Style of play

[jonnyp]

When Poch arrived we pressed with real intent. We moved and passed with real intent. Season by season it's been withering and becoming worse. And today was akin to AVB. Truly abysmal to watch.

 

[pablo73]

We have slowly morphed from a high pressing, energetic team into an AVB clone, playing turgid sideways football hoping to bore the opposition to death. Depressing to see, Poch needs to somehow get a grip but showing no signs

 

[LeParisien]

We have slowly morphed from a high pressing, energetic team into an AVB clone, playing turgid sideways football hoping to bore the opposition to death. Depressing to see, Poch needs to somehow get a grip but showing no signs

Worryingly, I find myself agreeing. We have to do much better than that.

For me it comes from conceding a very poor goal. At that point they have 3 cbs and it’s an uphill struggle.

Poor.

 

[JCRD]

I just dont get why we changed... Liverscum havent changed it about. They play to their strengths

If we play a brand of football and we are successful at it - we should continue. If we dont have the players for it because they have moved etc THEN BUY REPLACEMENTS...

This performance is precisely why i asked the question. This isnt 'all of a sudden' type performance, its been happening for a while except last season we had the luck and the last minute finishes...

I saw GLC today, he looked lost - Giovanni Lost Celso... we are not playing to players strengths

 

[THFC_SWE]

The problem is that Poch changes formation too often. You can say a formation is only numbers, but that's just not true. There's a big difference in playing a 4-2-3-1 with wingers and a diamand formation without wingers.

So far we have used a diamond formation vs Aston Villa, a christmas tree formation vs Man City and a 4-2-3-1 today vs Newcastle. This is a problem. Why? Because at training you're supposed to lay the foundation on how you should play, you grind offensive patterns and offensive runs. You grind them again and again until you can do them in your sleep. The players will never learn this when we switch formations all the time. Right now, they players look lost. What's our identity apart from possession football? We don't press anymore, our fullbacks doesn't push forward. There are no clear patterns in how we want to play. This is Posh fault and he needs to sort it out asap.

Edit: And he must stop with this bullshit with Eriksen and Vertonghen on the bench.

 

[thefierycamel]

We've conceded first in all 3 games this season. That is a worrying stat imo, given that we've played two lower sides

 

[Sandros Shiny Head]

Poch has been watching Southgate too much, set the team to play a certain way but completely ignore what players you’re using. Kane is just playing up front because he has to start, nothing about how we play makes him of any use whatsoever

 

[ljinko888]

We've gone from arguably being the best team to watch in 2016/17 (most goals scored, fewest conceded) to one of the worst.

 

[stevel]

Bruce's tactics: get as many defenders as possible into a small area in front of goal so they have no room to create anything.
Pochettino's tactics: get as many attackers as possible into the same small area in front of goal so we have no room to create anything.
Key players from last season overworked? Buy more players to clog up the centre.

 

[fishhhandaricecake]

Yes exactly so let's not judge after 180 mins of football has been played. You're willing to use these two matches as evidence to say that Liverpool have built their team better than ours is quite simply knee jerk nonsense.

I'm not going through the last season debate again, Liverpool had a better squad than ours and they bought well, no one's disagreeing with that so I don't understand why that keeps being brought up?

As I keep saying but you keee ignoring, get our key players back on the pitch and our new ones up to speed then we can talk.

Ok so 270 mins of turgid football now to add to a very poor run of form and similar performances for the 2nd half of last season, you still think people are knee jerking? Squad not good enough and Poch has run out of ideas.

 

[fishhhandaricecake]

We've gone from arguably being the best team to watch in 2016/17 (most goals scored, fewest conceded) to one of the worst.

I know Newcastle parked the 5-4-1 bus today but fuck me we were so boring and have been for a fair while especially compared to what we were 2-3 seasons ago

 

[Danny1]

Right so anyone who thinks our style of play will be any better this season is living in dreamland. If you factor:

1 - we have lost Walker at RB and have never replaced him.
2 - Verts (our best CB) is in some stupid tiff with our manager.
3 - we have lost Dembele and only replaced him this year (2 years too late)
4 - we signed Sessegnon and he is injured.
5 - Ndombele is injured.
6 - Lo Celso was signed too late.
7 - Eriksen isn’t being played despite saving our asses against Villa.
8 - tactics are hideously wrong, from the diamond formation, to Lamela being our main attacking presence when he clearly isn’t good enough, to Son and Moura blocking Kanes positions and stifling him.
9 - Pochs continuous moaning and griping with the press and cryptic statements that drive a lot of us mad and must have an effect on the players.
10 - 15 points from our last 15 premier league games which is very real relegation form.

 

[jonnyp]

What is so frustrating is that we have the players to play like Pool and City in the final third but... we just don't.

It's not rocket science the way that they play but Poch insists to play narrow and slow.

 

[fishhhandaricecake]

Right so anyone who thinks our style of play will be any better this season is living in dreamland. If you factor:

1 - we have lost Walker at RB and have never replaced him.
2 - Verts (our best CB) is in some stupid tiff with our manager.
3 - we have lost Dembele and only replaced him this year (2 years too late)
4 - we signed Sessegnon and he is injured.
5 - Ndombele is injured.
6 - Lo Celso was signed too late.
7 - Eriksen isn’t being played despite saving our asses against Villa.
8 - tactics are hideously wrong, from the diamond formation, to Lamela being our main attacking presence when he clearly isn’t good enough, to Son and Moura blocking Kanes positions and stifling him.
9 - Pochs continuous moaning and griping with the press and cryptic statements that drive a lot of us mad and must have an effect on the players.
10 - 15 points from our last 15 premier league games which is very real relegation form.

Spot fucking on.

 

[Mr Pink]

The problem is we don't pass and move win energy, we're waiting for something to happen as opposed to making it...

Although, as ever, Eriksen takes responsibility in this department.

We're too easy to defend against and the verve has gone right out of our attacking patterns.

We made that easy for Newcastle to frustrate us. Sure they had to work hard but it was straightforward for them.

 

[fishhhandaricecake]

What is so frustrating is that we have the players to play like Pool and City in the final third but... we just don't.

It's not rocket science the way that they play but Poch insists to play narrow and slow.

I’m not sure we quite do to be honest mate, we could play similarly with the below but a front 3 of Kane son Lucas is no where near mane Firminiho salah and city have far far better world class creative midfielders such as : KDB, D & B. silva and we only have erisken who isn’t quite as good as them and is on his way out.

Ndombele
Lo celso
Sissoko

Lucas
Kane
Son

That’s not good enough for 4-3-3 in my opinion but we’ve never tried it so I could be wrong, it may at least be more effective than the shit we are serving up currently.

 

[richard_gleeson]

Right so anyone who thinks our style of play will be any better this season is living in dreamland. If you factor:

1 - we have lost Walker at RB and have never replaced him.
2 - Verts (our best CB) is in some stupid tiff with our manager.
3 - we have lost Dembele and only replaced him this year (2 years too late)
4 - we signed Sessegnon and he is injured.
5 - Ndombele is injured.
6 - Lo Celso was signed too late.
7 - Eriksen isn’t being played despite saving our asses against Villa.
8 - tactics are hideously wrong, from the diamond formation, to Lamela being our main attacking presence when he clearly isn’t good enough, to Son and Moura blocking Kanes positions and stifling him.
9 - Pochs continuous moaning and griping with the press and cryptic statements that drive a lot of us mad and must have an effect on the players.
10 - 15 points from our last 15 premier league games which is very real relegation form.

Basically we've gone backwards in the last 3 years

 

[Gareth88]

Play limply for 20 mins backwards, Sideways, take an extra touch, fullbacks not getting up high enough/making runs and never first time cross it into the box is our style play then concede a goal, play with some intensity for 15-20 mins. Half time. Come out second half struggle to break teams down

 

[CowInAComa]

I’m not sure we quite do to be honest mate, we could play similarly with the below but a front 3 of Kane son Lucas is no where near mane Firminiho salah and city have far far better world class creative midfielders such as : KDB, D & B. silva and we only have erisken who isn’t quite as good as them and is on his way out.

Ndombele
Lo celso
Sissoko

Lucas
Kane
Son

That’s not good enough for 4-3-3 in my opinion but we’ve never tried it so I could be wrong, it may at least be more effective than the shit we are serving up currently.

We've got Kane, Eriksen, Son, Lucas, Dele, GLC, Lamela available to us.

There is no way on earth we can play the poor us card. We should be able to repeatedly carve teams like Newcastle into ribbons.

The system stinks. Not the players.

 

[richard_gleeson]

Today the passing was so slow. Not just the time taken to pass, but the actual passes were rolls along the grass.

I watched Liverpool arsenal the other night, oh my god that first 20 mins of the second half Liverpool were relentless. Unbelievable. We are a million miles away from that, yet we were close to that at old white hart lane.