Mourinho Masterclass?

[The Fighting Cock]

Mourinho Masterclass?Nathan, Bardi and Windy are back to talk about Southampton, Plovdiv and the language of football.



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[Ciro]

About the confusion in relation to our midfield: it is an inverted triangle (2+1). At times, especially when we are chasing results, it becomes a traditional midfield 3, as Windy said. For the most part of games, though, it´s still a double pivot - basically a 4-2-3-1.

Also, in my opinion Ndombele and Lo Celso are not necessarily fighting for the same place - even though at the moment, due to physical conditions, they are sharing minutes as the "1". I think it´s possible that in the near future we´ll see a Hojbjerg + Ndombele partnership, with Lo Celso ahead of them.

COYS

 

[Paul Gascoigne]

I would not trust Ndombele to hold with Hjobjerg.

 

[bus-conductor]

I’m with TTT (Nathan) it took me a while to get a handle on it, but first half it was a 4231 default with the ball, with Ndombele in the 10/ACM but I also noticed him dropping an awful lot back into midfield areas.

I think Dier was poor and we all know Winks and Hojbjerg aren’t good as 6’s or in double pivots, especially against a hard press like Southampton, but the defenders and midfielders aren’t being helped by the abysmally inept and incoherent pressing ahead of them, which was exasperated first half by us playing a higher line and pushing our RB up (as ever) a tactic that must be so easy to plan for, and it looked like they had with Djenepo constantly getting on the ball.

Second half we went with a deeper back line, a 442 out of possession, more compressed lines and countered a Southampton who continued to push forward with their high line and high risk verticale football, we picked them off brilliantly.

 

[Ciro]

I’m with TTT (Nathan) it took me a while to get a handle on it, but first half it was a 4231 default with the ball, with Ndombele in the 10/ACM but I also noticed him dropping an awful lot back into midfield areas.

I think Dier was poor and we all know Winks and Hojbjerg aren’t good as 6’s or in double pivots, especially against a hard press like Southampton, but the defenders and midfielders aren’t being helped by the abysmally inept and incoherent pressing ahead of them, which was exasperated first half by us playing a higher line and pushing our RB up (as ever) a tactic that must be so easy to plan for, and it looked like they had with Djenepo constantly getting on the ball.

Second half we went with a deeper back line, a 442 out of possession, more compressed lines and countered a Southampton who continued to push forward with their high line and high risk verticale football, we picked them off brilliantly.

In any case, our defensive struggles in the first half against Southampton started up front - which should be the focus of this discussion, in my opinion.

Notice that our four attacking players press together, moving from one side to the other as a 3+1 unit - watch the replay of Sunday´s match and you will see it; just ahead of the midfield line, basically forming the first phase of our defensive structure. The central attacking midfielder is very important to this process. It´s not a coincidence that we are more organized in defensive areas - and we are quick and direct to counter attack - when we have a truly dynamic player working as a 10 (Lo Celso).

As I said, I think Ndombele will/should/must have a place in this side. But our problem in the first half against Southampton was very similar to our problem in 90 minutes against Everton: our number 10, in this case Ndombele, wasn´t able to properly coordinate our defensive first phase - the rest of the team suffered defensively as a consequence.

P.S: when we are winning games, as you mentioned, we close the team in a 4-4-2. Kane and the number 10 stay up closing the spaces centrally. It´s funny, though: Ndombele was never a number 10 when we were able to sit in this position, and it´s difficult to remember the last time it was Dele Alli. Which is also an indicative: we hardly ever put ourselves in a position to defend and counter when we weren´t able to press properly in the first place.