Steve Cooper: The Tactics Thread

[Uncle Monty]

17 hours ago, StriderHiryu said:

 

 

 

Can't take much from a short highlights reel in a game for fitness, but based on this, I'm not sure if they had the 3241 shape when building from the back in those clips:

 

 

You've just got Hamza here on his own, last season in this phase, you'd expect to see his midfield partner within 10 yards.

 

The position of the fullback on the other side suggests more of the shape that Spain recently used to build up, where the full backs hugged the touchline in the build up to make it hard for the counterpress as there's a lot of distance to cover. If this is the case, there should be another fullback out of sight hugging the nearest touchline.

 

One to keep our eyes on...

 

EDIT: From kick-off, we did have the classic 3241 shape:

 

 

That Mavididi goal is absolute class.

[SafewayFox]

How anyone can seriously defend/suggest Soumare should play for us in the PL is beyond me.

 

He showed over numerous games and under different managers/formations that he lacks the speed of mind to play as a CM in the PL.

 

That doesn’t mean he’s rubbish as someone like Inler, Iborra (I did like him but never really settled), Silva and many many more players who played well in different leagues suffered the same fate.

But it does mean that if we don’t want a repeat of our last PL season, we need to improve our squad and most importantly starting 11.

 

[ClaphamFox]

5 hours ago, RedSoxUK said:

Its Interesting that in the recent Winks and Ricardo interviews, they've both mentioned similarities to last season.

 

Winks - "the basic concept is the same in the way we want to build and progress with the ball.

Ricardo - "Not changing", "Some things we'll change here and there."

 

It's early days but it would suggest Cooper has told the players his intentions in terms of play style without being restricted by a formation / passing for the sake of passing and possession for the sake of possession.

Coady also said that Cooper doesn’t want to change too much. My guess is the style will be similar to last season but a little more pragmatic - ie, there will be an emphasis on passing and building from the back, but with the scope to go more direct if the opportunity presents itself or we’re under the cosh. I’d be ok with that.

 

 

 

 

 

[KFS]

5 minutes ago, ClaphamFox said:

Coady also said that Cooper doesn’t want to change too much. My guess is the style will be similar to last season but a little more pragmatic - ie, there will be an emphasis on passing and building from the back, but with the scope to go more direct if the opportunity presents itself or we’re under the cosh. I’d be ok with that.

 

 

 

 

 

It’ll make the transition to Southgate at Christmas all the easier, to be fair 

[ClaphamFox]

5 minutes ago, KFS said:

It’ll make the transition to Southgate at Christmas all the easier, to be fair 

Do you mean when Cooper is poached by England? I’m expecting us to do well next season but not that well…

[DJ Barry Hammond]

4 hours ago, KFS said:

It’ll make the transition to Southgate at Christmas all the easier, to be fair 

Nah come on, he’s nailed on to get the United job.

[James_lcfc]

5 hours ago, SafewayFox said:

But it does mean that if we don’t want a repeat of our last PL season, we need to improve our squad and most importantly starting 11.

 

Nah, a spine of Ward, Faes, Ndidi and an aging Vardy will be fine mate. Stop worrying 

[Gamble92]

People saying bit more pragmatic. You can't get any less pragmatic than finally shitting the bed 88 minutes into a game against Millwall and sticking Nacho up front with Daka. That was about as close to a plan B as Enzo mustered. 

 

I think Top quite clearly has asked for a continuation of possession based football and ignored all the glaring shortcomings of the last 15 or so games last season. I think Cooper is a much better manager than Enzo though and he will have far more answers. 

[gurru991]

26 minutes ago, Gamble92 said:

People saying bit more pragmatic. You can't get any less pragmatic than finally shitting the bed 88 minutes into a game against Millwall and sticking Nacho up front with Daka. That was about as close to a plan B as Enzo mustered. 

 

I think Top quite clearly has asked for a continuation of possession based football and ignored all the glaring shortcomings of the last 15 or so games last season. I think Cooper is a much better manager than Enzo though and he will have far more answers. 

I agree that Cooper is a more complete manager who can adapt his style to the players he has. Maresca was a one trick pony who struggled to change when things weren't working.

[Gamble92]

1 hour ago, James_lcfc said:

Nah, a spine of Ward, Faes, Ndidi and an aging Vardy will be fine mate. Stop worrying 

It's been an "aging" Vardy for 6 years hasn't it? Thought people wouldn't be silly enough to give him them kind of labels. Technically aren't we all aging?

[PhillippaT]

1 hour ago, Gamble92 said:

Technically aren't we all aging?

[James_lcfc]

1 hour ago, Gamble92 said:

It's been an "aging" Vardy for 6 years hasn't it? Thought people wouldn't be silly enough to give him them kind of labels. Technically aren't we all aging?

Apologies, wasn’t a particularly serious post.

 

….but he is aging in professional athlete terms and we can’t rely on him forever.

 

[filbertway]

2 goals coming from long balls again. 

 

Spain playing 2 pacey wingers that like to cross the ball into the box.

 

The football revolution is coming. Teams are going to try and score goals again, it's happening.

[gurru991]

7 minutes ago, filbertway said:

2 goals coming from long balls again. 

 

Spain playing 2 pacey wingers that like to cross the ball into the box.

 

The football revolution is coming. Teams are going to try and score goals again, it's happening.

Watching two teams trying to score would be wonderful.

[Gamble92]

47 minutes ago, James_lcfc said:

Apologies, wasn’t a particularly serious post.

 

….but he is aging in professional athlete terms and we can’t rely on him forever.

 

Neither was mine. We can't but i wouldn't bet against him having another great season.

[Phenom]

10 hours ago, filbertway said:

2 goals coming from long balls again. 

 

Spain playing 2 pacey wingers that like to cross the ball into the box.

 

The football revolution is coming. Teams are going to try and score goals again, it's happening.

Did you miss the Euros?

[filbertway]

3 hours ago, Phenom said:

Did you miss the Euros?

It'll take a year or 2 but everyone will start copying Spain again  

 

The coaches, media and fans just need to be told by someone successful what the "correct" way to play is. They can then explain to everyone how the game has changed and people try and score goals now, not like the dinosaurs obsessed with possession.

[st albans fox]

16 minutes ago, filbertway said:

It'll take a year or 2 but everyone will start copying Spain again  

 

The coaches, media and fans just need to be told by someone successful what the "correct" way to play is. They can then explain to everyone how the game has changed and people try and score goals now, not like the dinosaurs obsessed with possession.

Spain continue to have the technically best players. they'll play to their strengths.  for now, thats pacey skillful wingers so getting the ball to them quickly or moving the opposition around to leave them one on one v their full back is the plan. it also means the pitch is stretched wide to allow space for the midfield to break into.   there is no definitive right or wrong way to play football  - watching england just kick away possession does show what doesn't work though. 

 

 

[filbertway]

3 hours ago, st albans fox said:

Spain continue to have the technically best players. they'll play to their strengths.  for now, thats pacey skillful wingers so getting the ball to them quickly or moving the opposition around to leave them one on one v their full back is the plan. it also means the pitch is stretched wide to allow space for the midfield to break into.   there is no definitive right or wrong way to play football  - watching england just kick away possession does show what doesn't work though. 

 

 

This will forever be my point. There's no correct way to play. The only thing two things I ask of the team that I support are

1) more often than not, play to your collective potential.

2)  Have an active focus on attempting to win matches rather than focusing on not losing.

 

I think Spain have beautifully combined looking after the ball, pressing high and actually taking risks in the final 3rd. 

 

A lot of teams attempt to do the holding onto the ball, with mixed results, me and my dad always laugh at the football league highlights when you see about 33% of goals come from a team losing the ball on the edge of their box.

 

Pressing feels like it's very rarely done. I watch far too many games where 1 team will sit back with all 11 behind the ball, while the other team slowly passes it. Then when possession changes hands, exactly the same happens but the teams switch roles.

 

Taking risks and trying to create chances in the final 3rd feels almost non-existent at times until it gets to the 70+ minute mark and a team is losing. It usually takes a mistake or a worldie to kick a game into life.

 

[Lesta2014]

How did we play then? Seen lost of different interpretations and haven’t seen any of it myself 

[StriderHiryu]

Here's Neel and I's attempt to deconstruct Steve Cooper's tactics for Leicester. Please note that it's very early days, so much could change, and our interpretation of things could be wildly off:

 

 

Offensive Play

 

When we attack, we nominally start in a 3412, but positions of many of the players change rapidly.

 

 

One of Mavididi or Daka comes from a forward position like a false 9 to drop into midfield, whereas the other forward stays up. At the same time the CAM, McAteer today pushes forwards into the box. Winks is the one pulling the strings.

• Mavididi I think looks good in this more central / forward position. Looks like a key player for us this season.
• Daka did pretty well IMO at dropping in and spinning. Mavididi the same, but Daka is doing it more often.
• Fatawu played at wing back / left wing, but IMO was wasted in this position, killing his natural game.
• Coady is playing in the middle of the 3 and looked good on the ball. The use of this player was very similar to last season.
• The use of McAteer is interesting... I wonder if the reason we are after Soule is because he would occupy in attack the spaces McAteer did today, IE a CAM / 10 that drifts wide and is expected to carry a goal threat.
• Our CBs did not push up to support the attack like they did under Enzo. They were in general a lot more defensively positioned.

 

 

In general it looks like we are quite fluid in possesion with players swapping the spaces they are occupying, and trying to drag the opposition out of the spaces they start in.

 

To me it doesn't look anywhere near as polished as the early pre-season games under Enzo, but it's early days.

 

Defensive Play

 

Out of possesion we setup in a very compact 442 block:

 

 

• The space between back line and forward was great. Look how compressed we are in the shot above. Teams will find it hard to play through two banks of 4.
• Our passing out from the back was poor today. Ward's distrbution was poor, Okoli didn't look great. A bit worrying.
• We looked vulnerable on transition. Shrewsbury probably should have scored by playing a long ball in behing one our wing backs.

 

Overall Thoughts

 

• We looked to be a bit more direct with vertical transitions rather than passing the opponent to death.
• We were not as obsessed with passing teams to death and having total control.
• We saw a lot more rotation between players and the spaces they occupied.
• Players seemed unclear as to what to do, they often stood in the same positions as one another.
• Whilst offensively we looked good on transition, we looked a but vulnerable the other way. This was true last season too though!

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 24 July by StriderHiryu

[FosseSpark]

With what I saw tonight I'd go with the following first up if no new signings. Can switch between three or four at the back with fatawu reverting to left wing with ease

 

                         Hermansen

                    Nelson Coady Faes

              Ricardo Winks Ndidi Fatawu

                       Alves Mavididi

                                Vardy

 

We've totally jettisoned Enzo ball it seems. 

 

Golding, McAteer, Vestegaard, Justin, Cannon can add something.

Soumare, Okoli, Souttar, Choudhury Cover, Daka, Thomas looked terrible. Think Cooper might have dropped a bollock on Okoli

[Ric Flair]

If he doesn't build his team around Fatawu at RW then he can do one as far as i'm concerned. 

[GingerrrFox]

14 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

If he doesn't build his team around Fatawu at RW then he can do one as far as I'm concerned. 

It actually hurt watching Fatawu being forced to play as LWB in possession tonight in that first half. He was electric last season playing from the right and he really didn’t look comfortable tonight in the role Cooper made him play. 

[Lesta2014]

Just now, GingerrrFox said:

It actually hurt watching Fatawu being forced to play as LWB in possession tonight in that first half. He was electric last season playing from the right and he really didn’t look comfortable tonight in the role Cooper made him play. 

Hoping it’s because he wanted left footer there tonight and kristienson ain’t back yet to play it?