My only problem with the Villas Boas regime

[StartingPrice]

BY-and-large, I agree.

The number of times I have read on here AVB is repeating his mistakes at Chelsea and said, no, it's the opposite, if anything.

As seen as it is still a transitional period, we do have half a first team out [sic.] and, ultimately, after the Goons match next week, we will have played the top 4 clubs ATM in the league (United, Citeh, Chelsea, The Goons), and three of them away from home I think it is not that much of a problem that we will still be in touch with the top 4 even if we lose to the Goons. Under these circumstances, I am not so sure I am that unhappy that he is showing that he can be flexible with his formations based on how he perceives the strengths and weaknesses of his squad.

For the medium to long term, I would agree, it would be preferable if he could play the way he wants to play.

p.s. I have never thought finishing fourth this season should be an absolute for him, but I am still reasonable confident that it can be done.

 

[THOWIG]

How about:

Lloris

Gallas(Kaboul)
Caulker
Vertonghen

Lennon
Sandro
Dembele
Bale

Dempsey(r)
Adebayor(l)
Defoe

 

[mpickard2087]

The persistance with Huddlestone and Dempsey is staggering. You cannot defend they guy when he makes choices like this.

 

[nav007_2000]

The thing is, I believe AVB needs to work out a way of getting both the form players and the better players all on the pitch at the same time.

Everybody knows about Defoe's limitations, but nobody can deny that he's form this season has been quite good, not amazing but he's been more than adequate. At the same time, we need Adebayor.

Also Hudd has been struggling big time imo, yesterday I thought his passing was shocking, needs to drastically improve his short passing game. Whereas Carrol has looked decent when given the opportunity, and until Dembele is back I'd rather see him play. And I think he's more suited to a 4-3-3 with 2 other central midfielders ie Sandro + another. Our problem is the "another", preferably it should be someone with a bit of a goal threat. I always thought Sig was a goalscoring central midfielder but whenever he's played it seems like he's been played as a no10.

As an expermiment in the EL I would have liked to have seen us try a midfield and attack of:

Bale - Adebayor - Defoe

Carroll-Sandro-Siggurdson

Nobody specifically behind Ade but a midfield 3 with Sandro sitting mainly and the other 2 getting forward in support when possible.

totally agree. would like to see this formation and Sig and Carroll together. Clearly, the formation at the moment is not working in terms of keeping the ball, lets change it to 4-3-3 and see what happens

 

[DEFchenkOE]

Yep it's not working in terms of keeping the ball or creating chances. Also I don't want to get into a debate of Hudd vs Carroll but at the moment the only thing I see Hudd offering is a few cross field passes and the odd set piece. But if you look at Carroll's first time pass for Defoe's 2nd v Maribor, perfect weight and on the deck, I don't think Hudd makes that pass.

We're struggling to create chances like that in the league, especially at home.

 

[lillywhites61]

I think Lennon will only ever be effective in a 4-4-2. He needs two strikers in the box to help balance his poor crossing hit rate. As a WF he is not suited as he simple can't strike a ball well enough. As an impact sub to change up the game though he could be awesome.

I agree with a lot of why you have said, but this I don't, Lennon can strike the ball very well he just doesn't do it enough. For some reason he just doesn't have the confidence like say bale does. Bale will try from anywhere. Lennon would rather take the safe option than have a go.

 

[lillywhites61]

I do agree with a lot of what you are saying though, I think AVB is starting to do the opposite of what he was doing at Chelsea, I do think there is a very good manager in there but maybe he is showing his age, he is very young and will obviously still be learning his trade.

I think given time he would do really well, to be honest Chelsea came calling too soon for him, if he had stayed at Porto for a few more seasons and gained more experience he may have been better off, but he needs to play his own game as you say and stop listening to others, which I am sure he is without even realising it!

I have to agree some of his decisions at times are baffling, but he will live by the sword and die by the sword. Lets hope he realises sooner rather than later.

 

[Wheeler Dealer]

Great post. I believe AVB is still pissed off that he didnt get the players that he wanted in the transfer window. He is probably playing the 4-2-3-1 purely to the fact that he doesnt have the right players for his 4-3-3 formation.

One can only wish that Levy is seeing what is happening on the pitch and backs AVB and gets him the players that he needs.

Even with the players he currently has avaialble, we should be playing much more pace, guile and assertiveness.

 

[StartingPrice]

The persistance with Huddlestone and Dempsey is staggering. You cannot defend they guy when he makes choices like this.

Gawddam pesky Sir Alex Beetroot Head...persisting with Diego Furlan

 

[ultimateloner]

I think we need 4th as the absolute minimum but in line with SP i think we have every chance of getting it. We are only 3 pts away from 4th and none of the those teams in between are as good as ours on paper. I expect even an average coach to be able to bridge this, let alone someone with AvB's reputation. I think the recent games have been telling because it indicates where our real weakness lies; the lack of ball playing midfielders. I repeat that when Dembele and Parker are back we will be firing again.

IMO AvB hasn't done much diff to his predecessors.

 

[Misfit]

AVB looks the part but I don't see a great football manager there.

Our best two recent managers (Jol, Harry) were emergency picks. Every manager Levy has wanted failed.

We need to get Levy away from making football decisions. He can't help but meddle and screw everything up.

Yep. I've banged this drum myself and come to similar conclusions. The 2 managers who have achieved tangible results weren't DL guys. There's a disconnect there.

Obviously, at some level, there will be crossover due to DL controlling the pursestrings but the sooner we get in DoF in the better. Still, after FWank and DC, maybe DL is still keen on the idea but has trust issues.

 

[playboypaul]

I agree with a lot of why you have said, but this I don't, Lennon can strike the ball very well he just doesn't do it enough. For some reason he just doesn't have the confidence like say bale does. Bale will try from anywhere. Lennon would rather take the safe option than have a go.

Your right on this one, well as far as the fact that Lennon doesn't strike the ball. It looks to me like he is fearful of messing up so takes the safe option as you say.

 

[Misfit]

Very good OP anyway. Not that my opinion is worth a gram of dried goose shit.

 

[manic041]

i've not read any of the posts in this thread so do excuse me if i am repeating any input but i think Adebayor works as a better link up player than a target man, so how about we stick with the team from city, with one change that would make the team (IMO) complete:

usually keeper & back 4 (although Lloris gradually introduced to the team) then:

Sandro & Huddlestone (Dembele when fit)

Lennon(R)
Adebayor
Bale (L)

Defoe

this would prevent Defoe being isolated when playing on his own, adebayor can link the midfield & defoe to provide a better balance than Dempsey

 

[camaj]

The persistance with Huddlestone and Dempsey is staggering. You cannot defend they guy when he makes choices like this.

I'm hardly a Huddlestone apologist but you can't really blame AVB for playing him. If he played Siggerdson half the people here would moan because they've already decided that he's crap, same with Dempsey. Players, and teams, can go through periods of bad form. It's a mistake to look at a handful of games and write players off. If you want to judge players like Siggerdson and Dempsey we have to show patience and get behind them. If we've given them a real shot and enough time, then we can assess them. If they both play regularly and aren't good enough at the end of the season then we can fairly say that they're not good enough, 11 games is not enough.

Overall we've been very unlucky this season. We've had so many injuries and that's lead to an unsettled team and a lack of rotation. I imagine that if it weren't for injuries we wouldn't have seen much of Huddlestone, Gallas, Naughton or Siggerdson in the league games, you can probably add Sandro to that list.

 

[kaz Hirai]

A FOOTBALL PHILOSOPHY

AVB: There are more spaces in football than people think. Even if you play against a low block team, you immediately get half of the pitch.
And after that, in attacking midfield, you can provoke the opponent with the ball, provoke him to move forward or sideways and open up a space. But many players can’t understand the game.
They can’t think about or read the game. Things have become too easy for football players: high salaries, a good life, with a maximum of five hours work a day and so they can’t concentrate, can’t think about the game.
Barcelona’s players are completely the opposite. Their players are permanently thinking about the game, about their movement, about how to provoke their opponent with the position of the ball.
DS: Does a top team need to dominate possession to win a match?
AVB: Not necessarily, for a simple reason. In Portugal we have this idea of match control based on ball circulation.
That’s what we in Portugal want to achieve in our football: top teams that dominate by ball possession, that push the opponent back to their area.
If you go find the top English teams pre-Arsene Wenger they tell you how to control a match in the opposite way without much ball possession, direct football, searching for the second ball.
Maybe now, controlling possession is the reference point for a top team, but that happens because they have much more quality players than the other teams, so it would be wrong not to take advantage of those individual skills.
DS: One thing Louis Van Gaal says is that you can control a match offensively and defensively but you must keep in control defensively you can also determine where your opponent will play on the pitch.
AVB: Yes, I agree. In that sense, yes. But the idea we now have in Portugal of match control is about having more ball possession than the opponent.
DS: Exactly, but match control has to result in scoring chances. That’s the only way it makes sense. There are teams that have like 60 per cent ball possession and that results in nothing at all.
AVB: That’s it. Match control always has to have a purpose, a main goal.
DS: And in that concept of match control, are there any sectors of the team more important than others?
AVB: Well, that depends on the mechanisms you want to use defensively and offensively. Let me give you an example.
Top teams nowadays don’t look to vertical penetration from their midfielders because the coach prefers them to stand in position (horizontally) and then use the movement of the wingers as the main source to create chances.
So, you, as a coach, have to know exactly what kind of players you have and analyse the squad to decide how you want to organise your team offensively. And then, there are maybe some players more important than others.
For instance, many teams play with defensive pivots, small defensive midfielders.
And, except Andrea Pirlo and Xabi Alonso, and maybe Esteban Cambiasso and one or two more, they are players that are limited to the horizontal part of the game: they keep passing the ball from one side to another, left or right, without any kind of vertical penetration.
Can’t you use your defensive midfielder to introduce a surprise factor in the match? Let’s say, first he passes horizontally and then, suddenly, vertical penetration?

THE INFLUENCE OF JOSE MOURINHO

AVB: There has been an evolution in football language and football analysis since Mourinho started to coach. There’s a different way of looking at a match, a different way of doing technical analysis.
People have started to look beyond the formation, and started talking about the dynamics within the team and how they’re more important than the team’s formation.

TALKING TACTICS

DS: What’s the difference between playing with three or four midfielders?
AVB: Rafa Benitez created a 4-4-2 much more dynamic than the usual English 4-4-2. Because he introduced speed in ball possession, he gave it variation between vertical and horizontal passes.
The usual classic English 4-4-2 is more basic: a penetrating midfielder and another one that stays in position; a winger who moves inside and another one who stays wide; a full back who overlaps and another one who covers the defence.
If you talk about a 4-4-2 diamond, that’s totally different. You play with two pivotal midfielders, one defensive and one offensive, so it creates many more problems for your opponent.
Defensively, though, you take a great risk of ceding too much space because you are very central and you lack width. You have to create compensation mechanisms.
Me, I’m a 4-3-3 fan, not 4-4-2. I don’t see how a classic 4-4-2 could work in the Spanish league, where every team plays 4-3-3 and the superiority of the midfield has become crucial.
What Mourinho did with Chelsea with his 4-3-3 was something never seen before: a dynamic structure, aggressive, with aggressive transitions...and then there is Barca’s 4-3-3, which wouldn’t work in England, because of the higher risk of losing the ball.
If you have midfielders like Frank Lampard or Steven Gerrard you don’t want your forwards to come and play between lines, because Lampard and Gerrard have a large field of action and very often move in to those spaces.
Lampard was often irritated with Didier Drogba because Drogba wanted to receive the ball there but then, amazingly, his first touch was poor, so he lost the ball and we were exposed to a transition from the opponent.
So we had to limit Drogba from going there and ask him to play deeper.

BARCELONA’S TACTICAL MASTERPLAN

DS: Is good ball circulation essential in the attacking organisation of a top team?
AVB: Well, it’s essential to every team. Every team want to score. That’s the purpose of the game. Barcelona play horizontally only after a vertical pass. See how the centre backs go out with ball, how they construct the play. They open up (moving wider), so that the right or left-back can join the midfield line.
Guardiola has talked about it: the centre backs provoke the opponent, invite them forward then, if the opponent applies quick pressure the ball goes to the other central defender, and this one makes a vertical pass.
Not to the midfielders, who have their back turned to the ball, but to those moving between lines, Andres Iniesta or Lionel Messi, or even directly to the striker.
Then they play the second ball with short lay-offs, either to the wingers who have cut inside or the midfielders, who now have the game in front of them.
They have an enormous capacity not to lose the ball, to do things with an unbelievable precision.
Another thing about Barcelona, there is always a full-back who arrives earlier in the attack, the other stays in position initially but then progressively joins the attack, as the ball circulates on the other side of the pitch, so he can be a surprise element. When you least expect he arrives. He chooses the perfect timing for the overlap.
DS: Louis Van Gaal says a vertical pass is not a risk, but a horizontal pass is because when you make a horizontal pass you are much more open, more exposed in case you lose the ball.
AVB: Yes, that’s right. And there are differences between a horizontal pass and a slightly diagonal pass.
Something that used to happen a lot in England, when teams played 4-4-2, was that the central midfielders exchanged the ball between them in parallel passes so what we did with Lampard, or Liverpool did with Gerrard, was to try to cut into that space between the two midfielders with fast movement from Lampard.
If they got the ball there, there were already two opponents eliminated in the attacking transition.

DEALING WITH DEFENSIVE TEAMS

DS: How do you attack a team that plays with an ultra-low block?
AVB: Let’s see. Juventus play with an ultra-low block, they don’t put any pressure on you high up the field. Nowadays most teams don’t. It can limit you because they control the space behind them with perfect offside timing.
They limit your vertical passes as well because they are all grouped within 30 or 40 metres, completely closed in two lines of four plus the two forwards.
So you start constructing “short”, begin the attacking process with your centre-backs of full-backs carrying the ball forward to the midfield area but then you want to pass the ball to the midfielders and you don’t know how to do it, because there is an ultra-limited space, everything is completely closed.
DS: So what to do?
AVB: You have to provoke them with the ball, which is something most teams can’t do. I cannot understand it. It’s an essential factor in the game.
At this time of ultra-low defensive block teams, you will have to learn how to provoke them with the ball. It’s the ball they want, so you have to defy them using the ball as a carrot.
Louis Van Gaal’s idea is one of continuous circulation, one side to the other, until the moment that, when you change direction, an space opens up inside and you go through it.
So, he provokes the opponent with horizontal circulation of the ball, until the moment that the opponent will start to pressure out of despair. What I believe in is to challenge the rival by driving the ball into him.
That’s something Pep Guardiola believes is decisive. And that’s something that Henk ten Cate also took to Avram Grant’s Chelsea. He took it with him form Frank Rijkaard’s Barcelona. We did it differently at Chelsea under Mourinho.
Our attacking construction was different, with the ball going directly to the full-backs or midfielders. With Ten Cate, play was started with John Terry or Ricardo Carvalho, to invite the opponent’s pressure. Then you had one less opponent in the next step of construction.

 

[Spurs_Bear]

BY-and-large, I agree.

The number of times I have read on here AVB is repeating his mistakes at Chelsea and said, no, it's the opposite, if anything.

As seen as it is still a transitional period, we do have half a first team out [sic.] and, ultimately, after the Goons match next week, we will have played the top 4 clubs ATM in the league (United, Citeh, Chelsea, The Goons), and three of them away from home I think it is not that much of a problem that we will still be in touch with the top 4 even if we lose to the Goons. Under these circumstances, I am not so sure I am that unhappy that he is showing that he can be flexible with his formations based on how he perceives the strengths and weaknesses of his squad.

For the medium to long term, I would agree, it would be preferable if he could play the way he wants to play.

p.s. I have never thought finishing fourth this season should be an absolute for him, but I am still reasonable confident that it can be done.

The thing is though SP, this is where I disagree with this statement. I don't think this is a transitional period. When a manager resigns, you are left somewhat in the lurch the majority of the time and have to then think of the next step.

Levy made a decision to take the club forward, by sacking the previous regime and bringing in the man he wanted himself (if not his number 1 choice it was definitely one of his top 3-4 I would think.), by the that notion we need to be trying to focus on the positives and at least seeing a glimmer of hope that the man that has been brought in is doing things differently to try to right the wrongs of the previous.

You are right, we are missing a few first teamers at the moment, but you would hope that the rest of the squad would be showing signs of what AVB is drumming into them in training. Honestly, apart from against the equivalent of a League 2 side in Maribor, last week, I have seen very, very little signs of this so far.

 

[mpickard2087]

I'm hardly a Huddlestone apologist but you can't really blame AVB for playing him. If he played Siggerdson half the people here would moan because they've already decided that he's crap, same with Dempsey. Players, and teams, can go through periods of bad form. It's a mistake to look at a handful of games and write players off. If you want to judge players like Siggerdson and Dempsey we have to show patience and get behind them. If we've given them a real shot and enough time, then we can assess them. If they both play regularly and aren't good enough at the end of the season then we can fairly say that they're not good enough, 11 games is not enough.

Overall we've been very unlucky this season. We've had so many injuries and that's lead to an unsettled team and a lack of rotation. I imagine that if it weren't for injuries we wouldn't have seen much of Huddlestone, Gallas, Naughton or Siggerdson in the league games, you can probably add Sandro to that list.

I can blame him, the truth is that Huddlestone isnt good enough anymore. It was debatable whether he was mobile enough when we saw him at his best. Now he's had two years out with a dodgy ankle (and speaking from experience, I bet will continue to trouble him as its a really difficult area to fix) he's an absolute liability when we dont have the ball. That even before getting onto his suitability for the role he has been given as the midfield playmaker. When you then have someone like Carroll who was infinately better than him vs Maribor and so deserves a chance (people will say 'its the wrong game to put him in blah blah blah', but he can't have done any worse than what we have seen so far from the others) then he cant blame injuries. He chose to put in Huddlestone and he didnt have to.

Sigurdsson and Dempsey arent cut out for the role they have been given, thats not to say that they might not become successful for us but they arent suddenly going to develop these creative elements, so you cant keep picking them in this No.10 role. If AVB wants to play them then he has to change the tactics to get the best out of them, otherwise if he's sticking with 4-2-3-1 then as far as im concerned we should be giving one of a number of the promising young players a chance in that role.

IMO he's played it safe for fear of rocking the boat. Its time to be a bit more radical.

 

[Blake Griffin]

until levy takes a back seat then we're bound to fail. how can a manager build the side he wants when the chairman won't back him and instead gives him players he didn't want or has no real intention of using unless absolutely necessary. either levy leaves the team to the manager and backs him sufficiently, or he just sacks him and becomes the manager himself.

 

[daehanmingook]

Sometimes I feel like AVB is setting up the team in such a horrible manner simply to spite Levy for not getting him any of his targets.