchard and Harrison never made it here.
Not sure what other kids did?
Wait: so you're basically saying that the current ones who were good enough made it and the others who weren't good enough didn't make it and that's pochs failing?
Never said he failed mate, just wondering what kids he brought through other than Kane, Dele and Winks?
He did an amazing job with those three and it’s not really his fault that Dele lost interest, other than in my opinion he should have dropped him to show he had to work hard.
Just don’t really see that we can use the kids as “his thing” when 17 academy didn’t make it
I meant we need a manager like Poch post Kane&Son era, a manager happy to work with young players and build a system to get the best out of them.
I think Jose is ok with young players but agree he needs to build a better system at the moment