cityfanlee23

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 👀

I have seen James make the run a couple of times and it's been quite effective with him getting the ball in dangerous areas, my issue is it happens nowhere near frequently enough and often too late. We need to do it more often with multiple players making those channel runs such as Thomas or Ramsey, but we also need to move the ball quicker. Rangers yesterday moved the ball so much quicker under Rohl than under RM and although they didn't play incredibly well, they were pulling Kilmarnock all over the place at times, completely different level of opponent vs championship squads obviously, but the movement of rangers was pulling the opponents out of position constantly because of the pace. One big issue we have now even more than under Enzo, is we don't seem to have the composure or confidence to move the ball between positions quickly, which this system heavily relies on. I hate this style with a passion but I get it, you move the ball and force the opponent to tire themselves out chasing, inevitably creating space. But this only works if the opponent has to do more than a light jog, a huge problem we have, is we hit a team on the break with Fatawu, he gets doubled up on with little support, so he pauses for 3-4 seconds, passes it back to Ricardo, who then looks around, plays it to winks in the middle, who passes it to vestergard, who then either passes it to Thomas or finally passes to Mavididi, and suddenly our counter attack is faced with a deep block with everyone behind the ball. I can't remember the last time that we got the ball from wing to wing in less than 3 passes and actually dragged the opponent out of position or made them scramble to get across the pitch, we take 9-10 passes to get the ball across to the other wing.

It's a concern for sure, but with that said, we know Ricardo can play as an inverted full back and slot into midfield, there is nothing then stopping JJ from getting forward once Ricardo inverts. Again it's less about the quality of the player, more about the movement which forces open space. We just need a body to move somewhere, right now we are like statues at times.

Yeah I completely see your point and I do agree to an extent, even if we adopted Enzo's channel runs it would definitely be a downgrade on what we saw 23/24, my point is that imo it would still be an upgrade on the current system of praying fatawu can take on 3 players and put it in the top corner. I know that right now JJ is not producing the way that KDH was, but he's surely good enough to run in a straight line into a channel? That would create space for our strikers who up to now are constantly surrounded and never given support. Our strike force is pitiful right now, but we are certainly hampering them through the lack of space they are provided.

Yep, and this is exactly why so many have want to hound him into selling, because he simply cannot see what's happening. The crazy thing is, Top could literally have created a new position that was higher than DOF, for example a role that allows him to oversee KP's sporting interests as a whole for example, whilst bringing in a new DOF with fresh ideas. I've no doubt JR is an incredible intelligent guy and could be an asset to KP/Top, but as DOF we are in massive decline and repeating mistakes over and over.

Right but the issue as I see it is simple, Ricardo is more than capable of overlapping on the wing, Jordan James is more than capable of underlapping centrally in place of Ndidi, Thomas/VK/Aluko are more than capable of overlapping Mavididi/Monga. Ndidi and KDH were not naturals in that role, but their movement created space for Mavididi, Fatawu and Vardy. Ndidi was a bang bang average 8, but his simple channel runs created space for the players that were great in their position. All Jordan James/Ricardo need to do is create space for Fatawu to run at 1 defender instead of 2-3. My point is less about the quality of the individuals making the runs, but the fact the runs were being made, Ndidi made absolutely loads of errors whenever he ran through the channel between Fatawu/Vardy, often his crossing at the byline was awful, but what he did do was create space and that's what we are desperate for. We don't need to specifically sign a number 8, we just need James to be instructed to make similar runs to create space. I know we are a downgrade on what Enzo had, but these professional footballers imo are perfectly capable of offering an overlap.

This was the exact issue I was angry about under Enzo, the difference is, he was smart enough to have 4 players in the system that were instructed to over/underlap, so even though we were too slow with the ball at times to play centrally because of the inevitable deep block that we invited, we had alternatives. When Fatawu was being doubled up on, Ricardo or Ndidi would run the channels to open up space, sometimes both players would which would open up space for Vardy. On the other side it was KDH/LB doing the overlap/underlap for Mavididi. Under Marti it barely happens, our best talent have zero space to operate in unless we are hitting them on the counter, and more often than not that counter attack is too slow to matter.

I think deep down most fans feel this way. If he brought SW in or even NP as Director of Football (health permitting) and gave them control over the footballing side, then came out with an honest interview of his own mistakes and how he is going to rectify where the club is, most would be prepared to give Top some time.

Yeah I think it's a mixture of not creating enough clear cut chances then missing them when we do, costing us dearly at the moment. It feels like every game is on a knife edge, we go 1-0 up and often it feels more likely we will huff and puff then concede rather than go on to finish the game off.

His tactical system is doing a great job of stifling our opportunity to create clear cut chances even when we have a player overload. The players are to blame for missing individual chances and making errors during an attack, the manager is responsible for how we approach an attack, and he's proving to be awful at it.

If the board are still blindly obsessed by this god awful football, i'd rather take Puel than Martin.

Maybe not. But if we give them the ball in the box they might be able to do something with it. Instead we ONLY pass it to Mavididi or Fatawu and then pass it sideways and backwards for 5 minutes, before finally passing it into the striker who is now surrounded by 4 players. The strikers are bad, the system is making them worse. Do you think Vardy would be scoring freely in this system?

Every single year, time and time again managers prove that with the right system, you can take a fairly average bunch (with a couple of stars) and turn them into a well-oiled machine that exceeds expectations. Millwall at the moment have signed a few very good players that could make the step up, but overall they have many players that are steady at this level, look at where they are and how they are performing, because Alex Neil is getting the best out of them, he is improving every player by 5%. Nigel Pearson 2014 - "If everyone improves by a couple of percent, it very quickly adds up. That is really what it's about" Good managers at this level like Alex Neil know how to do that, they adapt the system to make each player improve a few percent. Marti on the other hand, has so far proved he's only "pragmatic" within his own very narrow ideology, reminds me of Rachel Reeves, he's created a straight jacket for himself with his obsession with this style, and he's now essentially hampering the entire squad by trying to make players play a system they are not very good at. Most teams in this league would take Monga, Winks, Fatawu, Mavididi, James, Ricardo, & Vestergaard, then players like BDCR, Faes, Ayew, Soumare are the sorts of players that managers like Alex Neil would be able to work with and find a way to improve their contribution. Right now, Marti is doing the opposite, he's stifled the very poor attack we had and somehow made it regress with his rigid constraints. How can Fatawu produce magic when he's doubled up on every game and has nobody providing an over or underlap to create space? How can the strikers produce goals when the only time they receive the ball, they are 25 yards out with their back to goal and 4 players surrounding them because we took so long to transition from defence to attack that the opposition had ages to form a deep block. It's the same old, same old boring predictable football that the vast majority of possession-obsessed managers employ. Very few actually manage to make the system work fluidly, and the 10 year experiment of this system is now declining at the top of football and not growing imo. I'm monologuing. The point is, we should NEVER accept mediocrity from anyone. Many of us hold Top accountable for this mess; we hold the players accountable for this mess. Marti needs to be held accountable for now adding to this mess with his tedious brand of football. He's paid to get the most out of the squad, but he isn't doing that. In fact, his system is stifling the only talent we have. The reason I wanted Rohl so badly is that his system would have actually benefitted our best talent. I was led to believe Marti was a different brand of possession that was pragmatic; he isn't. I saw many QPR fans warning us about this.

I think we have plenty of players willing to put a shift in if the system works. Ricardo, Skipp, Okoli, Nelson, Fatawu, Mavididi, Thomas and Carranza are all players who are willing to put a shift in and try to get physical. We have seen Soumare press at times. I get your point though, I think it’s a mixture of players not fully being bought into the club and wanting to go that extra yard, and a system that doesn’t demand it. This is obviously speculation but I can’t imagine if Pearson walked in tomorrow that we wouldn’t atleast see them work harder.

If his health permits we need to be on the phone, if his health doesn't permit a full time management gig, maybe it would permit a big office upstairs with the letters "DOF" on the door.

Urs Fischer Adi Hutter (0.2% chance) Ralph Hassenhuttl Michael Carrick (meh) Carlos Carvalhal (would take but meh)

You could easily be right on that, either way, he's still actively choosing to play a way the players cannot play very well.

Yeah that's fair, appreciate you calling me out on that, what I meant by average is generally speaking on paper. You have some decent players that will absolutely play at the next level, but you've also got a lot of quite "average" players that Neil is getting the most out of, players like Jake Cooper, Steve benda, Casper De Noor, Ryan Leonard, Massimo Luongo, Tristan Crama. They are good championship players but they are playing above what me looking at you from a distance would expect, but they've played well for you as far as i can see, but even if you feel they haven't played as well as maybe I think they have, as a unit he has you excelling and everyone is working for eachother. We are the complete opposite, we have proven players like Mavididi, Monga, Fatawu, Winks, Ricardo, Vestergaard, Faes, Stolarzcyk, to some degree Ayew, Jordan James. All of these players are proven at this level and most proven at a higher level, yet the system we've adopted has them playing against their strengths for most of the match. You're absolutely flying just as I thought you would, big fan of Alex Neil (at this level) and I hope he can go on to finally prove the promise he had when he came to this league about 10 years ago.