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catfordfox

What happens when teams start to drop deep against us?

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Football 365 have been hugely dismissive of us this season, so wouldnt normally give them the attention of a link, but I did think this was a interesting point - atm we are probably the best team on the planet at dropping back and countering at pace. This works particularly well against the 'big teams' who are expected to come out and attack us. But what happens now (after the arsenal game) when teams will probably start to pull numbers back and defend deep against us? Can we break them down? Granted we we missed a pen and didnt play great against bournemouth (esp our more creative players), but that last 30 mins or so when we coudnt get through their ten men is the one thing that's slightly concerning me about the rest of the season. Presumably (hopefully) Claudio's got something up his sleeve for this sort of situation...

 

http://www.football365.com/news/premier-league-winners-and-losers-21

 

Leicester City
“We are the only team who do not need to win the league,” seems a pretty simple explanation from Claudio Ranieri when asked by the BBC about Leicester’s remarkable run but it certainly struck a chord. Technically he is mistaken as Tottenham are in a similar expectation vacuum, but the underlying sentiment is certainly true: The Foxes can (for now) play without pressure or stress from fans, media or owners. For just how this manifested itself in a magnificent performance against Manchester City, read Matt Stead’s excellent 16 Conclusions on the game.

But while that sentiment is likely to carry them through next weekend’s clash with Arsenal – for which the early odds put them at bigger than 3/1 despite being the Premier League pacesetters – the real test of their credentials will come when they face teams who prepare themselves to play title favourites. Nobody has parked the bus against Leicester; nobody has put nine men behind the ball and said ‘let’s what you’ve got’ like they would when facing the Manchester clubs or Arsenal; they have benefited from the rest of the league still – even at this stage – thinking ‘it’s only Leicester’. The only games Leicester have been truly expected to win in recent weeks – against Bournemouth and Aston Villa – have seen them drop points.

Over the next eight games, Leicester will face Norwich, West Brom, Watford, Newcastle, Crystal Palace and Sunderland. They will be favourites for all of those matches against the other teams around them at the ‘bottom’ of the tables for pass completion and possession. Those teams will not be taking the game to ‘only Leicester’. Tony Pulis will play six centre-halves, all will opt to ‘go long’ rather than fall into Leicester’s signposted and yet irresistible trap of sitting deep and hitting fast.

There have been plenty saying that Leicester would be ‘found out’ in a run of games against Liverpool, Manchester City and Arsenal, but the real ‘finding out’ may come against similar-sized clubs with identical but less effective tactics. What happens when you play this Leicester side at their own game? What happens when you leave them no space behind your defence? We may be about to find out.

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Can't find the video but exhibit a, I present to you the passage of play against Liverpool that should have resulted in a penalty for the foul in Okazaki.

It'll be tough but it is going to happen. Teams will play for the draw against us. I'd like to think we'll be working on ways

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I still think we've got the quality of players to keep possession and break down a team

 

But as you say it's just something we'd need to find out

 

Or just keep playing like we did when we were "Leicesterlona" against Liverpool ;)

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It is a very valid point and it's the shift the media will now use to dismiss what we are doing this season. " let's see what happens when they play crap teams " replacing " they'll fall away when they play the big teams "

We had very little problem beating very mediocre teams earlier this season home and away and likewise on the great escape run last season. It's true teams will sit back and it could be frustrating at times but the fact is our defence is so strong right now that we can nick a goal ourselves and then see it out anyway.

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It's another question we will have to find an answer for.

 

Arsenal is not a pressure match for us as we can play our natural game but beating West Brom, Norwich, etc is when the pressure is on. They'll probably always have six players behind the ball even when they're attacking in our half.

 

90 mins however is a long time when you go into a match with no attacking intent. Even though Bournemouth defended with ten man for a long period and got their 0-0 draw we still had some very good opportunities to score.

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I mentioned this a few weeks ago, it may require a tactical change like player Gray instead of Albrighton

 

Some of these teams wont be able to run the risk of just drawing.

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It is a very valid point and it's the shift the media will now use to dismiss what we are doing this season. " let's see what happens when they play crap teams " replacing " they'll fall away when they play the big teams "

We had very little problem beating very mediocre teams earlier this season home and away and likewise on the great escape run last season. It's true teams will sit back and it could be frustrating at times but the fact is our defence is so strong right now that we can nick a goal ourselves and then see it out anyway.

 

yeah thats a good point about our defence - as soon as you stop shipping sloppy goals you only need to take one chance and you've won (as should have happened in the villa and bournemouth games). Maybe go back to doing what we did at the end of last season, go all out for a goal in first ten mins - but now we have the capability of shutting the game down in a way we didnt at the start of this season

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We do tend to struggle against teams which sit deep but I think we have enough in our arsenal to break teams down. I cant see too many teams playing for the draw against us as they will need the points to avoid relegation

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You'd expect us to get more chances from set pieces, which based on recent evidence could be useful in getting Huth his long awaited Golden Boot.

 

I expect more of the three on half-way for oppo corners we saw at Stoke. Surely even Pulis would be unable to withstand the temptation to send up all six or seven of his centre-backs?

 

Might need a few more efforts from outside the box too. If only we'd thought about this in the transfer window...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaIXPzImybc&t=22

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaIXPzImybc&t=50

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Sorry, load of tosh!!!

Again another over thought , over analysing.

Its too good, so lets put a negative tilt on it, lets find out what one can troll.

One game at a time, Ranieri and coaching staff get paid to, sort weaknesses out.

So far they have upped their game every time.If there are negatives the positives

have out weighed every little minging complaint at trying to find fault or weakness.

In football in our situation, I aint interested analysing and worrying about what could of

been what might be.I am selfish I am determined to enjoy it without being a typical

east-midlander...the yeah-buts, we could, we shoulds, why didnts. NOT for me.

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Several of the lower teams will be going for a win as they need 3 points more than 1 as they are either in the regulation battle (Sunderland/Norwich/Newcastle) or scraping.  Watford and Swansea wont sit back as it's not in their nature. West Brom play the same style against everyone and have been getting beaten or boring teams into mistakes.  The mid table teams will be attacking to try and save their season from mid table to almost Europe place contenders.

 

If teams park the bus (a phrase I hate as we at least try to attack) we will have to play our tight passing game that seems to have improved and hopefully some on target long shots that will at least force saves and loose ball from the keeper.  I'm expecting a lot of fouls on Mahrez and Vardy in the West Brom game.

 

Surely these teams will be parking the bus even tighter against the other three teams as they have 'better' players than us and will still think they can beat us.

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We scored 3 against Tony Pulis' West Brom already this season, and looking at those 6 teams he mentions we scored 15 goals this season.

 

This belief that we sit back and invite teams on to us is a massive mistake, we press high and attack quickly playing high risk balls that may only come off a quarter of the time, but when they do it results in a great chance. The upshot of this is we give away possession. When we have the ball and an option of a high risk through ball or a low risk backwards pass we go for the attacking option.

 

This constant losing of possession makes people think we sit back and defend deep trying to absorb pressure and hit on the counter. We don't we press high we press as a team and we see any opportunity as one to attack. If a team sets up deep and passes around the back we will press them high, win the ball further up the pitch and launch more attacks. We are not a counter attacking team, we are a quick attacking team and will attack from anywhere in any situation. The counter attack is just one aspect, we are scoring from set-pieces, neat passing moves, high pressing and forcing a mistake, long range volleys, individual skill, crosses and goal mouth scrambles. I know it makes it easy to class us as a one dimensional counter attacking side but we really are much more than that. I think we have scored the most from counter attacking moves, but that is still only 5 goals (maybe 6 after Mahrez's goal on Saturday)

 

We've been top for most of this season, we are the top scorers in the league, do they not think teams have tried to stop us scoring?

 

Bournemouth game was an exception, 10 men behind the ball with no intention to attack after missing a penalty in the middle of an energy sapping festive period with a striker playing with an injury.

 

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We scored 3 against Tony Pulis' West Brom already this season.

 

This belief that we sit back and invite teams on to us is a massive mistake, we press high and attack quickly playing high risk balls that may only come off a quarter of the time, but when they do it results in a great chance. The upshot of this is we give away possession. When we have the ball and an option of a high risk through ball or a low risk backwards pass we go for the attacking option.

 

This constant losing of possession makes people think we sit back and defend deep trying to absorb pressure and hit on the counter. We don't we press high we press as a time and we see any opportunity as one to attack. If a team sets up deep and passes around the back we will press them high, win the ball further up the pitch and launch more attacks. We are not a counter attacking team, we are a quick attacking team and will attack from anywhere in any situation. The counter attack is just one aspect, we are scoring from set-pieces, neat passing moves, high pressing and forcing a mistake, long range volleys, individual skill, crosses and goal mouth scrambles. I know it makes it easy to class us as a one dimensional counter attacking side but we really are much more than that. I think we have scored the most from counter attacking moves, but that is still only 5 goals (maybe 6 after Mahrez's goal on Saturday)

 

We've been top for most of this season, we are the top scorers in the league, do they not think teams have tried to stop us scoring?

 

Bournemouth game was an exception, 10 men behind the ball with no intention to attack after missing a penalty in the middle of an energy sapping festive period with a striker playing with an injury.

 

Those 6 teams he mentions we scored 15 goals against this season.

The Bournemouth game was easily the most painful one to watch. I think that was the lowest I've felt after a draw since Hull City. 

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We scored 3 against Tony Pulis' West Brom already this season.

 

This belief that we sit back and invite teams on to us is a massive mistake, we press high and attack quickly playing high risk balls that may only come off a quarter of the time, but when they do it results in a great chance. The upshot of this is we give away possession. When we have the ball and an option of a high risk through ball or a low risk backwards pass we go for the attacking option.

 

This constant losing of possession makes people think we sit back and defend deep trying to absorb pressure and hit on the counter. We don't we press high we press as a time and we see any opportunity as one to attack. If a team sets up deep and passes around the back we will press them high, win the ball further up the pitch and launch more attacks. We are not a counter attacking team, we are a quick attacking team and will attack from anywhere in any situation. The counter attack is just one aspect, we are scoring from set-pieces, neat passing moves, high pressing and forcing a mistake, long range volleys, individual skill, crosses and goal mouth scrambles. I know it makes it easy to class us as a one dimensional counter attacking side but we really are much more than that. I think we have scored the most from counter attacking moves, but that is still only 5 goals (maybe 6 after Mahrez's goal on Saturday)

 

We've been top for most of this season, we are the top scorers in the league, do they not think teams have tried to stop us scoring?

 

Bournemouth game was an exception, 10 men behind the ball with no intention to attack after missing a penalty in the middle of an energy sapping festive period with a striker playing with an injury.

 

Those 6 teams he mentions we scored 15 goals against this season.

 

yeah but the point is teams weren't treating us as title contenders when we played them before. I'm certainly not implying we're a one trick pony, but a lot of our goals come from similar moves - and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, its been working like a dream, up to the opposition to stop us. I'm not sure i quite agree with you about the high press tho, not all the time anyway. We've been winning the ball a lot in the area between the centre circle and our pen recently, and breaking from there, rather than winning it on the halfway line or even further forward.

 

This wasn't meant as a negative question - it's something that comes with success, and like i said in the OP, i'd be very surprised if Raneiri wasn't thinking about it already. I defintely think Gray could come in handy for those kind of situations - along with Riyad i reckon he's got the ability to unlock a deep defence in a way that albrighton and maybe even vardy don't.

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I think is based on a misunderstanding of our mentality. People say we're only about counter attacking and we just sit deep because we only have 40% possession.

I actually think our low possession is more about being overly aggressive than anything else. We're always looking to pass it forwards, we look for killer balls and goal scoring chances at every opportunity, at the expense of easy, ball retaining get passes. That means we give the ball away a fair bit. When we play good teams who have high quality attackers and like to keep the ball, yes that means we spend a lot of time without the ball. If we didn't bring men back to defend when they've got the ball in our half we'd be pretty stupid.

If the opposition don't look to play, however, they end up giving us the ball back as often as we give it away. Which just means we get more chances to try our ambitious attacking play and create more chances. Yes, they're defending in bigger numbers, but we're the top scoring team in the league for a reason.

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This is absolutely hilarious. 

 
At the start of the season when we were clinically putting away teams in the bottom half, people kept saying we hadn't played anyone big. Now that we are playing the big teams and we are doing well, they go back to saying how will we do against lesser sides. Wait, what?
 
Are they bipolar? 
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What I love is now we're despatching the so-called top teams and after the Arsenal game we have an easier run of fixtures, all the pundits and fans of other teams are saying 'how are they going to cope, when they're expected to win games and teams sit off them?'

 

Do they not remember that in October/November we were beating these teams home and away and they were saying 'they've not played anyone decent yet, wait until they play the top 4 sides!'.

 

It's an endless cycle.  


 

This is absolutely hilarious. 

 
At the start of the season when we were clinically putting away teams in the bottom half, people kept saying we hadn't played anyone big. Now that we are playing the big teams and we are doing well, they go back to saying how will we do against lesser sides. Wait, what?
 
Are they bipolar? 

 

Ha! I just responded saying the exact same thing,

 

It's ridiculous

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We scored 3 against Tony Pulis' West Brom already this season, and looking at those 6 teams he mentions we scored 15 goals this season.

 

This belief that we sit back and invite teams on to us is a massive mistake, we press high and attack quickly playing high risk balls that may only come off a quarter of the time, but when they do it results in a great chance. The upshot of this is we give away possession. When we have the ball and an option of a high risk through ball or a low risk backwards pass we go for the attacking option.

 

This constant losing of possession makes people think we sit back and defend deep trying to absorb pressure and hit on the counter. We don't we press high we press as a team and we see any opportunity as one to attack. If a team sets up deep and passes around the back we will press them high, win the ball further up the pitch and launch more attacks. We are not a counter attacking team, we are a quick attacking team and will attack from anywhere in any situation. The counter attack is just one aspect, we are scoring from set-pieces, neat passing moves, high pressing and forcing a mistake, long range volleys, individual skill, crosses and goal mouth scrambles. I know it makes it easy to class us as a one dimensional counter attacking side but we really are much more than that. I think we have scored the most from counter attacking moves, but that is still only 5 goals (maybe 6 after Mahrez's goal on Saturday)

 

We've been top for most of this season, we are the top scorers in the league, do they not think teams have tried to stop us scoring?

 

Bournemouth game was an exception, 10 men behind the ball with no intention to attack after missing a penalty in the middle of an energy sapping festive period with a striker playing with an injury.

 

even with the massively defensive tactics of bournemouth, vardy missed a sitter, mahrez missed a penalty and we should've had another penalty too. on a different day we win 2 or 3-0. 

 

also all it takes is one good moment. teams can't defend for a point if we score early like on saturday. 

 

also also you could put ten men all in the D and i'd still back riyad to dribble past them all. 

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yeah but the point is teams weren't treating us as title contenders when we played them before. I'm certainly not implying we're a one trick pony, but a lot of our goals come from similar moves - and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, its been working like a dream, up to the opposition to stop us. I'm not sure i quite agree with you about the high press tho, not all the time anyway. We've been winning the ball a lot in the area between the centre circle and our pen recently, and breaking from there, rather than winning it on the halfway line or even further forward.

 

This wasn't meant as a negative question - it's something that comes with success, and like i said in the OP, i'd be very surprised if Raneiri wasn't thinking about it already. I defintely think Gray could come in handy for those kind of situations - along with Riyad i reckon he's got the ability to unlock a deep defence in a way that albrighton and maybe even vardy don't.

 

Teams in the bottom half will be scraping for their lives. There is no way Newcastle, Norwich, Sunderland and Swansea will sit back. They NEED wins. 

We put 3 past West Brom, Newcastle, Swansea and Villa, and we put 4 past Sunderland. 

 
I'm not saying we are definitely gonna beat them, thats arrogance, but I'd much rather play West Brom at home than Man City away 10 times out of 10.
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yeah but the point is teams weren't treating us as title contenders when we played them before. I'm certainly not implying we're a one trick pony, but a lot of our goals come from similar moves - and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, its been working like a dream, up to the opposition to stop us. I'm not sure i quite agree with you about the high press tho, not all the time anyway. We've been winning the ball a lot in the area between the centre circle and our pen recently, and breaking from there, rather than winning it on the halfway line or even further forward.

 

This wasn't meant as a negative question - it's something that comes with success, and like i said in the OP, i'd be very surprised if Raneiri wasn't thinking about it already. I defintely think Gray could come in handy for those kind of situations - along with Riyad i reckon he's got the ability to unlock a deep defence in a way that albrighton and maybe even vardy don't.

 

They may not have been treating us as title contenders, but they were taking us seriously from very early on, we do still press high, we may have curtailed it a bit against City and Spurs out of respect for their attacking qualities, but if a team tries to sit back on us we will press them high and put them under pressure forcing the mistake and pouncing on it.

 

We do counter attack, and we are the best in the league at it, but it still only accounts for 10% of our goals and most of our attacks come from us winning the ball and attacking quickly regardless as to whether the opposition have been attacking or not. Which is why I dispute the  claim we are a counter attacking side,  we are an attacking side, and we look  to turn every opportunity into a goal scoring one.

 

I doubt Ranieri will change much, we may see Gray introduced earlier in games and possibly a bit more of Amartey and Ulloa, but I would be very surprised to see any unforced changes to the first 11 between now and the end of the season.

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Teams in the bottom half will be scraping for their lives. There is no way Newcastle, Norwich, Sunderland and Swansea will sit back. They NEED wins. 

We put 3 past West Brom, Newcastle, Swansea and Villa, and we put 4 past Sunderland. 

 
I'm not saying we are definitely gonna beat them, thats arrogance, but I'd much rather play West Brom at home than Man City away 10 times out of 10.

 

 

yeah that is true about the teams near the bottom needing wins. And i agree with the last bit too. But i do think saying 'we beat those teams earlier in the season!' is kind of missing the point - we weren't 'clinically' beating teams then, we were letting 2 goals in the first half and then playing at 200 miles an hour to get an equaliser and winner, in a situation where the opposition were still treating us as relegation fodder, and so weren't really setting themselves up to stop us. That has all turned on its head now.

 

Again, I'm not saying this because i think we won't cope (and i agree that it is just the 'they havent played the big teams' in reverse), but I will be interested to see if Ranieri makes any subtle changes for the games coming up. On the other hand, maybe we'll just blow them away with three goals in the first half hour, who knows

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The two teams who stand out as having parked the bus against us are Spurs and Man Utd at home where both results were 1-1. Oh and Bournemouth at home for 0-0. They sat real deep and the games were mostly boring, but we still had chances to win.

I'm not worried about having to break teams down in the slightest. They can be as defensive as they like. Mahrez, Albrighton and Drinkwater can shoot from distance as well as play great splitting crosses. And with our new found set piece ability we are a threat.

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Opposition teams sitting deep? Would they honestly want more foxes in the box than out? I don't know about that.

 

It's important we don't change our tactics, 11, and our shape to suit oppositions - one of our weaknesses last season was adhering to whoever we were playing, as a defensive precaution rather than those final games where the 3-4-3 worked for us. Stay 4-4-2, stay counter attacking, if we need to throw Ulloa on and be more direct, so be it.

 

Norwich already play deep, even though they're a good attacking unit, they're shocking at possession play and defensive errors at the back. Wouldn't expect anything less than us pushing up against them. The mid-table fodder I don't think would change their systems to prevent our play. And those deep in the relegation battle who would usually be pretty difficult, well I don't think they'll be that tricky, Newcastle at home etc. 

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I admit this is something I am a little worried about. The proof?.. Bournemouth, both Bournemouth matches, they were deep against us and we struggled badly, we couldn't win the away or home game and they even had 10 men and we still hardly had any good chances. It is something that concerns me a little when we start playing some of the bottom sides soon. 

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