Boubakary Soumare

[Clarkey123]

The sooner we revert back to 4-5-1 the better. If Brendan can’t see 3 centre backs just dosen’t work and refuses to budge, he has to go for me.

[sacreblueits442]

9 minutes ago, jim5000 said:

His thought process was probably “It’s only Kante, he’s not going to…. Oh shit….”

...we have seen Kante do that before!!!

  It wasn't something that was a feature of his game with us but he can carry the ball through the middle of the field. He also has the composure to finish, we just did not have a chance to delve into his other box of tricks.

  Mendy for me looks like he has the same ability (not the ability to finish, I don't think) to transition our play by bringing the ball forward. We don't see it because it is not something we ask for him to do.

  Chilwell always had the ability to be a real threat in the last third, it was a part of his game that could easily be improved ( I posted that it was going to be developed when he moved) and along with Chelsea's system, he has become an even better player.

  It always strikes me as strange that the Coaches fail to pick up and use a players full range of skills and see their potential.  Although you would think the player would have the awareness to develop those parts of their own game privately. 

  

[MPH]

4 minutes ago, Clarkey123 said:

The sooner we revert back to 4-5-1 the better. If Brendan can’t see 3 centre backs just dosen’t work and refuses to budge, he has to go for me.

 

3 CBs can work if your best defender isn’t out injured..

[Clarkey123]

1 minute ago, MPH said:

 

3 CBs can work if your best defender isn’t out injured..

Yes but he is and has been for quite a while. We need to adapt to the situation and utilise or full backs (ok for Chelsea Ricardo was injured which is understandable) but trying to get the best out of them in a 5-4-1, they don’t have any one around them when they do get forward to interchange passes with and end up getting pegged back

[Clever Fox]

There's an incident around 38 minutes in Saturday's game where we were on the attack down the left with Barnes Vardy and Castagne down around their Box and Soumare runs forward into the middle of them instead of holding his ground. Castagne is caught 2 on 1 with no out Ball and loses possession, Chelsea are away on attack and we've 4 players out of the game all because Soumare chose the wrong option.

He takes up poor positions at times especially when trying to get forward and stops to look on at times.

This is the part of his game he needs to learn and Brendan needs to work with him.

 

He is a good player with the potential to be a great player but he first needs to learn the game especially when not in possession. Thankfully he has the time to do so, he's young.  

With the Ball at his feet he's fine and will improve, right know though it's a big learning curve.

I'd also like to see him toughen up a bit though I expect that to happen the more he plays. But a word in his Ear wouldn't go amiss from Brendan or the Coaches.

 

[sacreblueits442]

2 hours ago, Clarkey123 said:

Yes but he is and has been for quite a while. We need to adapt to the situation and utilise or full backs (ok for Chelsea Ricardo was injured which is understandable) but trying to get the best out of them in a 5-4-1, they don’t have any one around them when they do get forward to interchange passes with and end up getting pegged back

.....if you are playing with a back five, especially against teams like Chelsea that are going to come forward, then it has to be a flat five and not a three that becomes a five!!!

  With the width given to us by Barnes and Lookman and Vardy on the pitch, we should be playing on the counter.

  We are excellent at it, teams come at us at there peril, it is what we are better at doing. 

[OntarioFox]

Soumare looks best when he's not expected to play B2B.

 

When he does, we might as well not have a midfield. He goes on the occasional Sol Bamba-esque run from deep but otherwise the game passes him by. I'm starting to grow concerned that we'll see him and Ndidi in the same team regularly, and I'm just not convinced it will work unless there's another body in central midfield with them.

 

When his role is more disciplined, I've liked what I've seen. He was MOTM for me at Leeds.

Edited 23 November 2021 by OntarioFox

[ScrumpyJack]

He’s got great attributes, we just haven’t seen the Soumare of his parts yet.

 

[sacreblueits442]

12 minutes ago, OntarioFox said:

Soumare looks best when he's not expected to play B2B.

 

When he does, we might as well not have a midfield. He goes on the occasional Sol Bamba-esque run from deep but otherwise the game passes him by. I'm starting to grow concerned that we'll see him and Ndidi in the same team regularly, and I'm just not convinced it will work unless there's another body in central midfield with them.

 

When his role is more disciplined, I've liked what I've seen. He was MOTM for me at Leeds.

....very much what I expect the eventual plan will be, a middle three with Ndidi, Soumare and Youri to be a fixture in this team!!!

Ndidi (Defender) to guard the backline, Soumare (Controller) sets the tempo and links with the offense and Youri (Creator) gets to do what he is good at influencing the game.  

[st albans fox]

I wonder if his settling in has been disturbed by wes’ injury 

 

they would have expected to spend a lot of time together in training and going to games etc 

 

but wes’s schedule will have meant this hasn’t happened. 

[Bluefoxtim]

Couple of weeks ago this guy was the second coming, now he's the new Junior Lewis. 

 

Edited 23 November 2021 by Bluefoxtim

[Mark]

4 hours ago, MPH said:

3 CBs can work if your best defender isn’t out injured..

Not quite true, as it has without doubt played a big part in seeing us out of the top 4 for the past two seasons. Unless you've got the best players to fit the system like Chelsea, where it genuinely is a back three and not a five as with us, it'll work in the odd game like the 5-2 at Man City but we've tried to persist with it in games which really didn't require it and ended up losing everything we were better than other teams at.

[MPH]

47 minutes ago, Mark said:

Not quite true, as it has without doubt played a big part in seeing us out of the top 4 for the past two seasons. Unless you've got the best players to fit the system like Chelsea, where it genuinely is a back three and not a five as with us, it'll work in the odd game like the 5-2 at Man City but we've tried to persist with it in games which really didn't require it and ended up losing everything we were better than other teams at.

well, I said it CAN work so it IS true… I never said that it will definitely work and certainly not for every game.

[Clever Fox]

3 hours ago, Mark said:

Not quite true, as it has without doubt played a big part in seeing us out of the top 4 for the past two seasons. Unless you've got the best players to fit the system like Chelsea, where it genuinely is a back three and not a five as with us, it'll work in the odd game like the 5-2 at Man City but we've tried to persist with it in games which really didn't require it and ended up losing everything we were better than other teams at.

Part of the problem is Brendan encourages the Midfield to retreat to the edge of our area when out of possession.

The idea being that by smothering the space around front of Goal we can nick it back while making it difficult for the opposition to get through.

This not only restricts the space for our CBs to work in but allows the opposition wide players to get up the pitch then we struggle with numbers and quality from there on.

I'm guessing he's using this as a means of compensating for our lack of pace at the back.

But really we should b trying to win it back further up the pitch and stop teams getting at us.

[sacreblueits442]

1 hour ago, Clever Fox said:

But really we should b trying to win it back further up the pitch and stop teams getting at us.

...we used to do that, but we are, as you stated, attempting to protect our backline!!!

We do suffer with the lack of pace at the back, so we cannot play too higher line. We do need to get away from the back three, we can set up better with a Four, something all the players are more comfortable with.

[Stadt]

5 hours ago, Mark said:

5-2 at Man City

We won because we had 3 penalties, we were really fortunate in that game. We played well but play that game over 10 times and we win once or twice.

 

I agree about 3 atb, our ‘success’ with it has coincided with moments of magic from our players rather than any particular patterns of play.

[Clever Fox]

1 hour ago, sacreblueits442 said:

...we used to do that, but we are, as you stated, attempting to protect our backline!!!

We do suffer with the lack of pace at the back, so we cannot play too higher line. We do need to get away from the back three, we can set up better with a Four, something all the players are more comfortable with.

Let's hope when Fofana comes back and is ok. That will address some of the pace issue.

Though we really do need to watch the attributes of the type of player we're signing.

Sometimes I wonder who is doing the choosing.

[sacreblueits442]

1 hour ago, Stadt said:

We won because we had 3 penalties, we were really fortunate in that game. We played well but play that game over 10 times and we win once or twice.

 

I agree about 3 atb, our ‘success’ with it has coincided with moments of magic from our players rather than any particular patterns of play.

...if I remember correctly, we had a flat back five, meaning our Left and Right Backs stayed in their position and denied space to get behind us. With the pace of Vardy and Barnes it was the perfect way to play these, they have always been liable to the counter against us and they refuse to drop their backline.

  You know exactly what you are going to get playing against Man. City, you counter them and use a deep block.

[gerblod]

22 hours ago, Cadno'r Cymoedd said:

Whilst not great opposition, he showed against Spartak away what he can do. Was outstanding on that occasion. Perhaps he isn't clear what he is being asked to do and to be fair, we get mullered almost every time we play 2 in midfield. But I agree he needs to demonstrate some more effort. He looks heavy to me. Has he been bulking up for the PL? 

This was the consensus of the 'experts' on BT Sport about the first half against Chelsea. By the second half any changes were too late. 

I noticed that he seems to be carrying surplus weight. To be fair to the bloke, he's still probably adjusting. Do you think he believed he was joining the Tigers? 

[An Sionnach]

12 hours ago, sacreblueits442 said:

You know exactly what you are going to get playing against Man. City, you counter them and use a deep block.

That raises the question. If it works against them ,why doesn't it get used more? Ever since 2016 we have tried to change our play to possession football. It had two pre-Christmas successful periods but it has totally run out of steam now. So what's next? We sit back more for starters and fire off more long passes and mix up our play to keep the opposition guessing.

[sacreblueits442]

36 minutes ago, An Sionnach said:

That raises the question. If it works against them ,why doesn't it get used more? Ever since 2016 we have tried to change our play to possession football. It had two pre-Christmas successful periods but it has totally run out of steam now. So what's next? We sit back more for starters and fire off more long passes and mix up our play to keep the opposition guessing.

....it is a tactic against a team who play their game in a certain way!!!

Man. United have beaten them by effective counter attacking, most teams try to play their own better version of their own game against them but with their quality (Man. City) it will never quite be enough. Twice they have been lucky not to have had a man red carded early in the game against us, having played Vardy through on goal. Both incidents were the turning point, as we failed to get the advantage that we should have been given.

  The 5-2 against them led to Rodgers coming out and admitting he had, for the first time, changed his philosophy when he went to a flat back five. We were stretched at the time as Ricardo and Ndidi were out with Amartey and Mendy coming in to make up the team.

  We do not have to sit back, in order to compete, 4-2-3-1 works for us, but there are some games you should choose not to employ that formation.

[An Sionnach]

48 minutes ago, sacreblueits442 said:

....it is a tactic against a team who play their game in a certain way!!!

Man. United have beaten them by effective counter attacking, most teams try to play their own better version of their own game against them but with their quality (Man. City) it will never quite be enough. Twice they have been lucky not to have had a man red carded early in the game against us, having played Vardy through on goal. Both incidents were the turning point, as we failed to get the advantage that we should have been given.

  The 5-2 against them led to Rodgers coming out and admitting he had, for the first time, changed his philosophy when he went to a flat back five. We were stretched at the time as Ricardo and Ndidi were out with Amartey and Mendy coming in to make up the team.

  We do not have to sit back, in order to compete, 4-2-3-1 works for us, but there are some games you should choose not to employ that formation.

My problem with 4-2-3-1 is a 35 year old lone striker and wingers who do not defend. Maddison's and Iheanacho's defensive skills are also limited. We lose possession and we are quickly overrun at the back.

[sacreblueits442]

2 minutes ago, An Sionnach said:

My problem with 4-2-3-1 is a 35 year old lone striker and wingers who do not defend. Maddison's and Iheanacho's defensive skills are also limited. We lose possession and we are quickly overrun at the back.

....that format was an example, we are i believe, moving to a midfield three, Ndidi, Soumare and Tielemans!!!

We can either employ a frontline of three, two wide players with either Vardy or Daka in the middle or we have a number #10 with two strikers ahead of him. It will be adjusted according to the teams we come up against.

[Sharpe's Fox]

Can't say I expected Soumare and Ndidi to boss  midfeid aginst Kante and Jorgihno. Lets see how he does Sunday.

[StriderHiryu]

I said earlier in the season that if Soumare had a spell of ten games in a row he'd be undroppable and would look like one of the best signings for any club over the summer. I was totally wrong! He is talented and there is a lot to admire about him, but he's had a few dodgy performances in a row now. I like that he's willing to go for an adventurous ball, but he gives it away sloppily far too often. Youri Tielemans is also guilty of this, but his hollywood passes are world class, and even when he gives it away, it's rarely in such a way that leads directly to an attack. Soumare has quite a few times this season made a suicidal pass to put us in trouble.

 

I think it's time for KDH to have a few games now. I think Soumare will come good, but he's not as good as I thought he wood be. Not yet anyway.