Tactics Under Maresca

[Lillehamring]

49 minutes ago, Sol thewall Bamba said:

Would you have settled for where we are now 4 games ago though? 

 

Context is everything.

form is temporary class is permanent?

[jbflcfc]

1 minute ago, Blue-fox said:

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

Agreed mate.

 

I do have one gripe though, which is we do take too long to release the ball in the middle of the park.

 

Countless times where ricardo passes side wards as opposed to forwards, if we can get better at that we will kill teams in this league  

[Blue-fox]

Just now, Lillehamring said:

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?

He could play a solid 442 and still be top. 
 

Ricardo 

faes

Vestergaard

Justin. 
 

Mavididi

Winks

KDH

Mcateer

 

Vardy

Ian 

 

 

[Guest nathan.]

We should have been 2 down after 6 minutes.

 

 

[Blue-fox]

Just now, jbflcfc said:

Agreed mate.

 

I do have one gripe though, which is we do take too long to release the ball in the middle of the park.

 

Countless times where ricardo passes side wards as opposed to forwards, if we can get better at that we will kill teams in this league  

He’s a full back ( and a very good one) being asked to play central midfield. Square peg

[cityfanlee23]

I just feel like we are not getting anywhere near the most out of the players, and in quite a few aspects this approach is actively stifling players. 
Look at Vardy, Kelechi, and Mavididi, all capable players who can contribute so much more but Vardy and Kel are often playing off scraps (and they are being wasteful unfortunately) and Mavididi more often than not runs at a defender then turns back and passes backward rather than taking his man on. 
Then look at players like Winks, I've mentioned this before but he's miles above this level, we can all see that, yet of his 1567 passes attempted this season, only 346 have been FORWARDS, meaning roughly 22% of his passes are forward and 78% are sideways and backward, he's had 7 shots this season, of his 1495 successful passes, 1425 of them are categorized as "short passes" but I'm not 100% sure what the distance threshold is on that, but we can all see that his game is typically safe and very rarely is he able to really break open teams with his passing, this being the symptom of the system. 
Don't get me wrong his contribution has been fantastic and he's clearly the midfield general of the team in this system, but I feel like he's being wasted, I feel like most of the top half team's midfielders could achieve these numbers in this squad or get close. I'm not trying to downplay him, if anything it's a compliment as I truly believe he's a far better player than the one we are seeing, and that goes for a fair few others. 

Credit on some players though, KDH, Hamza, Vesty and Ndidi have all shown improvements. 

[Nod.E]

Just a reminder that even with some of our worst football this season, we have still picked up 4 points from the last two games. 

 

Do that for the rest of the season and we end on 99.

 

I realise that's a flawed forecast, but a bit of perspective? Not a bad haul considering the reactions. How many points will we get when we play better? Well, we've see that already. Bloody loads.

 

We have some limitations but only Leeds have a valid claim at deservedly beating us this season. 

 

Every game we play, boring or not, we look like we could win. Most games it looks like we should win.

 

Either individual performances need to pick up or we need a small tactical tweak. These things happen, and there's absolutely no reason one or both of those things can't happen. 

 

And in January I'm absolutely convinced that we'll be doing everything in our power to bring in a creative central player.

 

To say a lot of you are sh!tting the bed would be an understatement.

Edited 29 November 2023 by Nod.E

[Tuna]

Listen, hard to really criticize our start, but we seem to be getting worse and I'm starting to wonder if he's all that.

 

Fine line between confidence and arrogance.

[Lillehamring]

33 minutes ago, Nod.E said:

I was suggesting replacing an 8 for Kelechi. So instead of having two 8s in front of Winks, drop one deeper and replace the other with Kelechi for him to play more as a 10. Risky strategy and we'd definitely lose the ball more often, but I think we'd create more clear opportunities. I think our defence is good enough and opposition weak enough to take that gamble.

 

How long is Praet out for?

 

Agree Vardy didn't make the most of some promising openings. There's still a role for him but I'm growing more intrigued to see what Cannon can do. Is he fast?

Well in that case - i seem to remember him doing that in a game where we needed a late goal and he brought on vardy but took off a #8 rather than nacho - i assume it worked.

But right now, i wouldn't have nacho anywhere near the team, he doesn't look remotely interested - unless of course playing him here with another striker gives him the boost he needs.

 

To be honest, i think all we need are for the players to start doing their jobs and if they don't, they get dropped.  I'm not sure why mavididi seems to start every game, when marcal got booted so quickly.

 

Praet is back but, obviously, far from match fit.

[Lillehamring]

37 minutes ago, nathan. said:

He has to make changes otherwise he will not see the season out.

 

 

 

 

What is he doing wrong?

[Guppys Love Child]

2 minutes ago, Gamble92 said:

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?

It pains me to say it..but he won't. .

 

I'd be very surprised if it's not the same set up of side to side and backwards passing looking for 'solutions ' when we play the Baggies.

 

[SafewayFox]

8 minutes 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.

Yet people “fearing him leaving us for the prem” after 10 games didn’t get the same passive aggressive posts.

 

I’m not saying Enzo out but have we not learnt from recent seasons…it’s ok to question certain decisions/tactics.

[Guest nathan.]

2 minutes ago, Lillehamring said:

What is he doing wrong?

The stubborn style of play for a start.

 

If it’s not working you need other options.

[Raj]

Attack.

Attack

Attack, attack attack!!!

[Nod.E]

Just now, nathan. said:

The stubborn style of play for a start.

 

If it’s not working you need other options.

It is working.

[Lillehamring]

35 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.

 

 

Of the 18 teams we've played none of them have 'worked us out' - leeds played better than us on the day, but still needed a set piece to score, and of the other teams that have taken points off us, hull we're outplayed but got a lucky deflection, boro were outplayed and scored a worldy, sheffield were outplayed and scored a scrappy last minute goal.

 

 

[Guest nathan.]

Just now, Nod.E said:

It is working.

It was working but now teams have figured it out.

[Lillehamring]

34 minutes ago, SecretPro said:

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

If it's a problem how come we have the 2nd highest xG and the third most goals scored - they don't just appear out of thin air.

[Guest nathan.]

Any side with a good press and high energy will have success against that system.

[cityfanlee23]

5 minutes ago, Nod.E said:

It is working.

Is it working relative to the talent we have though? you could argue yes and no on that imo, it's working in terms of the table, but given how hard a lot of us thought the championship would be, it's actually been far less competitive than I was expecting and the quality of chances wasted by out opponents has been quite shocking. 

[kingfox]

He said he’ll stick with his philosophy so we best get used to it.

 

As a few others have said, I think it’s more of a personnel problem rather than a tactics problem. Certain elements of this team I’m a big fan of, but there’s also certain elements of this team that clearly need improvement.

 

From the 8 positions to our attack, we have looked too unconvincing on numerous occasions this season. We look so laboured at times when in the final third, we seem to be either too weak in possession or lack creativity when in and around the 18 yard box. 
 

Parts of this squad just ain’t all that. KDH’s performances have been a complete mixture. Ndidi started the season poorly, but has shown improvements in a 8 position, however I doubt he’s a long term answer for that position. Casadei has been disappointing. Mavididi & Fatawu are too inconsistent. Vardy is past his best. While many thought Iheanacho would be a beast in this league, he’s yet to show it. 
 

Changes are desperately needed in those positions when January comes around.

[Lillehamring]

31 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

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.

It's just possible that enzo hasn't changed anything and that this is a reaction from the players.

On the surface we don't seem to be doing anything any differently to the start of the season - the difference is that at the start of the season we were making the passes, we were taking the risks, the shots were all going in - it seems unbelievable that this is because of instruction from enzo, yet perfectly understandable that it's down to the players' mentality.

 

That's not to say that this isn't enzo's problem - i don't think he needs to change his approach, but i do think he needs to sit down with the players and find out why performance quality has suddenly dropped.

[The Doctor]

The thing that bothers me most is how much the handbrake gets slammed on. Like early on Abdul got their full back booked and then there was never a desire to get the ball to him and invite him to face down that 1v1 knowing the defender has one arm tied behind his back at that point, and it's a pretty consistent thing week in week out. Mavididi, McAteer, Abdul, whoever the winger is we see them win the 1v1 and then don't try to capitalise on it at all. Genuinely would run away with games if we took that off and focused down winning the 1v1s more which this system is ultimately supposed to do

[Chrysalis]

41 minutes ago, Nod.E said:

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.

We should have lost 4-1 Luckily Wednesday have poor quality up front.

[Nod.E]

18 minutes ago, nathan. said:

We should have been 2 down after 6 minutes.

 

 

If the first goes in, the second doesn't happen. Butterfly effect.

 

With hindsight maybe an early goal for them gives us the kick up the backside it looked at though we may have benefited from tonight. Who knows.

 

Those two chances do not equal them deserving 3-1. Again, flawed thinking from you.

 

Against better sides we can't afford those early chances, but it's unsurprising given we played without a left back and played Coast who has so few minutes under his belt.