Tactics Under Maresca

[bluefox1]

His tactics have been worked out by most of the championship sides.

Plan a and thats it (sideways,backwards,goalkeeper and sideways again etc) we are slowly becoming boring to watch.

ENZO we are not man city,if he does not sort it out with other plans like b c or even d come january we could be 3rd or 4th.

 

[funkyrobot]

18 minutes ago, Kopfkino said:

I’m as big a tactical snob as anyone, I need no invitation to look down my nose at limp, surface level analysis.

 

But it’s shite under Maresca - I said after Stoke that individuals and moments were carrying us and games in this run would show us up as moments aren’t sustainable. Didn’t expect Sheffield Wednesday to be one of those that show us up but here we are.

 

Same issues as at Parma. Build up is too deep and the football is so risk averse, it’s basically catenaccio but with the ball. 

If we are playing risk averse football then I’d love to see risky football.
 

We play massively risky football and we often get caught out doing it. The problem is that this risky style of play can’t cope with many/any passengers or players not at the top of the game. Tonight I’d say the majority of our players were well below par and way too casual against a good press. Trying to sow passes through the eye of a needle and receiving said pass under severe pressure when you’re off the pace results in the shambles tonight. Casadei & Akgun didn’t grasp their opportunity and Vardy showed us that as a starter he hasn’t got the ideal attributes needed for a system that really tests the ability of a striker to take, hold the ball or lay it off in very tight situations. 

[SouthStandUpperTier]

Just now, bluefox1 said:

His tactics have been worked out by most of the championship sides.

Plan a and thats it (sideways,backwards,goalkeeper and sideways again etc) we are slowly becoming boring to watch.

ENZO we are not man city,if he does not sort it out with other plans like b c or even d come january we could be 3rd or 4th.

 

I think we just have to accept that Enzo's Plan B is to do Plan A better.

[Guest nathan.]

3 minutes ago, Nod.E said:

Stop fishing.

I’m not.

 

As soon as we fall out of the top 2 the pressure on him will be immense.

[Blue-fox]

1 minute ago, SouthStandUpperTier said:

I think we just have to accept that Enzo's Plan B is to do Plan A better.

Wasn’t that Brendan’s plan😂

[moore_94]

Just now, nathan. said:

I’m not.

 

As soon as we fall out of the top 2 the pressure on him will be immense.

Teams below us are also having poor performances and dropping points, so when will that be?

[SecretPro]

Name our creative midfielder? No, me neither. Therein lies the major problem.

[SafewayFox]

I like Enzo, I really do but his stubbornness and/or fear of losing control of the game is starting to limit our play.

 

I know that modern day managers seem to hate the idea of “end to end football” but the way almost every build up seems overly coached means that oppositions are likely to know how to coach against our patterns of play.

 

Ask the players to take calculated risks rather than almost being restricted to areas of the pitch during certain passages….predictability is creeping into our current set up.

[Nod.E]

1 minute ago, nathan. said:

I’m not.

 

As soon as we fall out of the top 2 the pressure on him will be immense.

And that's definitely going to happen is it?

 

We have a creativity problem yet still should win most games. It may not have been vintage tonight but should we have won it? Absolutely. Poor game management cost us.

 

Said it before, where was all of this piling on when it was clear Rodgers had checked out? 

 

You can have concerns, we've hit a tricky spell and it looks like we have a few headaches to address. 

 

Ultimately we're top of the league and clear of 3rd by 8 points plus GD. 

 

And mouthbreathers are talking about the sack. Honestly baffles me how some folk manage day to day life.

[FoxinNotts]

2 minutes ago, SecretPro said:

Name our creative midfielder? No, me neither. Therein lies the major problem.

Correct. Give Praet the role?

[SouthStandUpperTier]

4 minutes ago, Blue-fox said:

Wasn’t that Brendan’s plan😂

Tbf almost all modern managers have just one philosophy and any slight changes you see are just variations on a theme.

[Guest nathan.]

1 minute ago, moore_94 said:

Teams below us are also having poor performances and dropping points, so when will that be?

We are being caught slowly but surely.

 

I wouldn’t be so worried if the performances mirrored our league position.

 

Enzo needs to wake up and realise this league is a dog fight not a ****ing fashion contest.

[iancognito]

6 minutes ago, SouthStandUpperTier said:

I think we just have to accept that Enzo's Plan B is to do Plan A better.

Which was Rodgers' downfall. He openly said you didn't need plan b if you did plan A right.

 

Somewhere in September/October we lost our intensity, our cutting edge. We aren't putting teams away. Dominating possession isn't dominating the game. Three or four of them are getting complacent and it needs sorting.

[SecretPro]

1 minute ago, FoxinNotts said:

Correct. Give Praet the role?

Come on now, I said creative. 

 

I'd genuinely look at putting Alves in. We need a Maddison and he's the one most capable of at least trying to do it. 

[Ric Flair]

1 minute ago, SafewayFox said:

I like Enzo, I really do but his stubbornness and/or fear of losing control of the game is starting to limit our play.

 

I know that modern day managers seem to hate the idea of “end to end football” but the way almost every build up seems overly coached means that oppositions are likely to know how to coach against our patterns of play.

 

Ask the players to take calculated risks rather than almost being restricted to areas of the pitch during certain passages….predictability is creeping into our current set up.

Yeah, that Sunderland game where we went toe to toe with them has seemingly caused us to go very risk averse. There's often a game or spell where managers change or perceive to change, whether that's fair or unfair. I'm worried this is Enzo's and it's come fairly early in to his career here.

[Guppys Love Child]

15 minutes ago, bluefox1 said:

His tactics have been worked out by most of the championship sides.

Plan a and thats it (sideways,backwards,goalkeeper and sideways again etc) we are slowly becoming boring to watch.

ENZO we are not man city,if he does not sort it out with other plans like b c or even d come january we could be 3rd or 4th.

 

Really... We have been boring from day one my friend.  

[Fox1norfolk]

10 minutes ago, bluefox1 said:

His tactics have been worked out by most of the championship sides.

Plan a and thats it (sideways,backwards,goalkeeper and sideways again etc) we are slowly becoming boring to watch.

ENZO we are not man city,if he does not sort it out with other plans like b c or even d come january we could be 3rd or 4th.

 

Or mid table. It’s plan A and we have been sussed out by every manager. No evolution, no revolution, stubborn basic tactics. Tonight really proved the wheels have come off, we should have beaten SW easily and we all knew the eventual goal would come. 

[don_danbury]

59 minutes ago, Steve Earle said:

So, anybody up to talking tactics yet, in the tactics thread?

yeah, i said post that simpsons gif

[Lillehamring]

30 minutes ago, Blanchflower78 said:

The game was riddled with poor play from a team supposedly running away with the league. We crumble under any form of pressure and numerous times we simply gave the ball away as the players stick to the game plan. Often at times when common sense would suggest playing the ball longer would be safer than running in to more trouble.

 

It's commendable to follow instruction but they look far too over coached and formulaic. Opposition now is sussing out so much of our positional play its becoming harder for the players to impose themselves. This is where Enzo has to step up and counter it.

 

We disagreed last week after Watford and I take no pleasure in saying again tonight things were painful far too often. We get incredibly lucky at times with forced errors not being punished and in truth this difficult patch may only help Enzo further reevaluate, as continuing as we are looks likely to become less fruitful.

 

Huge reaction on here tonight and interestingly many now suggesting tonight was the final straw in watching a style that simply is dull, uninspiring and fraught with danger too often.  

 

I genuinely want Enzo to work. He seems dedicated to his work and studious. We're approaching half way, so far the table doesn't lie but it is no way telling the full story here and will be interesting to see come May who's optimism or concerns were best placed.

I would argue that a good quantity of the poor play was down to having a large number of players coming in not up to speed and (here i am critical of enzo) not in their natural positions.  but to be honest, the errors were only early on and we spent much of the game controlling the ball, moving it well, with more urgency and tempo than against watford, but - and this is the crux once again - with substandard individual performances in the final third. 

 

I don't think it's fair to say we crumbled - most teams we've played who chose to park the bus opt to throw in their chips for a final 20 minute hail mary phase of football - did we deal with it well, no, but we didn't crumble, we just didn't deal with the ball well enough - again, it comes down to individual subpar performances (JJ's non jump, numerous hacked or sliced clearances from others, indecision) - that's not crumbling, that's just not doing one's job.

 

As i say, i think the errors were the result of playing at a quicker tempo with players who weren't quite with it - but these things happen, it's unreasonable to think that we'll go 90 minutes without making an error - for what it's worth the first two i recall that mads, on the first, got his recovery position spot on, the 2nd vestergaard reacted to make a good block - so the mentality is right in reacting to these situations, even if we shouldn't be letting them happen.  And this was all early on, we sorted ourselves out fairly quickly and played relatively well for the next hour or so, culminating in a nicely worked goal - i certainly enjoyed watching that phase of the game.

 

If people are prepared to give up watching us as we sit top of the league because of some dislike of the style of play then more fool them.  given all that has happened, we could still be sitting mid table right now.  Or we could be like norwich when they were in the prem, playing fast attacking football and losing week in week out.

 

If you really want enzo to work, then give up this pipe dream that we are going to play a certain type of football - we won't  - this is it, this is the way - but just keep in mind, this style is not natural to the players yet, and we don't necessarily have the right players yet; and maybe, as uninspiring as it might be for you, maybe it is the only way we'll succeed.

[Guest nathan.]

It’s the performances week after week that are worrying.

 

If he doesn’t tweak the style and we continue to play poorly and drop points he will be sacked before the season ends.

 

 

[jbflcfc]

So we are having a bad patch of games & folk on here don’t think enzo will last past January.

 

Seriously, give your heads a wobble, this is football, teams go through bad patches all the time.

 

Yes the football was shite tonight but that’s how it goes sometimes, Leeds drew at Rotherham the other night. 
 

People who think we are going to play like a prime Barcelona for 46 games in a season seriously need to stop playing FM.

Edited 29 November 2023 by jbflcfc

[Lillehamring]

47 minutes ago, Basildon Fox said:

And once again I will say, an average manager will push his belief and style onto a club.

 

A great manager works out a way to get the best out of what he has and adapts the team over time.

 

Just take the ****ing handbrake off and go at these teams. We have an obscenely talented squad compared to the rest of the division except probably Leeds.

 

 

 

So are you suggesting that enzo getting a team that consists of players that have just been relegated, players who haven't played in england before, players on loan and players just up from the youth team to be top of the league and 8 points clear of third, 15 points clear of the playoff cut off, after only a third of a season isn't getting the best out of what he has?  that sounds like pretty great management to me. Oh, and with this team also having the best start to a managerial career in league history?

 

Seriously - do you think any of us can ask for more, or even in the context of a footy forum have the right to tell him what he should be doing?

[Blue-fox]

1 minute ago, jbflcfc said:

So we are having a bad patch of games & folk on here don’t think enzo will last past January.

 

Seriously, give your heads a wobble, this is football, teams go through bad patches all the time.

 

Yes the football was shite tonight but that’s how it goes sometimes, Leeds drew at Rotherham the other night. 
 

People who think we are going to play like a prime Barcelona for 46 games in a season seriously need to stop playing FM.

I’d like us to play fast forward passes, rather than prime Barcelona 😂

[sm1]

Having a philosophy and stubbornly sticking to it, is great if your owner is willing to plough 100s of millions of pounds into the project. Arsenal under Arteta have spent nearly 700M and Pep has spent over a billion. We're lucky if we can spend 5-10% of these figures, which leaves us in limbo, like Burnley.

[Gamble92]

Just got back. Haven't been able to feel my toes for 2 hours. 

 

The worst part for me tonight was when Sheffield Wednesday replicated Enzo ball better than we did all night. Literally from back to front picked us off at one stage. They'd have honestly won that 4-1 with half decent strikers.

 

It's been coming. He hasn't got away with winning one like that for a change and I just hope he does something about it. 

 

Surely even Leicester can't mess this up. Can we?