Tactics Under Maresca

[Guest glasgowfox]

Read all the expert opinions, is it too early for a poll for him to stay or go and for who the next manager should be?  6 wins in 7 games is just not acceptable!  At least we gave him a month's chance.  Ffs.  Get a grip some of you.  He may turn out shite and he may turn out brilliant but to boo a first defeat is pathetic.  Give the guy at least 6 months ffs then make an opinion in my opinion

[The_77]

Breaking through low blocks requires chemistry. We’re still so early in the process (and already winning games). Anyone getting impatient already really should take a few steps back and think about the bigger picture. 

[Lillehamring]

On 02/09/2023 at 20:30, dylanlegend said:

The thing that worries me is our xG is always so low. Never been above 2 all season and nearly always just over 1.

 

It’s clears we’ve been pretty lucky in a number of games, we’ve not blown anyone away. We need to start creating more clear cut chances.

 

Personally think we should be playing

Nacho as a no10 and Vardy no9

Maybe we're just not that team - or at least not yet - there's always room for a team that wins games by just the odd goal, maybe that's us?  We have to remember how new all this and how bad, as a team, we were defensively last year.  For me the more important thing is that our xGA is 5 in 5 games.  And we are outperforming both our xG and xGA.

 

Certainly, it shouldn't be a worry, we have a positive xG/xGA differential.

[Lillehamring]

On 02/09/2023 at 20:37, cityfanlee23 said:

It’s very early days so I’m willing to give him time, but I do somewhat agree with the premise. He’s worked under arguably the most tactically astute manager we have ever seen. 
 

Yet so far we have not beat anyone based on superior tactics. 
Either the tactics aren’t working as they should, or the players can’t play them yet. 
If the players can’t play them yet then we shouldn’t be attempting too until they are ready. 
 

So far Enzos tactics have largely been completely nullified and individual quality has seen us through. Not sold yet. 

But a part of our tactics is to wear teams down and to be patient and take the chances when they finally come, and we've done that in every game.  In theory, we even did that against Hull, only we failed to take the chances when they came.  Our 'superior tactics' delivered 21 shooting opportunities, for the first time this year we didn't have the application to match.

[oz was my hero]

1 hour ago, glasgowfox said:

Read all the expert opinions, is it too early for a poll for him to stay or go and for who the next manager should be?  6 wins in 7 games is just not acceptable!  At least we gave him a month's chance.  Ffs.  Get a grip some of you.  He may turn out shite and he may turn out brilliant but to boo a first defeat is pathetic.  Give the guy at least 6 months ffs then make an opinion in my opinion

Really don't think anyone  booed the performance.  I'm sure or at least I hope it was at the dismal officials . 3 minutes was an absolute  joke. On 80 minutes I said to the lad next to me we still have twenty yo win this. How wrong was I. It was a farce.

[Lillehamring]

On 02/09/2023 at 20:57, KIRBYFOX93 said:

Other than putting the ball in the net we played well. Enzo made an error with starting ndidi, and yunus. We should of started with casadei and mavididi with yunus to come on. Other than that we would of won that game 9 times out of 10. This is football you win and you lose, but the style is great to watch. If anyone says it isn’t, then you don’t really know what you’re talking about. 

I agree with you, not sure we're at 'great' just yet but it certainly is enjoyable football to watch.  Some people can't rationalise that good football isn't necessarily playing fast and rushing around for 90 minutes.

 

Even if we get promotion there will be people on here complaining that we're boring, and have been lucky.  They simply can't understand that the quiet phases facilitate the 20-30 pass build ups to a goal scoring opportunity.

[Lillehamring]

On 02/09/2023 at 21:07, Gazza M said:

I hope from time to time he is prepared to rip up the rule book and go gung ho and direct if it isn't working. Something Brendan couldn't do. We haven't had target man since Ulloa left. Will we pay the price down the line for not having one in a very physically demanding league.

 

 

 

We had 10 shots from when vardy came on, 7 after the 80 minute mark - how 'gung ho' do you want us to be!

[Lillehamring]

23 hours ago, CosbehFox said:

Rotherham focused their attacks on the right side last week too. 
 

Interestingly, the two things I noticed that Hull were poor at v Bristol C. Greaves at LB plays narrow and Traore didn’t protect his full back. 
 

So today they went with Greaves at CB and Traore played in a 10 role. Greaves did go LB, Fatawu took advantage and he got booked. They made another tweak after that to protect him. 

Rosenior was on it bang on and improving Hull from the week before. Found the solutions.

And yet somehow his team allowed their opponents to have 21 shots, 11 inside the box - when we allowed that many shots against coventry there was screaming and crying across this board!

 

His team worked hard but they were a mess defensively and could easily have ended up with 10 men and a heavy defeat.  Rosenior caught a huge break today.

[Guest glasgowfox]

14 minutes ago, oz was my hero said:

Really don't think anyone  booed the performance.  I'm sure or at least I hope it was at the dismal officials . 3 minutes was an absolute  joke. On 80 minutes I said to the lad next to me we still have twenty yo win this. How wrong was I. It was a farce.

Hope so mate. Never made it due to covid ( I know you can) but 600 mile round trip feeling like shit has little enjoyment even if we had won.  Back on the saddle soon tho.  We all have to manage our expectations as we have to in life.  I bizarrely like being in the championship, however, absolutely loved being in the premier league, we will be back but it may not be soon enuf for some of the glory boys on here....keep the faith but for longer than a month 

[glen parva fox]

5 hours ago, Lillehamring said:

He's nothing like he was before his injury. 

 

I don't understand why people are so keen to make changes in our defence -  we've played 5 games and conceded 4 goals - one a deflection, one a worldie, one off a corner and one where we really should have prevented it.  Realistically this is an entirely new back four and we have the 6th lowest xGA in the league.  Give them time, improve our ball recovery further up the pitch and we'll be extremely hard to score against, especially if coady raises the level by his return.

Come on Vestergaard in Defence, no pace, easily beaten, Lucky opposing strikers are not Prem standard definitely a liability 

[Lillehamring]

23 hours ago, sm1 said:

One of the biggest criticisms of Rodgers was he only had plan A and nothing else. Enzo has a clear philosophy, which should rightly be our plan A, but what if this isn't working. Today Man City played with 2 strikers. Pep has changed football through his ingenuity and by trying different things. If Enzo forgets this and believes there's only one way to play and win, and nothing else will do, him and we will get found out. You always need to keep the opposition guessing and giving them different problems to solve.

But the problem wasn't that we needed two strikers, the problem was that we didn't take our chances - nacho and vardy contributed 3 shots today, there's no guarantee that would have improved by playing them together.  Also to do so would mean having to readjust our entire strategy - maybe down the line that becomes a possibility, but right now we're still learning plan A - we have to learn to walk before we can run.

[Royston.]

3 hours ago, coolhandfox said:

 

 

You sure? 

Ah. you got me. Fair play 

 

 

[Lillehamring]

23 hours ago, Jimmy said:

we have a tactical plan but the players on the pitch still need to use their eyes and play what's in front of them, they should have been feeding Abdul when he came on and shown he could skin the full back but stopped giving him the ball

This is true, KDH's 2nd shot flew straight past nacho - wide open in front of goal - a simple pass instead would have made more sense.  

[Lillehamring]

22 hours ago, Tielemans63 said:

I would like to see Maresca go with two up front. The lone striker has looked peripheral in the league games so far.

But when we're in attack mode, you could argue that we're playing with 5 up front.  The lone striker has been ineffective as a goal scorer but nacho is contributing as much as anyone in the build up to our goals/attacks.

[Lillehamring]

21 hours ago, BenTayfour said:

@StriderHiryu @Ric Flair Hi mates !

 

As we all saw from last games we control the game by having possession but without any threat to the opposition, I know that we are not expecting Man City domination in opposition final third/penalty box, but we want to see the results/benefits of this system not just basically playing for the sake of implementing it, we need to see alot many quality chances during the game and being really composed and aware of what we doing in the final third (runs/through passes/crosses.. etc)

 

Anyways since few are afraid of the system might not click and the manager is too keen with the same tactic every game that it'll be too late to try new things and players adapt to it.

 

What do you think about this minor changes that can being some flexibility to the team without the need to make subs or only 1/2 subs?

 

Justin for Vestergard might be the key,

You lost me at 'Justin'

[Lillehamring]

20 hours ago, Aus Fox said:

The worst thing about this is, those 13 shots fell to almost all of our different attacking players.

Ricardo, Vardy, Iheanacho, KDH, Winks, Issahaku, McAteer all had efforts they could and probably should have done better with.

If we are going to persist with this formation we need to be ruthless and we need someone to hit some form.

I don’t think we’ve had a player score in two different games yet - other than Ndidi in the cup.

We just seem to be trying to hard at times, and players having pop shots when  there’s a better option.

You have to remember that when you're learning something new, it isn't yet a natural process - when i first start to play a new song, for example, whilst i'm still learning the chords, i don't sing so good, when the chords become second nature, then suddenly the singing improves.

 

Right now, the focus is on the build up and ball recovery, whilst they are concentrating on this it's natural that their shooting will suffer.

[Lillehamring]

13 hours ago, eblair said:

Aside from whether it will be effective or not.

 

Anyone else but bored watching us play, I don’t know what it is but have no excitement watching us play at the moment. Think goals we score, which are infrequent, are far too reliant on individual moments 

 

I miss watching us break quickly and playing ball through the middle for players to run on to. Everything is to feet

 

Think need to adjust to style but I am really struggling to enjoy the style we play at the moment 

There are clips of us in this thread playing some incredible passing football, sweeping through teams, moving the ball effortlessly, switching play with ease, putting together seemingly endless phases of possession or attacking swiftly on the counter - personally i don't see what's boring in that.  The trade off is that there are phases where nothing seems to be happening, if you want to enjoy watching us, you need to get used to this.

[CosbehFox]

11 minutes ago, Lillehamring said:

And yet somehow his team allowed their opponents to have 21 shots, 11 inside the box - when we allowed that many shots against coventry there was screaming and crying across this board!

 

His team worked hard but they were a mess defensively and could easily have ended up with 10 men and a heavy defeat.  Rosenior caught a huge break today.

Chill man. No harm in saying when an opposition manager has tactically adapted. Particularly given my comment was about their attacking shape in the first instances. 
 

We are in the top five for shots in the league yet our xG within the bottom seven. Which pretty sums up our game here. Lots of shots taken from positions not threatening enough to the keeper. XG ratings were highest for Casadei’s two chances and Kelechi’s blocked first half attempt 
 

 

[Lillehamring]

10 hours ago, SouthStandUpperTier said:

The problem with wanting to play possession football is that it simply invites (or forces) the opponent to sit in a low block, which is fine if you have Man City level talent, but we don't. We've been averaging about 65-70% possession in games yet haven't had an xG above 1.5 in any game so far this season. I don't think it will happen but I think Enzo needs to surrender a bit of control and invite a more open game. Our play is a bit too predictable and formulaic at the moment. We look over-coached imho.

And yet in three out of five games this season we've out performed our xG, we're also averaging over 17 shots per game.  I've mentioned this elsewhere, when you're playing against teams that sit deep it is much harder to generate high xG situations, which is why when we have scored they've generally been really difficult goals to have executed.  You won't get many high xG chances like tap-ins and 1v1s.

 

Don't read too much into xG, it only reflects so much about situations.

[Lillehamring]

10 hours ago, winteriscoming said:

I still think we’ll finish top 2. Which was my prediction before the season started. I do agree that at times we pass the ball sideways and backwards instead of going forward. I would like a bit more flexibility from Maresca  in making changes tactically rather than just changing the personal. Playing 2 upfront especially when we’re chasing the game like yesterday. 

How many tactical changes do you expect him to have taught us in one preseason and 7 games?  Let's aloow them time to master plan A before we start demanding plans b-z....

[Lillehamring]

8 hours ago, Pliskin said:

I’ve noticed there is a bit of hatred developing by towards Enzo from some fans….. some of the people around me can’t stand him, my brother hates him for no reason….. I just fear that he will end up being pushed out the door because the fans won’t be patient with him.

Well it happened to Puel.

[winteriscoming]

1 minute ago, Lillehamring said:

How many tactical changes do you expect him to have taught us in one preseason and 7 games?  Let's aloow them time to master plan A before we start demanding plans b-z....

I’m not demanding plans b-z. 
It’s not rocket science what I’m suggesting. Having 2 up front in the last 20 mins against a side that were trying to see the game out. Even our players should be cable of doing that. I just think there comes a point where a tactical change is better than just replacing players in the same position and expecting a different outcome. 

[Lillehamring]

6 hours ago, LinekersLugs said:

Judge the man in April or May 

 

We will be ok 

How's the 'virus' situation these days?

[southfox66]

I think thing would look better if we had a striker who is going to constistly score Nacho seems no better than he was in the premier, Vardy sadly has past his best and you can't rewind time, Daka  is just waste of space, so our hopes rest on Connor ?

[Lillehamring]

3 hours ago, ClaphamFox said:

We lost though, Leeds drew. If Leeds had lost it would clearly have been a worse result, but I think their point makes the two performances approximately comparable. 

Possibly - 1 point against the worst team in the league or 0 points against a team who have only been beaten by Norwich - i think psychologically, as nice as a point is, i'd rather have experienced the later.

Sheffield also managed more shots on target than Leeds.