Tactics Under Maresca

[Ric Flair]

4 hours ago, CosbehFox said:

If you want a good omen we will improve around the goal, the shots to goal ratio is around 12 % on average in the Championship. We are at 7% currently. 

I think I touched upon this on the pod, the problem is, our strikers are peripheral in games, if the shots we're racking up are coming in from defenders and midfielders that aren't clinical finishers then it's likely we'll convert less chances than if they were created for our striker/s. 

 

We're racking up multiple chances a game for players like KDH and Ndidi and they're wasting them, whilst at the same time we're lucky if our striker gets half of what one of these central midfielders is getting.

[fuchsntf]

32 minutes ago, The_77 said:

The other 5% of forums is filled with your constant sanctimony. 

You understand I always include myself in this…

So sodamise your sanctimony…

Someone who finds it hard to be British it seems…

or are you just teasing me you little devil you..

or is sanctimony one of the train stations on the Monopoly board 

[CosbehFox]

8 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

I think I touched upon this on the pod, the problem is, our strikers are peripheral in games, if the shots we're racking up are coming in from defenders and midfielders that aren't clinical finishers then it's likely we'll convert less chances than if they were created for our striker/s. 

 

We're racking up multiple chances a game for players like KDH and Ndidi and they're wasting them, whilst at the same time we're lucky if our striker gets half of what one of these central midfielders is getting.

Your gut is right to have that belief. We are up in the top five for shots but we are also up there for average distance those shots have come from 

[The_77]

50 minutes ago, fuchsntf said:

You understand I always include myself in this…

So sodamise your sanctimony…

Someone who finds it hard to be British it seems…

or are you just teasing me you little devil you..

or is sanctimony one of the train stations on the Monopoly board 

I love it when you talk dirty to me 😜

[SafewayFox]

7 hours ago, StriderHiryu said:

What about Brighton? Would you say Billy Gilmour or Pascal Gross are "incredible?"

 

Without being facetious, the debate for using tactics that won't work at the top level or with the players we have is a good one. It could definitely turn out to be the case with Maresca's current setup. But he could always change his tactics later, both Pep and Klopp have done it. Klopp even changed Liverpool's style to being way more of a possession team than when he first took over. I find it amazing that people are already fully knives out for a guy that has been here for 3 months and saw the highest player turnover the club has seen in years. If it all turns out to be crap, we will call it out in this thread, but let's give the guy some time first.

 

There's something else to consider here though, outside of tactics. And that's the club's business model. Brighton, have made the best player sales in the Premier League, taking our crown in recent years. Why do teams want their players so much? It's because of the football they play. Caceido is worth 115M (supposedly) because he's a press resistant midfielder that can tackle, pass, turn, etc. It seems to me that our entire business model as a club is to develop talent from our catchment area / sign undervalued young players, develop them into top class ones and then sell them on. Do this enough times and eventually you might not need to sell and you can make a run at trophies and / or the Champions League. That's what we did on our last "cycle". So if that is our business model, does it not make sense to play the style of football Maresca plays even if the fans hate it? That's an interesting debate to have too!

 

For what it's worth, I care about Leicester winning trophies rather than Brighton's "net spend champions" award. But in order to compete with the Chelsea's of this world, you do need to do something innovative. For me, even if Maresca is a bust in the end, I rate the club for having the balls to try it.

 

 

 

 

I know that you were trying to prove a point but Gross is criminally underrated outside of Brighton.

 

The fact that he’s got his first call up for Germany highlights his importance to how Brighton play.

 

He has played CM/DM and RB and somehow with zero pace looked quality.

 

Brighton fans absolutely love him so think your point (for a change) was way off mate.

[GingerrrFox]

The funniest thing about the slating of Maresca’s chosen approach is that we barely resemble a Pep Guardiola side aside from the inverted full back. We have far more in common with De Zerbi’s Brighton.

 

I do struggle to see what more could have been expected of us so far, 4 wins out of 5 and through 2 rounds of cup football and we’ve got people implying Enzo isn’t up to it? We may have the best squad in this league but that means **** all unless you have everything else right, our squad last season had no business being relegated and we still ended up back in the Championship.

 

As soon as we get ticking we are gonna murder some teams this season, we’ve got a number of players that have no business playing at this level - Pereira, Coady and Winks etc and them being combined with the likes of Casadei, Fatawu and Cannon is gonna be a sight to see when are bang into the season. 

[Batfink77]

For those wondering why we 'gave up' on the 2015/2016 style, let us not forget the type of defence we had back then and the change it brought to football.  Our 2 centre backs Huth and Morgan weren’t exactly speedy or skillful but they were incredibly physical. They manhandled strikers in the box and the powers that be hated that it helped us win the league. Big changes came in after that to prevent such a way of defending and sadly our style had to make way for more skilful centre backs and less of the bruiser alone types.  With that change you saw even more of a leap towards needing versatile defenders who didn’t just physically defend but played a major part in getting the ball forward and through lines.  Our success sadly in fact contributed towards making what is now the model that works if you want to be successful at the top level.

We then struggled to find defenders who could do that. Instead we found ourselves with defenders who were neither particularly brutal nor particularly skilful and when teams attacked us and piled on the pressure we always looked vulnerable.   I therefore for one welcome this new style.  Keeping the ball and building throughout the whole team, waiting for a chance whilst also protecting our defence by not letting the opposition keep the ball long enough. It beats shi**Ing it everytime the opposition is in possession and attacking for long periods waiting for us to concede. I can actually almost relax a little watching my team now. Patiently in control, building, waiting for a chance.   Time hopefully now will mean more chances come and more are taken..   Bring it on.

[StriderHiryu]

1 hour ago, SafewayFox said:

I know that you were trying to prove a point but Gross is criminally underrated outside of Brighton.

 

The fact that he’s got his first call up for Germany highlights his importance to how Brighton play.

 

He has played CM/DM and RB and somehow with zero pace looked quality.

 

Brighton fans absolutely love him so think your point (for a change) was way off mate.

• Harry Winks has 10 caps for England. Has played Champions League football and won man of the match against Real Madrid at the Bernabeau.
• Ricardo Pereira has 7 goals for Portugal, and has played in a major international football tournament.

Are these players not good enough to play the system and style of football that Maresca wants from us? Or can only Brighton do it?

 

I think your point is way off 😛 !

 

 

[Lillehamring]

10 hours ago, Dames said:

They and a lot of other teams will come into games with the plan of letting us have the ball but squeezing us and rushing us in areas so we don’t threaten and we are resorting to poor decision making and execution, its totally part of the game plan and its one thats worked against us time and time again for a while now. We can’t keep relying on ‘Play like that and we’ll be fine’ because it really didn’t work out last season. We finally need a way to counter act teams that sit in but the progress in my opinion is a little too slow. 

Fair enough, but we are creating enough decent chances to win games - we've seen that already - and we don't have to win every game, sheffield went up 2nd with 11 loses last year - i don't see 11 teams capable of beating us.   I agree that we're not up to a standard where we'll feel comfortable about winning, but you have to admit it is very early and maresca is on record saying we're only 10% of the way into the process - which suggests that we are nowhere near where we will be -  for me each game we seem to be playing with more assurance and with less sloppiness, i think the woeful misfiring at Hull doesn't reflect the normal standard and quality of our team and our play - enzo said it, i'll repeat it: we have to be patient.
 

If we were creating many genuine chances we wouldnt be in a situation where we are 5 league games in and a striker hasn’t scored yet. To get out of this division you need your strikers firing and the current potential rate of 1in 6 amounts to less than 8 goals a season, not enough to get us up. So unless things do change soon we can see ourselves swamped in the middle of the pack which quite frankly given our resources is unacceptable. I’m by no means saying we will get relegated but looking to scrape top 6 is not good enough either. So in terms of automatic promotion, we’ve got a crucial period coming up which will set the tone for the rest of the season and in regards to that it really is sink or swim. 

I don't think you can compare us to the average EFL team that will be relying on strikers to get goals - last year Burnley's top scorer was Nathan telia - a midfielder, and he scored 1 in 5 of burnley's goals - their out and out strikers (rodriguez and barnes) only scored 10 and 6.   An interesting comaprison is that this year we've already spread our 7 goals between 5 different players, last year burnley had 19 different players all contribute to the goals - it's a different type of football. I agree that the next few games could be important, but will they define our season - win or lose - the answer is absolutely not.  
 

 

 

[Lillehamring]

10 hours ago, filbertway said:

 

Sit deep and try and restrict the opposition to low percentage chances while trying to hit them on the break when the opportunity presents itself. It's a pretty standard tactic used by underdogs in any league in the world. You're making out that Hull or Rosenior weren't expecting the game to go exactly the way it did. They'd have come into the game looking to be compact and hard to break down, which will allow shooting chances, but if you've got 8 men in the box, you're likely going to get a body in the way of a shot. Alternatively, the opposition can try their luck from 25-30 yards, which barring a worldie will likely result in you getting the ball back.

 

The concerning thing is that we are still goin to struggle against this style of tactic, the greater concern is that we also look incredibly uncomfortable when teams have the balls to press us as well.

 

It's still a new system and new way of playing so you'd expect us to improve, but nobody is wrong for saying there are clear weaknesses right now and we have to hope that the team and coaching staff are working hard to iron those weaknesses out.

 

 

I'm not denying that it's a tactic, i'm questioning whether it was a superior tactic.  Granted Hull won, but they didn't win as a result of the tactics, they won because we failed to take advantage of our many chances and didn't get the rub of the green with two similar shots (deflection at one end, post at the other).

 

I don't believe we will struggle against this tactic if the Hull game is anything to go by, we didn't struggle to break through Hull's block (11 shots in the penalty area prove this), we just weren't good enough when we got in position to score; so it's only really fair to say that  we'll struggle against any kind of tactics if we display the same level of bad decision making and shot execution as we saw against Hull.

[Lillehamring]

10 hours ago, CosbehFox said:

Well summed up. 
 

xG model suggest we had three major chances; one blocked from Kele, one header from Casadei and when Casadei hit it over. That ain’t a bad stint from an away side playing league favourites. 
 

The fact Rosensior post match went into over drive on praise tells us that they were playing over their ability but that’s fair fcuks. Sort of performance as a Hull fan you want to see and buys a manager credit 

But if were talking about tactics, what you're suggesting is more that they won through sheer work rate combined with our poor decision making in the final third. rather than rosenior outthinking maresca.  

The amount of times we made a bad decision, rushed a shot, overhit a cross despite being under zero pressure from hull is key here - we simply were our own worst enemy and that, combined with Hull being half decent in what they did, meant that they got the points.  But a rosenior technical tactical masterclass it certainly was not.

[Lillehamring]

10 hours ago, sylofox said:

Incredible to think in 15/16 we showed the world how to play without the ball. But ever since we've tried to play keep ball. Our best gams since have been when we've reverted to a counter attacking side. The game that suits Vardy and would have Daka, that was wasted money.

 

The rot that's appeared since 15/16 is from top to bottom. Rodgers just accelerated it all.

 

I personally have no interest in this style we have moved to. To me it's not entertaining with the quality of players we've had or got.

 

Watching paint dry springs to mind. I'd rather go down fighting than losing with tippy tappy football.

but when we were good under rodgers, it was because we played possession football well, but were also very good at counter attacking.

And we are already seeing the same under Maresca - granted neither of these styles of counter attacking have been the 'hoof and chase' we saw in 15/16 (which only worked for 1 season), but  there have been goals/near misses under Maresca where we have won possession deep and been in the box in the space of 3 or 4 first time passes.

 

I think it's harder to remember the good stuff because, the slow stuff still feels so dominant.

[Lillehamring]

8 hours ago, messerschmitt said:

The "Tactics under Maresca" is easily the most sensible thread on the forum

Shh, don't tell anyone

[Lillehamring]

6 hours ago, STUHILL said:

I think that is the real positive to date. We really haven't played very well so far, but have won 4 out of 5, and actually Hull were lucky to hold on in the end. 

 

We should improve over the coming months and I don't think many Championship sides will be able to live with us when we hit our stride. 

There will be draws and losses along the way, but with the strength of our squad and Enzo, I think we will be right up there in the table. 

 

 

Also, the later it gets in the season, the more teams will start to pick their battles - if we can sustain a 2 points per game standard, eventually more and more teams will be like 'ok, let's focus on beating the teams we might have a chance to get something from' -  big IF, i know, but i suspect that's what happened to Burnley as last season went on.

[filbertway]

1 minute ago, Lillehamring said:

I'm not denying that it's a tactic, i'm questioning whether it was a superior tactic.  Granted Hull won, but they didn't win as a result of the tactics, they won because we failed to take advantage of our many chances and didn't get the rub of the green with two similar shots (deflection at one end, post at the other).

 

I don't believe we will struggle against this tactic if the Hull game is anything to go by, we didn't struggle to break through Hull's block (11 shots in the penalty area prove this), we just weren't good enough when we got in position to score; so it's only really fair to say that  we'll struggle against any kind of tactics if we display the same level of bad decision making and shot execution as we saw against Hull.

I absolutely detest the tactic and wish teams had the belief in themselves to actually try and play football. I think it unquestionably raises their percentage of getting a positive result out of a game though.

 

I'd say we've already struggled to be fair, we are playing teams with much less quality than ourselves and we've not blown any team away yet. In fact,  Ironically the league game we've most dominated is the one we've gone and lost anyway.

 

At the minute, it feels like we're getting results purely due to us having better players. A bit like Man U seem to have done for a decade. There's only so poorly they can do given their comparative resources.

 

To be fair, Enzo actually seems to acknowledge that. So as long as it's apparent that he's aware that we're not good enough at the minute and need to step it up then it's all good. I'm seeing a lot of  positivity from fans and I'm struggling to see it coming from a logical place, it all seems like blind faith to me

 

 

I always said I doubt we'd see anything like our best till October/November, so I'm in no rush to complain. The man has been hamstrung by not having his squad till after the season started as well.

 

I'm seeing little cause for positivity just yet though but I am hopeful of improvement  

 

 

Not even sure how much of that post is addressed to you mate  I went off a wiiiild tangent there haha

[Lillehamring]

5 hours ago, honeybradger said:

I wouldnt say i have personally turned on Maresca as he seems to be good at what he's trying to implement. Under Rodgers our passing out from the back was calamitous and now it seems like a coherent system. Maresca also seems to have a clear vision for the style he wants to play and the mold of player he wants. In Arteta's position with talents like Saka, Martinelli, Partey and odegaard breaking through/coming in Maresca could very well establish himself in a similar way.

 

It's just that when you dont have players like Odegaard, Saka, Martinelli, De Bruyne etc it's so fustrating that we dont take a risk and punish teams when there's an opening and instead choose the more cautious route by passing it around safely to try and come up with a killer ball that we dont have the player quality to produce.

But our equivalent players (mavididi, KDH, Praet, Casadei, nacho, Vardy) are playing below their level, opposition teams must look at our squad and think - 'that's a PL squad'.  The confidence to punish teams will come when they are more familiar with how the rest of the team are playing.

 

I get why we dont do it as the problem with clubs in our position is that we have to compromise. Winks is good at the possession style of football but not so much defensively and we have a slow defence so we cant take many risks in attack. In a more defensive counter attacking style we would be able to take more risks when we attack though.

 

Bit of a jumbled post, basically not sure where i am at in terms of my opinions on Maresca, basically think he has what it takes to be a good manager but not sure the style suits us this season or next season, maybe if given time it could bare fruits and turn us into a PL regular again.

 

 

[CosbehFox]

15 minutes ago, Lillehamring said:

But if were talking about tactics, what you're suggesting is more that they won through sheer work rate combined with our poor decision making in the final third. rather than rosenior outthinking maresca.  

The amount of times we made a bad decision, rushed a shot, overhit a cross despite being under zero pressure from hull is key here - we simply were our own worst enemy and that, combined with Hull being half decent in what they did, meant that they got the points.  But a rosenior technical tactical masterclass it certainly was not.

Okay well that’s step away slightly from praising it as a tactical masterclass and say it was a very good job in motivation and management of his players. 
 

And let’s face he did out-think Maresca - his attacking shape decision was the outstanding idea what won the game. Hull knew what to expect and played on it. Whereas Rosensior actively looked at our weaknesses and found an answer. No harm in admitting that whilst still appreciating what Enzo’s trying to do 

[Lillehamring]

4 hours ago, jerry said:

Rodgers accused of not having a Plan B and feel Maresca is so set on his philosophy that it's unlikely he has the will or experience to change.

But i think we've established that, even only 10 % of the way into the process, Maresca's philosophy gives us far more options than Rodgers' later philosophy did.   The first few games we played in preseason, we did a lot of our attacking up the middle, in other games we've seen the diagonal balls over the top to the wingers, other games we've seen faes and doyle carrying the ball forward, or linking play down the side by overlaps with the wingers.

 

And we still have 90% more to see - when you set up how we're setting up under maresca, Plan A isn't a single idea, it's a whole playbook.

[Lillehamring]

3 hours ago, cityfanlee23 said:

For me this is the part that I just don’t understand. 
I’ll start by saying there’s a part of me that does expect improvement will come, but it feels like right now none of our fans are able to actually point out why or how our system will come good, nobody seems able to really explain how our system works or how it’s supposed to unlock teams. 
 

Pretty much every positive argument I’ve seen is “when it clicks” or “when it comes good” instead of “if”. There’s absolutely no evidence that it’s going to click because it hasn’t yet, I’m very much In the believe it when I see it camp, right now I don’t have much to get excited about apart from the fact we have signed young potentially exciting players and we have a manager who seemingly wants to do something new. 
 

But so far we’ve rode our luck time and time again, this idea that we can only get better and eventually it will click is a very dangerous way to approach football imo. Especially since it took half of our fanbase 18+ months to see that Rodgers was destroying the club.  
 

 

There's an argument to suggest that the teams that have adopted these or similar playing philosophies have all achieved some degree of success.  

In our specific situation, i think a lot of the optimism of it clicking is that, to a certain extent, it already has clicked - at the very least, we seem further along the process than anyone could have imagined by this point.  Essentially, the hardest thing to master of any skill is it's basic functions and we have mastered the basic functions - the 'click' will come when we take those basic functions, the tools of the skill set, and really start to use them correctly.  

 

 

[Guest Sideshow Faes]

If you watch man city there are a lot of games where they don't really break the opposition down for a lot of the game, and end up playing millions of passes instead. Maybe it's slightly different with haaland giving them different options, but the kind of football we're copying is about having possession, being patient, it's not that exciting when man city do it at times, let alone us 

[Lillehamring]

26 minutes ago, filbertway said:

I absolutely detest the tactic and wish teams had the belief in themselves to actually try and play football. I think it unquestionably raises their percentage of getting a positive result out of a game though.

 

I'd say we've already struggled to be fair, we are playing teams with much less quality than ourselves and we've not blown any team away yet. In fact,  Ironically the league game we've most dominated is the one we've gone and lost anyway.

 

At the minute, it feels like we're getting results purely due to us having better players. A bit like Man U seem to have done for a decade. There's only so poorly they can do given their comparative resources.

 

To be fair, Enzo actually seems to acknowledge that. So as long as it's apparent that he's aware that we're not good enough at the minute and need to step it up then it's all good. I'm seeing a lot of  positivity from fans and I'm struggling to see it coming from a logical place, it all seems like blind faith to me

 

 

I always said I doubt we'd see anything like our best till October/November, so I'm in no rush to complain. The man has been hamstrung by not having his squad till after the season started as well.

 

I'm seeing little cause for positivity just yet though but I am hopeful of improvement  

 

 

Not even sure how much of that post is addressed to you mate  I went off a wiiiild tangent there haha

  but it's all fairly sensible - i think even the most positive and optimistic of us are still conscious that we've got a long way to go.

Personally, like others, at the start of the season any expectations i had were limited by the uncertainty of whether we would get maresca's tactics, be able to implement them and how long this would all take - and i think most people were of your opinion october/november - but it's clear that we certainly achieved the first step (getting his tactics) as early as the first pre-season game.  With that in mind, and seeing the flashes of wonderful football that have cropped up, it seems only a mater of time before we are truly implementing his tactics.

[Lillehamring]

30 minutes ago, CosbehFox said:

Okay well that’s step away slightly from praising it as a tactical masterclass and say it was a very good job in motivation and management of his players. 
 

And let’s face he did out-think Maresca - his attacking shape decision was the outstanding idea what won the game. Hull knew what to expect and played on it. Whereas Rosensior actively looked at our weaknesses and found an answer. No harm in admitting that whilst still appreciating what Enzo’s trying to do 

No question over roseniors man-management - before, during and after the game.

 

I'm 50/50 on the attacking tactic being brilliant or simply observant and a touch fortunate.

He's not the first manager to put pressure on a 19yo loanee CB, and he won't be the last - i mean which side would you target ricardo/faes or vestergaard/doyle! - and whilst delap certainly won the battle, it was still only a flukey deflection that won the war.

[Lillehamring]

13 minutes ago, Sideshow Faes said:

If you watch man city there are a lot of games where they don't really break the opposition down for a lot of the game, and end up playing millions of passes instead. Maybe it's slightly different with haaland giving them different options, but the kind of football we're copying is about having possession, being patient, it's not that exciting when man city do it at times, let alone us 

Funnily enough, i've actually given up watching england play because i find it unbearably dull, but they win almost every game.

[Guest Sideshow Faes]

Just now, Lillehamring said:

Funnily enough, i've actually given up watching england play because i find it unbearably dull, but they win almost every game. 

Football in general is unbelievably boring these days tbh 

[Bluearmyfox28]

Anyone expecting anything close to the system working perfectly by now is deluded.
 

People that are genuinely moaning about the system should read in depth about the sheer amount of small details that go into the system for it to be working to its optimum best, it’s insane and will take A LOT of time.

 

Prior to the season starting, I expected us to be flirting with the play offs and for the system to start ticking properly around Christmas time. Results wise we are doing better than I expected so far and systematically we are ahead of where I expected us to be.

 

Systems like this usually take at least 6 months to be fully functioning, sometimes 1-2 years depending on player turnover. 
 

Be patient.