Bus-Conductor
SC Supporter
- Oct 19, 2004
- 39,837
- 50,713
I think Sherwood talks a very good talk. I like some of what he says, but some of his walk is a fucking mile away from his talk.
He keeps saying it doesn't matter about formations but about what the players do within those formations. Well, working off the ball, being organised and cohesive is a basic hallmark of any decent side.
You can take being out footballed by a superior football team, but you don't have to be out worked. Before the game he was talking about getting Yaya and Fernandinho turned round facing their own box. We didn't even get them turning to face the centre circle.
I have been accused, by the man who thinks we were better with Sigurdsson than Willian, of talking about pressing and not explaining what pressing is. Well here's one example. Whenever we had the ball they pressed the man on the ball and his immediate options, Adebayor was double and triple teamed (they'd done their homework and realised that you stop him being a fulcrum, you go a long way to stopping us playing) if by chance we got past the first level of press they would soon drop into a very well organised shape, regroup and commence the cohesive press again a bit deeper. The result was we couldn't string 3 passes together, players like Adebayor and Eriksen had no time on the ball and no options when they did. By contrast when they had the ball our pressing and closing was sporadic, undisciplined and often incoherent.
I'm not talking about being out-footballed here, I'm talking about being out worked and out-coached.
I know there can be problems with the high line, especially when you have Dawson in it. But what happens now against decent teams is the pitch becomes much longer and our players find themselves much further from each others lines, meaning teams like ManC can bypass the layers much easier if there is no concerted and cohesive pressure on the ball and it's options. Against Southampton that might mean Adebayor can be the difference, against better teams (or Palace for 45 minutes) you can get fucked over very easily.
Sherwood keeps talking about dominating the ball and making the opposition chase us, or locking them into their third, but at the moment we have only done this against opposition that have let us, and even then, only once at home to Stoke were we totally convincing doing this, what we are seeing far more is us being passive aggressive at best, sitting deep, having the opponent dictate the ball and us react.
I'm a little surprised we didn't play a proper 3 in midfield today. He's seen AVB fuck up the same way, he saw what happened at the emirates, how we've struggled to have the ball at Southampton and ManU and this is the best team out there, for me if ever there was a game that proves Ferdinand's theorem is fucking bunkum it was tonight's. Get 3 proper CM's in there, press properly and cohesively - not like headless chickens - and try to stop their cm's constantly having easy avenues to the clever fuckers around them.
Liverpool played this way and looked so much better against City than we did.
I like Bentaleb, he's neat and tidy at rotates the ball efficiently, but him and Dembele were pulled around like two stewed prunes caught in the vortex of a moulinex hairdryer. Capoue (or Sandro) in the middle of these two could/would have given us some chance of competing.
I understand why the goal was disallowed, Adebayor who is clearly offside goes for it first. The penalty is one of those you don't expect to be given, Rose was unlucky, he clearly gets the ball, but having now watched it in slow he does clatter into the back of Dzeko fractionally first. I still think 9/10 like that would not be given and with good reason. The red card especially harsh.
We could have been a few down by half time, but for the post, LLoris and Dzeko not bringing his shooting boots, after the pen and sending off we then concede another poor goal and the game from then on is a futile affair not worth talking about. The damage had already been done and we were lucky to still be in it until that point. We said against Palace, if we played like this against a decent team we'd get punished. We did and we were.
Early days and all that bollocks. But Sherwood didn't inherit a lazy team. We weren't always at our best off the ball every minute of every game, but we were generally a pretty well organised and coherent team off the ball. That needed gilding not abandoning. I thought we did it reasonably well at Swansea, but other games have been very hit and miss with no overt sign of off the ball cohesion.
Individual stuff
Lloris - One great save.
Walker - turned inside (and left on his arse) several times.
Dawson - Just not designed to play against players of this quality but gave his all as ever.
Chiriches - Some nice touches on the ball, the obligatory over play incident or two. Defensively meh.
Rose - Unlucky really. Before that was exactly not coping brilliantly.
Bentaleb - Neat and tidy but looked a bit overwhelmed at times.
Dembele - As Bentaleb.
Capoue - As the other two CM's really. Had the added handicap of being a man down virtually the entire time he was on.
Eriksen - Never in the game enough, and the little moments he did have he was largely disappointing.
Adebayor - Worked reasonably hard but was never given time and was frequently pressed out of efficacy. Couple of times he dwelt and wasted opportunities.
He keeps saying it doesn't matter about formations but about what the players do within those formations. Well, working off the ball, being organised and cohesive is a basic hallmark of any decent side.
You can take being out footballed by a superior football team, but you don't have to be out worked. Before the game he was talking about getting Yaya and Fernandinho turned round facing their own box. We didn't even get them turning to face the centre circle.
I have been accused, by the man who thinks we were better with Sigurdsson than Willian, of talking about pressing and not explaining what pressing is. Well here's one example. Whenever we had the ball they pressed the man on the ball and his immediate options, Adebayor was double and triple teamed (they'd done their homework and realised that you stop him being a fulcrum, you go a long way to stopping us playing) if by chance we got past the first level of press they would soon drop into a very well organised shape, regroup and commence the cohesive press again a bit deeper. The result was we couldn't string 3 passes together, players like Adebayor and Eriksen had no time on the ball and no options when they did. By contrast when they had the ball our pressing and closing was sporadic, undisciplined and often incoherent.
I'm not talking about being out-footballed here, I'm talking about being out worked and out-coached.
I know there can be problems with the high line, especially when you have Dawson in it. But what happens now against decent teams is the pitch becomes much longer and our players find themselves much further from each others lines, meaning teams like ManC can bypass the layers much easier if there is no concerted and cohesive pressure on the ball and it's options. Against Southampton that might mean Adebayor can be the difference, against better teams (or Palace for 45 minutes) you can get fucked over very easily.
Sherwood keeps talking about dominating the ball and making the opposition chase us, or locking them into their third, but at the moment we have only done this against opposition that have let us, and even then, only once at home to Stoke were we totally convincing doing this, what we are seeing far more is us being passive aggressive at best, sitting deep, having the opponent dictate the ball and us react.
I'm a little surprised we didn't play a proper 3 in midfield today. He's seen AVB fuck up the same way, he saw what happened at the emirates, how we've struggled to have the ball at Southampton and ManU and this is the best team out there, for me if ever there was a game that proves Ferdinand's theorem is fucking bunkum it was tonight's. Get 3 proper CM's in there, press properly and cohesively - not like headless chickens - and try to stop their cm's constantly having easy avenues to the clever fuckers around them.
Liverpool played this way and looked so much better against City than we did.
I like Bentaleb, he's neat and tidy at rotates the ball efficiently, but him and Dembele were pulled around like two stewed prunes caught in the vortex of a moulinex hairdryer. Capoue (or Sandro) in the middle of these two could/would have given us some chance of competing.
I understand why the goal was disallowed, Adebayor who is clearly offside goes for it first. The penalty is one of those you don't expect to be given, Rose was unlucky, he clearly gets the ball, but having now watched it in slow he does clatter into the back of Dzeko fractionally first. I still think 9/10 like that would not be given and with good reason. The red card especially harsh.
We could have been a few down by half time, but for the post, LLoris and Dzeko not bringing his shooting boots, after the pen and sending off we then concede another poor goal and the game from then on is a futile affair not worth talking about. The damage had already been done and we were lucky to still be in it until that point. We said against Palace, if we played like this against a decent team we'd get punished. We did and we were.
Early days and all that bollocks. But Sherwood didn't inherit a lazy team. We weren't always at our best off the ball every minute of every game, but we were generally a pretty well organised and coherent team off the ball. That needed gilding not abandoning. I thought we did it reasonably well at Swansea, but other games have been very hit and miss with no overt sign of off the ball cohesion.
Individual stuff
Lloris - One great save.
Walker - turned inside (and left on his arse) several times.
Dawson - Just not designed to play against players of this quality but gave his all as ever.
Chiriches - Some nice touches on the ball, the obligatory over play incident or two. Defensively meh.
Rose - Unlucky really. Before that was exactly not coping brilliantly.
Bentaleb - Neat and tidy but looked a bit overwhelmed at times.
Dembele - As Bentaleb.
Capoue - As the other two CM's really. Had the added handicap of being a man down virtually the entire time he was on.
Eriksen - Never in the game enough, and the little moments he did have he was largely disappointing.
Adebayor - Worked reasonably hard but was never given time and was frequently pressed out of efficacy. Couple of times he dwelt and wasted opportunities.
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