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8 minutes ago, Holmesy said:

Klopp has a deep squad full of top talent. Conditions are rarely non-optimal for Liverpool.

It also worked for Barcelona and it works for City etc. - both deep squads full of top talent.

Conditions are far less likely to be optimal for us, for at least a couple of years at least, so being pragmatic rather than stubborn makes more sense. When we have a squad full of world beaters, i'm all for 100% of plan A.

 

Burnley came up playing a certain style and they'll go down because of their slowness to adapt to the quality and rigours of the PL. The only way they'll stay up is if they adapt and find a different way to get results. We're not Burnley but we're also not Liverpool, we're somewhere between the two right now.  

Burnpool ?

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38 minutes ago, Holmesy said:

Largely, i think our approach and identity is great and i love that we finally have a style of play that is recognisable and brilliant to watch (when we're at full strength). However, it's pretty obvious that when conditions aren't optimal, our identity/style of play can be pretty ineffective. That's the drawback with only approaching games in one way - if plan A doesn't work, we only have more of plan A, but maybe with a couple of players substituted.

I definitely don't want us to tear up the script but I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that working on a secondary approach to games, for when conditions aren't optimal, would be a sensible thing for next season and beyond. If that doesn't happen, we find ourselves in a similar position again and we go on another losing run as a result, pressure should rightly mount on the management team. But learn from this, adapt and evolve, and we could turn a huge negative into something that strengthens us going forward.

 

Some folk on here have been saying we haven't been worked out. I think you underestimate the size of the role analysts play in PL football clubs. We are being picked apart in the same way game after game - that isn't coincidence. Every team pours over data to understand the finest details of where competitive advantage can be gained, including where goals/chances result from and where opposition teams are vulnerable. Spotting the grand canyon size hole in our midfield and recognising that we over commit in attack and have no pace to counter the counter will take them about 5 minutes, if that.

A new DM would help, but so would adjusting our game plan slightly to leave us less vulnerable. That isn't a 'rip up the script' change, it's a slight adjustment. And it's absolutely not asking too much for Eddie to make that change.

 

 

 

Not really a surprising heat map or anything, but this is the heatmap of Man City against us:

 

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It's quite clear to see where they were operating. I checked their heatmaps in other games, and they usually don't look like this. Could also be partly because we were 2-1 up and defending for most of the 2nd half however, so I'm not sure how much we can read from this.

 

 

Edited by Erikse

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2 minutes ago, Thumbheed said:

 

Klopp had similar injury struggles when he first implemented his style of play and stuck with it.

 

 

And yet Pep, the best manager in world football has continually tweaked, adapted, evolved and has won 5 PLs out of 6 and a treble last season. Pep's approach largely stays the same - front foot, possession-based, lots of technical players but look at peak tika-taka Barca - they don't look the same as current Man City. And when was the last time City had a bad season? They are an anomaly of course, but central to their success is constant evolution around a theme. 

Don't get me wrong, I would love us to have Klopp-levels of success but i'd rather we were a bit wiser during this transitional phase so it's not feast or famine.

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4 minutes ago, Isaksbigrightfoot said:

Bizarrely a lot of the goals we concede are when the other team is on the counter attack. We pump players forward. Fail to score and get caught fast.

 

This makes it a positioning problem and still leads me to think we need a DM.

 

We do lack a little bit of pace overall. I think Almiron is actually one of our better players for stopping counters.

 

 

Edited by Erikse

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10 minutes ago, Erikse said:

 

We do lack a little bit of pace overall. I think Almiron is actually one of our better players for stopping counters.

 

 

 

He might actually be a bit less frustrating playing as a DM. Maybe Eddie can turn him into the new Claude Makelele

 

 

Edited by Holmesy

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6 hours ago, ExiledGeordie said:


While I do think we’ve been unfortunate with injuries I’m sure the medical team and management will probably look back at certain decisions and think “did we do the right thing”. I’d imagine the severity of the situation probably made them roll the dice or take a risk more than they would’ve liked.

 

Given the ridiculous level of injuries we had and the amount of games we had in December if we only played fully fit players we'd have been putting the reserves out.

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3 hours ago, Optimistic Nut said:

Longstaff's lack of pace, inability to wriggle away from tackles and shite diving when under pressure would give me kittens sitting deep.

 

Not to mention lack of composure when being pressed by the opposition. That's the opposite of what you want from a deep sitting midfielder.

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3 hours ago, Holmesy said:

And yet Pep, the best manager in world football has continually tweaked, adapted, evolved and has won 5 PLs out of 6 and a treble last season. Pep's approach largely stays the same - front foot, possession-based, lots of technical players but look at peak tika-taka Barca - they don't look the same as current Man City. And when was the last time City had a bad season? They are an anomaly of course, but central to their success is constant evolution around a theme. 

Don't get me wrong, I would love us to have Klopp-levels of success but i'd rather we were a bit wiser during this transitional phase so it's not feast or famine.

 

I'd say the fact they have a world class 2nd team is central to their success.

 

I rate Pep as a managerial freak who as you say is able to constantly innovative and implement, but give him a bench that drops in quality to the degree it does for us then I don't think any plan B, C or D he has gives him the same success he's already had.

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1 hour ago, TRon said:

 

Not to mention lack of composure when being pressed by the opposition. That's the opposite of what you want from a deep sitting midfielder.

 

I'd prefer the shite patter of Schar playing there tbh. One of the things Longstaff brings is he's a decent system player in that RCM slot. Would be suicide putting him in front of the back 4.

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I think the only viable option we have is Bruno, telling him to stay put, but you're taking away any ounce of creativity we have in their half of the pitch. 

 

I'd still look at the 3-4-3 Rafa system personally. We might still have the same issue positionally in the middle but we'd at least have 3 centre-backs for them to contend with. One could step out when we're being hit on the break. Try something different possibly.

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2 hours ago, Cf said:

 

Given the ridiculous level of injuries we had and the amount of games we had in December if we only played fully fit players we'd have been putting the reserves out.

We might well be in a better position if we had though. We couldn't have done any worse over the winter period.

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19 minutes ago, Sean said:

We might well be in a better position if we had though. We couldn't have done any worse over the winter period.

Rafa pretty much put out suboptimal teams early in the season often with the plan to have a fit squad by crunch time.

 

Pep has been doing the same the last couple of seasons too.

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2 minutes ago, The College Dropout said:

Rafa pretty much put out suboptimal teams early in the season often with the plan to have a fit squad by crunch time.

 

Pep has been doing the same the last couple of seasons too.

 

There's a difference between suboptimal and what we had available. 

 

Also worth bearing in mind how badly our seasons started with Rafa. 

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9 minutes ago, Cf said:

 

There's a difference between suboptimal and what we had available. 

 

Also worth bearing in mind how badly our seasons started with Rafa. 

I mean this from August, not when we started picking up injuries and suspensions. Rafa would do this without European football from the start of the season. He has a proactive approach to managing players fitness. That’s not Howe’s style. 
 

Second point is true.  We trusted him that he had a plan for the season that would work. I don’t have that trust with Howe in terms of navigating a CL or European campaign and fighting for domestic titles.  If anything his inexperience makes me doubt his approach (which hasn’t worked for whatever reason) more. 

 

 

Edited by The College Dropout

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1 minute ago, The College Dropout said:

Out of possession - he hasn’t been instructed to play DM. We are purposely flat. 
 

IIRC Shelvey was instructed to sit behind a midfield 4 and infront of the defence when he played that role. The tactics have evolved away from that. 

Glad someone’s had a chat to Eddie.  Otherwise this is just a guess

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2 minutes ago, TheBrownBottle said:

Glad someone’s had a chat to Eddie.  Otherwise this is just a guess

?? We do the same things game in game out. It's clearly by instruction or at least not forbidden. Bruno's press is hyper-aggressive and advanced. And when defending for large periods without the ball, it's a flat midfield. That must be by design.

 

From memory, we didn't defend like that when Shelvey was here.

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We'd definitely have heard something if Bruno was merrily abandoning his DM tactical instructions every match for the past year. Eddie's public criticisms of the team always revolve around the team not pushing forward enough, not being aggressive enough in the press - never that we've overcommitted in attack and left ourselves vulnerable.

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5 minutes ago, The College Dropout said:

?? We do the same things game in game out. It's clearly by instruction or at least not forbidden. Bruno's press is hyper-aggressive and advanced. And when defending for large periods without the ball, it's a flat midfield. That must be by design.

 

From memory, we didn't defend like that when Shelvey was here.

Sorry, was only kidding.  The MF is incredibly flat without the ball - but I don’t know if that is by design or a lack of discipline.

 

Villa first really exploited it late last season - the back four’s lack of pace and lack of cover in front of them.  Willock/Joelinton and Longstaff/Almiron(or Murphy) offered a lot of cover, but if a combination of those players didn’t start then we looked incredibly exposed.

 

The gaps between DF and MF are often huge, and we’re being caught game after game now.  The loss of Pope to play ‘sweeper keeper’ has pushed the back four even further back, opening up even more space. 

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Our midfield is definitely flat by design, and our out-of-possession game looks like it might have been "figured out", in combination with an absence of intensity in the press. 

 

 

Edited by Jagten

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2 hours ago, TheBrownBottle said:

Link?

Howe’s tactical decisions should be questioned.

 

Kevin de Bruyne made it 2-2 by scoring a fine goal before creating Manchester City’s stoppage time winner for his fellow substitute Oscar Bobb against Newcastle. That contribution marked the playmaker’s return to Premier League combat after five hamstrung months but it was significant that Pep Guardiola bided his time before introducing De Bruyne, subsequently explaining he is not yet ready to play 90 minutes. Does Eddie Howe regret playing Joe Willock in the autumn after a lengthy injury induced absence? Willock swiftly broke down with the key midfielder now sidelined indefinitely. Admittedly their squad is considerably slimmer than City’s but Howe’s deployment of a single late substitute in Lewis Hall perhaps explains why a tiring side lost. An imbalanced bench was stocked with defenders so why not have introduced Paul Dummett or Jamaal Lascelles, switched to a back five and secured a point?

 

Louise Taylor

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