cityfanlee23

Going into the second half genuinely thought we would blow them away, Ipswich defence was quite sloppy and we were turning the screw, 2nd half was sloppy all over and Ipswich were the better team. We were absolutely robbed of a penalty, but irregardless of that football is a game of fine margins and we didn’t deserve to win the 2nd half, we should have been a couple of goals up and the penalty claim and deflected goal wouldn’t matter, the subs were woeful, no idea what Enzo was thinking there bringing Iheanacho on, cannon must be livid. Only have ourselves to blame. Full credit to Ipswich and McKenna, showing he’s a cracking manager and has build a very good unit, hope they go up with us.

Fatawu sprinting back and throwing himself at the shot 😍

yeah Fatawu is definitely the more individually dangerous player, he’s a raw talent and Mavididi maybe doesn’t give off the immediate danger that Fatawu does but he’s a bit more rounded as a player. both are great.

yeah they are very different players, also we tend to focus the ball on Mavididi when we have control of it, it looks to me as if we often use Mavididi in possession to drag everyone over in order to give Fatawu space on the right, whereas Fatawu tends to only really get a lot of possession when there is space to run into. Mavididi is more well rounded clearly and Fatawu is the raw talent, Fatawu probably has a bigger potential if he rounds his game out. Love both of them.

Ipswich are so vulnerable, their attack is carrying them this season based on this game. Really structurally poor. Fantastic movement and goal from us, Mavididi is a better player than Fatawu imo.

It’s a difficult one to analyse really as most of the problems we consistently face this season won’t exist next season, we will have much less of the ball and teams won’t sit back as much, but even with teams not sitting back as much and being more open, they will be much harder to break down since prem teams are far more defensively solid in general. It will almost feel like starting again next season id imagine rather than being a continuation of this seasons progress. Most of the blueprint should remain, but the style will be forced to change quite dramatically id assume, hopefully if we build a solid foundation we will be able to tweak it to work in the top flight, something Burnley have struggled with.

The off the ball movement is fantastic, This is exactly what I’ve been calling for all season with regards to upping the tempo, Rotherham were sat back but were never able to really solidify that deep deep block that they wanted because we constantly moved the ball and dragged them around with players making runs off the ball. Great stuff.

Great result but our defending really is dodgy at times, it’s surprising given how great our defensive record is on paper that we haven’t conceded more given how many awful mistakes we make at the back every week. I know we need to improve across the whole pitch but should we go up this defence needs serious attention.

Exactly the same happened with Slimani. When you broke down his goals per appearance he looked poor, when you look at his goals relative to his playing time he had the best goals per minute record at the club for a lot of his time here, we also had a really silly habit of bringing him on (the only striker capable of winning headers) and taking off Albrighton, the only player that could cross it into him 😂 we would spent the entire game crossing the ball into Okazaki/Vardy, then bring on Slimani and start playing it into feet

Tactical masterclass in the second half, the changes to overload them were brilliant, another good result, just hope we can clear up these moments where we tend to fall asleep in defence, our defensive record is pretty wild yet 3-4 times a match we seem to let through really sloppy errors. I missed the first 30 mins and sounds like I was lucky too but thought for the rest of the match we looked good

Now THAT is class 😂

You might be able to catch some in the first half 😉 Im going to look really stupid aren’t I 😂

You've strawmanned me multiple times now. We play high possession football, the low block is an out-of-possession strategy to nullify the opposition, the more we hold the ball, the more teams will naturally sit back. We can agree to disagree.

Pretty natural response, I have been a fan of Gegenpress for a long while so possession football doesn't excite me much, but I can buy into it and enjoy the strategy when it's made with attacking intent. A nice balance somewhere in between the last match and some of the higher possession matches would be a good spot.

You baited me back in so easily and i've let myself down, but well done, but you've effectively added nothing to this conversation and ignored most of what I've said and continued to say "nuh uh" Low blocks are very common defensive strategies when out of possession, high possession teams come up against them far more frequently than average possession teams do. The way we play football has a direct link to how opponents try to counter it. If it was solely about respect, Leeds and Southampton would also be experiencing this. In reality, there is an element of many reasons why teams sit back in low blocks against us, our midfield passing plays a very important role in that. You believe our high possession strategy plays no role in how opponents set up against us, I think it does based on watching us give opponents an age to get into position time and time again, and plenty of real-world examples of other teams facing this same issue. Agree to disagree.

We've scored 2 more goals than them in 20 games, my point was Leeds play a far more offensive style of football than we do yet do not run into the low block as much as we do, you're making a rebuttal to a point I did not make and is irrelevant. You think it's because teams respect us more than they do Leeds, It's impossible to prove or disprove, and it's just an example, no obsession. To Steelman your point, you argue that the way we play has no relation to the way the opposition sets up against us, mine is that the way we play absolutely does have a direct relationship with how opponents attempt to stop it, the most effective way of stopping a possession-based team scoring is the low block, which is why we come up against it so frequently. The "Low Block" is an out of possession defensive strategy, so naturally teams with higher possession come up against it more frequently. There are plenty of real-world examples of possession based teams consistently coming up against low blocks. We are not going to agree and frankly, your response seems to come across with a bit of arrogance that you "don't know how you can make it more obvious to me" so I don't see it's worth either of our time.

Yet it only really happens consistently to us, teams with equal if not better attacks overall like Leeds don’t have this issue nearly as much. There are 5-6 other teams that within our goals tally that don’t run into this issue, we are the only one of them who on a consistent basis run into the low block. The evidence seems to suggest we do a great job at inviting the low block. There’s no inherent reason why teams only decide to sit in their own area against us with zero threat to their box, but not against teams with equal attacks or atleast equal goals scored/more offensive than us.

Hopefully a while if Enzo is considering just throwing them back in again.

Expecting milwall to sit back a bit more than Plymouth did but we need to make sure we are passing it with tempo and purpose and opportunities will arise. I’m on a massive high from yesterday’s game, need more of that going forward, no excuses for playing with a lower tempo now.

When I say willingness to actually counter teams I should have said "willingness to see counter teams quickly" we have blown multiple counter attack chances in pretty much every game this season, as well as our obvious issues with wastefulness. As I said previously I think the forum is split into 2 groups at the moment. Some argue that teams sitting deep is what causes us to pass it around so much, but the other side (me included) argue that our often slow-paced passing is the reason teams sit back so much because they are happy for us to pass it sideways and backward for 60 passes and allow them to sit in a deep block knowing we struggle to attack it. One side thinks the often ultra high possession is a symptom of the deep block, the other thinks the deep block is a symptom of the possession. Leeds and Southampton's attacks are just as good as ours and they don't seem to run into this issue nearly as much as we do, so it's probably a mix of the two, some teams want to set up to be hard to beat, but we make that much easier given how much of the ball we hold and how we often slow play right down when we have it. I appreciate why we do it, it's just about tempo imo.

I'd argue that it was this + our willingness to actually counter teams rather than breaking down our own attacks as we often have in previous games. Obviously just an example but in most games this season our fast counter attacks have been 15-20 passes, ultimately with most of them breaking down. Today our counters were 4-5 passes and we were in their box. We need to do this more often.

Plenty of people argue that it is, but the majority of games we have over controlled the game and struggled to lure the teams to press us, ending with our midfielders having 80% sideways and backwards passing. We did not play like we always do by any stretch, there have been countless times this season where we have a chance to hit teams on the break but we get outside the box and pass it backwards, today we pulled the trigger and were in their box within 2-3 passes, usually our counter attacks break themselves down due to overplaying. Today was fantastic, because we focused on less passes between our defence and their box.

Contractually you're correct, but it's pointless having a player who does not want to be here if he's never playing and only used when we are desperate, especially given today's performance. I think he could quite easily force his way out, or just pick up a paycheck. Neither scenario are ideal for us really so I think his feelings do need to be taken into account.

Fantastic, what a great all-round performance. First half we were offensively aggressive and had a great balance between long through balls and short controlling passes, defensively fragile. Second half we turned on the taps and buried the game. Full credit to Plymouth for going for it, they played well and probably felt unlucky in the first half. Onto the analysis. Today in the context of how we have played this season was almost Anti-Enzoball, direct, fast, and flowing football, not needlessly holding possession. Now obviously part of that equation is that Plymouth allowed us more space than other teams have this season, BUT I personally have been saying for a long time that part of the reason we encounter the low block so often is because of the total control we approach many games, especially in the first halves of matches. Leeds are a perfect example of a team that are as good as us in terms of offensive players on paper, but they very rarely get stuck in front of a low block because of their aggressive nature, there is no magic reason why we often come up against the low block, for me it's because we play often slow possession football that results in low blocks rather than the slow possession football being a symptom of the opposition employing it, but that's very much a chicken and egg situation. So for me, I'd be more than happy if we found a balance between today's game and the possession style we often employ, it's about turning up the dial a bit more frequently, the constant low blocks we face are often a symptom of the way we play, and not the other way around. (obviously, I'd prefer to play this way every week but a balance would be fine) Today was a fantastic shift in approach and performance and I hope in a few days when we play Millwall (who are less likely to go for it) we can still pass the ball around as confidently as we did today and really go for it. Daka was immense, he needs minutes, I hope he can continue to aggressively approach games in this way to allow him to pull defences apart like he did today, one of his best performances for us and we saw the Salzburg Daka today.

Best case scenario is he shows glimpses, but doesn't have a huge amount of consistency, we pick him up cheap on a permanent and then comes alive