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Management Roberto De Zerbi
- Thread starter The Fighting Cock
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GIVE ME £10M A YEAR AND I’LL COME UP WITH SOMETHING.
I dunno, play Spence at RB and Porro at RW. Or the other way round.
Or drop Tel and RKM, replace them with two of Bissouma, Berg or Gray and go 451.
Or do that, move Gallagher further forward and go 4411.
Or drop RKM and Tel, stick Dragusin at the back and another mentioned midfielder and play 541.
Or use Gallagher or Berg as a false nine, Dragusin at the back, wing backs getting forward in a 3511.
Or go 442 and promote Melia from the U21s.
Or stick Souza on the left wing.
But don’t keep fucking playing Tel and RKM when they are obviously not good enough or bothered enough. We aren’t paying this fella mega bucks to go “well, duh, I dunno, let’s just do the same thing again that never fucking works”.
Were better than we were, but we can’t have played any worse last night with nine men, or a fucking hatstand on each wing.
I'd be OK with playing a 4 5 1 formation, even if it's just Richarlison as the 1, stack the midfield, we have lots of midfield options. Our two forward wings or whatever they're called aren't good enough often enough, Tel has the occasional good game, Muani the occasional bit of skill that comes off but very rare.
I'd rather add Bergvall and either Sarr or Gray, stack the midfield and encourage them to get forward when the situation arises to do so. It's not ideal but Tel and Muani, they're not offering much.
And we have no money. Easy way to save 9-10 million a year. Let RDZ walk.
1000% Muani’s mistake happened as he was aware he was about to be subbed. Concentration just went and that was that. Unprofessional
I'm sure he wants to have a go at them and will once the season ends, but he's smart enough to understand that now is not the time. The time was months ago when it became clear that we were getting screwed by the officiating, but our board is filled with huge pussies who are afraid to speak up.
Right now, he needs to get the players focused on Everton, not rope them into a fight with the corrupt PGMOL officials.
I'm more worried about the fact that we seem to have a habit of conceding an important goal whenever we have two or three subs waiting on the line for the ball to go out of play so they can come on. Last night was the third time this season (that I can remember).
Are the players losing concentration or something? Or is it just an unfortunate coincidence?
Any formation you play will cause similar issues.
For example, you play Porro at Wing back which means you takeaway his progressive passing when he comes into midfield which limits chance creation.
Playing 4-5-1 you still need width and wingers
Gallagher is the 10 so I don't know where you'd move him futher forward, he's not a false 9 either, the thought of him playing with his back to goal makes me cringe, same for Bergvall.
Going 3 at the back with wing backs is all good but playing 2 not tekky midfielders who don't really pass the ball forward has massive drawbacks.
I'd actually definately take Muani out and go with Spence on the left and potentially Tel on the right
This formation and setup is giving us our best underlying numbers of the season, the issue is personnel and it will be like that no matter what formation you change to.
It is what it is, this squad is extremely flawed.
When you say 4-5-1 formation how do you mean, because you still need width and wingers to play like that.
Tel is getting a hard time because of his shit last 10 mins yesterday but for most of that match was a threat and at least he takes players on, something you need from your wide men.
Anyway it's one more match, it's a necessity...we aren't going to see this level of shite again unless Lange pulls off his Summer specials again.
The latter I guess… the subs took ten mins under that dullard bastard Frank.
I agree, that with our injuries and propensity for buying useless arseholes, means we have a flawed squad.
But we know, for a fact, that RKM is useless. He’s not suddenly going to play well. Doing something else might not work, but it’s got more than a chance than the thing we know won’t work.
Yeah I'm all for dropping him, it's totally counter productive playing him at this stage.
Am I missing something with Bergvall and Gray? They seem to be our most technically capable midfielders. I’m surprised they are not getting more run in a De Zerbi team that would seemingly value some ability on the ball.
That was by far the biggest thing I noticed for most of the game last night. No one in our team could do anything with the ball. Bentancur looked like the only person capable of a pass or dribble at times. Literally everyone else it was 50/50 if they were going to take a bad touch or make a bad pass.
Man if we survive I sure hope there’s just some turnover in the squad. Even if just for turnovers sake. I’m so tired of watching guys who you know aren’t good enough.
That was by far the biggest thing I noticed for most of the game last night. No one in our team could do anything with the ball. Bentancur looked like the only person capable of a pass or dribble at times. Literally everyone else it was 50/50 if they were going to take a bad touch or make a bad pass.
Man if we survive I sure hope there’s just some turnover in the squad. Even if just for turnovers sake. I’m so tired of watching guys who you know aren’t good enough.
I think it's just the cycle teams who are struggling go through.
Modern day managers seem to be scared to take a leap of faith and change out a so called seasoned professional and give a young player a chance. Danny Rose vs Woolwich sometimes all it takes is a leap of faith and a bit of bravery to try and make something happen instead of hoping. All De Zerbi is doing at this point is hoping.
Gray played against Sunderland and hasn't been seen since, De Zerbi was having a go at him, probably doesn't trust him, not sure about Bergvall but his technical ability is over rated anyway.
I think the manager is going for experience and men as we are in a dogfight as opposed to kids TBH.
That's fear talking. The enormity of the situation.
It's the same with us and West Ham. Bedevilled by ease of pass and tension.
Whoever De Zerbi selects, it's okay to inspired if it pays off to I'm concerned and questioning if it doesn't.
The Muani and Tel selections are hard to fathom but up to yesterday probably more bearable.
De Zerbi has to just make sure he gets the right calls on Sunday, but more than anything we need to try and get that first goal and stay calm, so the messaging must be perfect.
Managers nearly always have favoured players. You just players to vindicate their decisions. A lack of viable options shouldn't excuse indolence or disinterest.
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I mean the left and right MF players can provide width along with fullbacks. I don't see any player available to De Zerbi that I would consider to be a winger. Tel has provided one assist this season in the Premier League, I haven't looked at Muani's stats but I doubt it's much better.
We're not going to be dribbling past defenders and putting in quality crosses or passes from wide positions, we just don't have those sort of players. What we do have is lots of steady midfield players, who are probably just as capable of getting a cross in, but at the same time are more capable of winning the ball, and are less likely to be nudged off of it.
I don't see why Bergvall or Sarr would make worse wingers than Tel or Muani, if they drift wide when the situation requires it, our crosses last night were atrocious. Then we become more solid in midfield without the ball. Chelsea been dog shit over past couple of months in the Premier League, there were lots of times we couldn't get near them, and when we played wide the so called wingers did nothing productive. They may as well have not been there.
I don't get how people can look at last night's match and think great, let's do that again? For periods of the match Chelsea were passing the ball around like it was a practice match, and we were chasing shadows.
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Because that version of the game exists only in your head. This is how the game actually went:
View: https://x.com/NathanAClark/status/2057098157884879033
Yes Chelsea had patches but how is that a surprise when they have Palmer, Neto, Enzo and Caicedo on the pitch? Every metric suggests De Zerbi has us set up perfectly well - he's clearly getting us to be better than the sum of our parts.
He can't, however, turn Muani into a footballer instead of a donkey. Nor can he turn Sarr/Gray/Bergvall into RWF's.
When people go to write the history of this season and allocate blame a lot of them need to look at their choices before the season started and hang their heads in shame:
View: https://x.com/NathanAClark/status/2057104282923483529
View: https://x.com/NathanAClark/status/2057104282923483529