cityfanlee23

I can see Carlos Corberan being snapped up by Southampton. Will be sickening to watch us dither around again whilst clubs around us show a backbone and we end up going with a begging bowl to RM.

Can we just fast forward to the part where Nigel Pearson feels his health is good enough for him to take over as interim before moving upstairs into the DOF role? All hope for Marti is now gone after this comment about youth players. The only thing stopping him from playing players like Nelson/Aluko/Page more often right now is his own backbone.

This is important, I see so many saying that our team is worse than what Enzo had, of course it is, but Ndidi for example wasn't a natural 8, yet Enzo had him running the channels, more often than not he wasn't given the ball, but it opened up the space for Fatawu and often Vardy. We don't need the players to be the absolute best at making a run, we just need them to run, Marti seemingly doesn't want them doing that near often enough.

Wednesday have been flooded with people putting forward formal offers to purchase, many have proven funds of £50m+, I know that's not a huge amount for what we would be worth, but Wednesday need a monstrous amount of investment, if Top put us up for sale, I am confident people would approach.

They very likely brought him in for a balanced top 6 push and rebuild, dependant on points deductions. So far he's achieving nothing, he's regressing our players, playing a system they can't play, omitting many of the talented young players we should be integrating more often, and refusing to adapt anything, he seems to think substituting a player on with the instructions of doing the same role and position they are replacing is somehow going to shift a game. He's making the problems worse, not better.

We had to roll the dice on Cooper to try to save ourselves, gamble didn’t pay off but it had to be made. But I do wonder in hindsight if we had just kept him would we be in this position now? Gut instinct says no. We would very likely be in this division, but I don’t believe we would be looking over our shoulders at relegation. I even wonder whether if we still had Dean Smith would we now be a team that actually works hard for the badge, probably.

Half a press is worse than no press, needless spaces all over the place where some players push forward and others don’t

Cba to fix the AI typo

Our problems in order of magnitude: - Owner - Board - Players - Manager All 4 are problems, only one can be fixed today. We need as a fanbase to make this completely unbearable for Top to own until he leaves or comes grovelling to fans with a full admission and apology and a proven plan to change. Marti is making us worse. I am confident if this team was given to half of the managers in this league who are not obsessed with 3000% possession we would be in a far stronger place, we are supposed to be getting better each week, we are getting worse. All 4 of the above need fundamental change, just because the owner is top priority, doesn't buy the manager time for awful performances. Give this squad to Nigel Pearson and most of the players would improve.

If his health permits a short term deal to stop this rot and get the players fighting we desperately need him. Wont happen though. He’s too outspoken for the nepo-baby.

As a team we are disfunctional, but make no mistake, most teams in this division would be improved if they signed Winks, JJ, Ricardo, Fatawu, Mavididi, Monga, Vestergaard, Stolarzcyk. Many would argue Faes on his day would improve teams in the bottom half, Okoli also. This team is good enough to not be this bad. Stealing others comments here, but a good manager makes a team better than the sum of it's parts. Marti is making us worse.

Danny Rohl has instantly changed the way Rangers setup and play compared to sideways ball under RM, and in their first game under MON, Celtic fans were very vocal about the increase in tempo and press and the more direct attack being entertaining. Both teams have unburdened themselves from sideways ball and both have instantly improved. New manager bounce? Maybe, but tactically they both looked rejuvenated. End this 8 year possession obsession experiment for crying out loud.

I agree completely, but it looks like they are being instructed not to. None of our strikers are getting into the box, they did under all of the other managers.

He looks like he has. Poor attitude, with that said. I wouldn't want to be a striker in a team that has a system that revolves entirely around a single winger and completely nulifies anything the striker wants to do. He's not good enough at all, but under a progressive manager who adapts to his players, he gets chances.

Quality plays a role. As does tactical approach. I’ve already provided multiple sources which discuss this subject at length, if you think that possession based football doesn’t lead to an increase in low block oppositions then I’m not sure what else to say on the subject.

I'm not against possession football as a philosophy, I understand the style and it's interesting to watch when it works, my issue is most of the time, "possession" is more often than not "slow". There are some outliers, like Thiago Motta at Bologna for example who played exciting possession based football, but the vast majority of the time, it ends up being slow and predictable under most managers, and that makes it boring. We do have a playing staff problem, but we also have a tactical system problem, we have a manager who is determined to continue to play a system that you yourself admit the playing staff can't play. To be really broad about this, I think any possession based managers would continue to make us boring however there are plenty of non possession obsessed managers out there playing fun and exciting, attacking football. The possession based managers who play fun and exciting football are in a tiny minority.

No, I'm suggesting attack quicker. Stop passing it sideways constantly and we will face less low blocks. The issue we faced under Enzo and now under Marti is that our possession is slow, opponents have too long to organise themselves and they will inevitably adopt a low block the longer we control the ball, they are happy for us to pass it sideways all game. As I've said, obviously with a team of our perceived quality at this level, and especially so under Enzo, we were likely to face a deep block more often than say Millwall or Norwich, however, our system of absolute ball control absolutely plays into how frequently teams adapt to our ball control with a low block. I did edit my previous comment just a moment ago but I assume you'd already started your response so would have missed it. The FIFA ran "Fifa Training Centre" talk in detail about the different playstyles and they cover the fact that possession based teams often face more defensive setups as a result. “Teams that seek to control possession tend to face opponents who defend deeper and prioritise compactness over regaining the ball high, forcing the in-possession side to break down organised defensive blocks.” https://www.fifatrainingcentre.com/en/environment/fifa-research/high-performance/possession-analysis/part-2-1-possession-based-v-defensive-styles-of-play-new.php

The low block is an out of possession tactic to try to nullify the opponents attack. If you control the ball for long periods of time, teams will often form a low block. It's not a coincidence that possession based teams face the low block far more often than counter-attack teams do... Coaches' Voice | The low block: football tactics explained EDIT: FIFA's own training courses teach about the role of possession-based v. defensive, and they themselves cite that: “Teams that seek to control possession tend to face opponents who defend deeper and prioritise compactness over regaining the ball high, forcing the in-possession side to break down organised defensive blocks.” https://www.fifatrainingcentre.com/en/environment/fifa-research/high-performance/possession-analysis/part-2-1-possession-based-v-defensive-styles-of-play-new.php

Pretty much every single possession team faces a low block, because we would pass it backwards and sideways 25+ passes before going forward. We faced a low block because of how we played, or atleast it plays a large role. We face the same issue now, we defend a corner for example, but then on the break, but we take so long to get the ball into the box and end up passing backwards that the opponent just forms a deep block in their third. No doubt teams set out to try to stop our talent, but more often than not we force it upon ourselves and that was a major issue under Enzo. Chelsea face more low blocks now than they have under previous managers.

Klopp ball > Pep Ball in every conceivable way. Sadly many of our fans especially during the Enzo period were brainwashed into this view that anyone who dislikes this obsession with control, must only want 1980s hoofball as an alternative. I watch football because it’s an entertainment sport, we all find different things entertaining, I watch football because I want to be entertained for as many of the 90 minutes as possible. Possession football especially when you don’t have hundreds of millions to spend almost always delivers boring monotonous football in my opinion. I do admire the philosophy and the chess-like approach to wearing the opponent down but from an entertainment perspective it almost always under delivers. Danny Rohl may have had us in the same position in the league (personally think we would be comfortably higher) but atleast it would have been entertaining. Under Enzo and now under Cifuentes I have actually forgotten the time on a Saturday/Tuesday on multiple occasions. The Hyper-commercialisation and posession-obsession have pretty much killed my passion for football over the last 8 years.

Agree to an extent, but I do think the vast majority of football fans would prefer to watch Bournemouth for the rest of their lives over Man City. Pep has been forced to defend his obsession with passing and “control” recently because of fans kicking up a fuss, and he’s one of the few who can make it work.

Yep, never going to happen sadly

Challinor would be a gamble I could fully get behind, massively exciting. Would take him tomorrow if he was available to us.

I’m so glad DD has publicly called this poisonous man out. It’s word for word exactly what he did to us. We are still feeling the effects of his transfer wisdom to this day. Another couple of windows and we can finally rid ourselves of every player that he brought in.

Brendan does often get a 12 month bounce 👀