Eddie Howe

[Smal]

Just now, Kid Icarus said:

You can’t put it all on the high line. We've played that way all season and when balls have made it through, either short or in behind, Schär, Botman and Pope have swept up.

 

It isn't as simple as that surely 

If you play a high line with slow defenders you need really good pressure on the ball, which is what we've had most of the season. 

 

Our press got absolutely schooled today. They always had a man free and we didn't seem to have the athleticism to get near them. 

[STM]

I'd certainly like Howe to explore 3 at the back for games like today.

 

                       Pope

 

        Schar     Botman    Burn

Trippier                                 Targett

 

         Willock  Bruno  Joelinton 

 

                   Isak   Wilson

 

Would have caused them problems.

[STM]

2 minutes ago, Disco said:

We quite often leave midfield pretty empty mind, it just hasn’t been too much of an issue until today. Think how often Bruno, who is the nominal sitter, gets into the final third.  

 

Happened noticeably at home to west ham.

[KaKa]

4 minutes ago, Kid Icarus said:

You can’t put it all on the high line. We've played that way all season and when balls have made it through, either short or in behind, Schär, Botman and Pope have swept up.

 

It isn't as simple as that surely 

 

We usually close down midfield's much better though, so those passes aren't played nearly as often or nearly as effectively.

 

Their setup made it really difficult though, as they had 4 people in those central areas. It was very effective.

 

 

Edited April 15, 2023 by KaKa

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Smal said:

I swear most of the season a normal feature of our defensive play is playing a reasonably high line and Pope sweeping everything up that goes in behind. Pope was bad in every aspect today. 

 

I'm so annoyed  

 

I don't think he's been the same since the Liverpool game. It's like his Ginola/Dixon moment. Hope he snaps out of it soon.

[Smal]

6 minutes ago, Disco said:

We quite often leave midfield pretty empty mind, it just hasn’t been too much of an issue until today. Think how often Bruno, who is the nominal sitter, gets into the final third.  

 

Our average touches on the ball today. This doesn't show you where they were without the ball but it does show you that you're probably gonna get fucked in transition. 

 

edit: you cannot just leave nowt in front of the defence.

 

 

Edited April 15, 2023 by Smal

[The College Dropout]

5 minutes ago, SUPERTOON said:

Thought it was pretty similar to Nunez against us for Liverpool at st James. Ball in behind and we couldn’t cope. Haven’t learnt the lesson from that game.

Aye.  
 

Usually the midfield is competitive and solid. Teams usually have to rush that ball over the top so the quality isn’t good and we can deal with it with Pope’s aggressive sweeping.  
 

Today those Vila wide players kept having loads of time to time and weigh their passes. At times they are playing with 5 central midfielder and we are playing with 3. 
 

There was space to attack Villa in behind and wide but we never had the quality to lay a glove. 

[Kid Icarus]

I'd need to watch it back, but there were at least 3 speculative balls that reached Watkins today that I'm used to Schär and Botman picking up.

[The College Dropout]

9 minutes ago, 54 said:

I think the biggest issue today was the gap between midfield and defense tbh, not necessarily just the defenders being bad, which they really where. The thing we've excelled at this season is being really good in the transitional phase, and pressing high when we lose possession, to smother the opposition into making a mistake high up the pitch, however they managed to play round that with ease today, with meant that they then had a tone of space to run into between the lines, and with Botman and Schar not being the paciest, caused us plenty of issues. 

 

Today was the perfect example of where someone like Rice who has the intelligence to sit in that game and control things would have been invaluable. 

It’s also a numbers game. Villa had 4 or 5 in central midfield areas, we had 3. There’s always going to be an open pass in that setup for them to play around us. 

[The College Dropout]

Good discussion in here today lads.  

[STM]

I think yous have it spot on. Our press vacated the space in front of the back four. They stuck two in there and played balls through the gaps.

 

Could have had Bolt in the back four, it wouldn't have mattered. Too much time and space to snuff out them runs.

[worthy]

14 minutes ago, SUPERTOON said:

Thought it was pretty similar to Nunez against us for Liverpool at st James. Ball in behind and we couldn’t cope. Haven’t learnt the lesson from that game.

This is what I was thinking as well a lot of the times. They played exactly like Liverpool did. Direct ground and over the head balls whilst their front 3 were always playing on the shoulders of the defense. Same result today. So it is something that has not been done anything with for sure.

[Dr Jinx]

He got spanked tactically today and he was let down by a few very sub par performances.

 

We didn’t give them the respect they were due and approached the game like any other. When that didn’t work out we looked stunned.

 

Now if I thought he wasn’t going to learn from this I’d be concerned, but he’ll hate what happened and will analyse the fuck out of what went wrong.

 

It’s also hopefully a lesson into what he needs to bring in this summer I’m terms of midfield, we were overrun today.

[Kanji]

I don’t want us to have a defensive mid every match but today was crying out for one. In hindsight I’d have played longstaff from the off with Bruno and willock. Joelinton wide left. Murphy or Gordon right and Wilson up top. 

[TRon]

2 hours ago, Weezertron said:

Wonder if losing this game stings Eddie a bit given Emery was our first choice. 

 

I couldn't give a shit, like. Eddie is our guy. 

 

It's got to sting a bit hasn't it? Considering Emery was first choice and today we got schooled all over the pitch.

 

There's always a risk playing the way we do with less than blue chip players. We press high trying to create chances, and that leaves us vulnerable to the counter if the likes of Murphy, Willock or Almiron aren't firing the bullets.

 

I guess Howe would argue that we are building an identity, and this is how our team is being set up to play, regardless of who we are up against. Tbf, it's worked pretty well all season against some pretty decent teams. Definitely a learning experience.

[The College Dropout]

I think this is more on Eddie than the players. You would need Rice, prime Kante and Bellingham in there to compete against the Villa 4 today.  

[Kid Icarus]

These things always end up having a countermove against them. Box midfields are in fashion now, but much like the 353 from a couple of years back, they'll get figured out.

[80]

1 hour ago, Kid Icarus said:

If he'd got it spot on, our players were still nowhere near where they needed to be. It's hard to know what the best way to approach this was even in hindsight 

Agreed about the onfield tactics.

 

If we try hard enough to blame Howe, we can go back to the training prior to the game, and the physical and psychological preparation. But this was a global defeat today - we did very little right with the ball, everything was half a yard off or half a second late.

 

Villa, meanwhile, had the individual qualities to make use of the tactical advantages. They were impressive. Today makes Gerrard look like an even bigger plum.

 

We're used to being the fittest on the pitch but we weren't today.

[TRon]

3 minutes ago, The College Dropout said:

I think this is more on Eddie than the players. You would need Rice, prime Kante and Bellingham in there to compete against the Villa 4 today.  

 

Midfield is about more than just the midfielders at this level. If the opposition have more pace and dynamism from the full backs that can also lead to overload. I felt our midfield trio were often left isolated as our own full backs had their hands full just dealing with their pace down the flanks.

[Aiston]

Got it very wrong today.

 

Confident he'll make the right changes for Spurs though.

[The College Dropout]

2 minutes ago, TRon said:

 

Midfield is about more than just the midfielders at this level. If the opposition have more pace and dynamism from the full backs that can also lead to overload. I felt our midfield trio were often left isolated as our own full backs had their hands full just dealing with their pace down the flanks.

Young wasn’t getting that far forward.  They have a lopsided system like ours. 
 

They played a midfield 5 of Buendia, McGinn, Ramsay, Luiz, Dendocker.  All of which want to get on the ball centrally. Playing 3 in there we were always going to struggle. Trippier kept getting dragged in by the wide 10 because there wasn’t a central midfielder to pick them up. We needed the wide players far more deep and engaged in their defending.  Or a different shake entirely. 

[Gallowgate Toon]

One of the best things about him is that he'll be calm. That can be annoying when you see we were poor in the first half last weekend and you personally want a proactive change today (I didn't think we were bad against West Ham first half either, we just sat off for a bit after going 2 up with a game a few days away in mind) but consistency is a big factor in what has got us into this position so far.

 

Even the best teams in the division can have very off days. Today will have been a combination, there's an overreliance on saying it's only tactical but that's also a battle he lost today.

 

 

Edited April 15, 2023 by Gallowgate Toon

[Wilson]

1 hour ago, The College Dropout said:

I think this is more on Eddie than the players. You would need Rice, prime Kante and Bellingham in there to compete against the Villa 4 today.  

 

Bit dramatic like. 

[Ace]

I love Eddie’s and his work here is fantastic but it would be hypocritical to ignore when he gets it wrong and just praise when he gets it right.

 

I think though a lot of players underperformed we set up naively as the way Villa set up is to crowd the middle and play it up directly to Watkins.

 

Our set up with a high defensive line helped them out with this and put a lot of pressure on our defence particularly the right hand side. They also set the trap to press Burn a lot which we kept falling for (he should have just got rid).

 

Easy to say with hindsight but moving to a 4-4-1-1 with Gordon being told to get on Luiz might have helped. 

[madras]

3 minutes ago, Ace said:

I love Eddie’s and his work here is fantastic but it would be hypocritical to ignore when he gets it wrong and just praise when he gets it right.

 

I think though a lot of players underperformed we set up naively as the way Villa set up is to crowd the middle and play it up directly to Watkins.

 

Our set up with a high defensive line helped them out with this and put a lot of pressure on our defence particularly the right hand side. They also set the trap to press Burn a lot which we kept falling for (he should have just got rid).

 

Easy to say with hindsight but moving to a 4-4-1-1 with Gordon being told to get on Luiz might have helped. 

Point me to where these pearls of wisdom were pre 1230