StriderHiryu

We will copy what Arsenal did to Man City in the second half at the Emirates, just with 11 men. One of the Forest fans (Wolfie) told us that "Cooper loves playing against the big 6 cartel because his dour defensive tactics often get results. Expect a 541 with only 2 attacking players on the pitch. You will probably only have 2 shots on goal in the entire match, but still might come away with something." I remember Puel beat Pep at home by playing Ndidi, Choudhury and Mendy in the middle of the park. I expect us to play Skipp, Winks and Ndidi, and at the back have Coady, Faes and Okoli. On current form it will probably be Mavididi and Vady as the two outlets. I think Arsenal will win, but we will frustrate them for a long time playing this way. It might be grim to watch, but objectively it probably is the highest percentage way to play to hope to get something from the game. Them missing Odegaard and Merino plays into our hands. Keeping Saka quiet is the challenge.

This is from the Fulham game, but is relevant to the Everton one. We start in a 4231, but when we attack, a full back pushes up to support the attack: Against Everton, most of the time it was Justin that pushed up the right hand side, and Ayew inverted from right wing to become a 10 along side El Khanouss. That is the Cooper system in a nutshell, though there is a bit more to it as the second CDM (Skipp or Ndidi) also pushes up ahead of Winks.

It's definitely possible that I'm over analysing it! I saw a quote recently saying that in the football analytics industry people are spending millions of pounds to essentially find out the same thing "the closer to goal you shoot the ball, the more likely it is to go in!" Trying to be objective, my concern is that the system Cooper is trying to implement is inherently flawed in certain aspects of the game. That can happen to any system and any manager, see how the 442 is basically dead, or how Conte's 343 got figured out pretty badly during his Spurs reign (though it's not doing badly at all at Napoli). My two biggest concerns are: - In build-up, the two CDM's don't always play next to one another, making it easier IMO to disrupt us when starting attacks. - Our fullbacks pushing up to support make us more vulnerable than last season. We've already conceded 3 goals from the right hand side when JJ has pushed up at the wrong time. From a structural viewpoint, I think these need to be fixed.

I'll go 2-0 Arsenal, but I think you are along the right lines. Since Odegaard got injured, Arsenal haven't been as flowing as they have been in the past, and with Champions League games, they are rotating their team. They look like proper Champions in waiting, grinding out the points. Thus I think they will win, but it won't an absolute battering. Man City and Liverpool are more likely to do that against us I think, whereas Arsenal have been so strong defensively, I don't see us scoring against them.

Fair points. Cooper is trying to use the second CDM next to Winks in a hybrid role, and not just as someone who is next to Winks throughout the game. IMO this is one reason why Winks has not looked as good this season. Maresca use to do this at times too, but he did it against teams that parked the bus like Preston, where he asked Ricardo to push up to become a third 8. For what it's worth, I agree that Ndidi is better when he focuses on just box crashing. You genuinely couldn't ask for a team to be in more shambles than Everton were / are. A confident manager goes for that game, beats them by 3 or 4 and gets their manager sacked. Yeah could be worth a thread on it's own. For me the key is that Kristiansen should not be starting, Ricardo should come in, and one of Fatawu or Buonanotte (or both) should be in the team without taking out Mavididi. There is a lot of frustration among the fans that the bench at times looks stronger than the starting XI!

Yep fair point. This video already ran to an hour, but for sure, Calvert-Lewin had a fantastic opportunity to win the game for Everton which I glossed over!

It finished 1-1 at a rain-soaked King Power on Saturday. For those of you that went to the game, I salute you! This was a HUGE game for us, and one that come the end of the season could determine our fate. We got a point, but for me it feels like 2 dropped. However, looking at the stats, Everton posed more of a goal threat and despite having more of the ball and out tackling and out passing our opponents, this is 5 games out of 5 in the Premier League where the underlying data suggests that we were not as good as our opponents. ^ Sofa Score provides ratings for all of the players. These should be taken with a huge grain of salt as they use an automatic algorithm, however, Mavididi being our best player, and McNeil and Ndiaye starring for Everton is certainly in line with the eye test. For me the above graphic further cements what a wasted opportunity this game was. Everton have the oldest squad in the league, and had to play Ashey Young (40 years old!) and James Garner as full backs. They had so many injuries they could not fill their bench and had two keepers to make up sub numbers. ^ Just to prove my point, look how many players were either missing or nursing an injury. This was a team that was there to be beaten. ^ The Attack Momentum bar shows that we really took it to Everton for most of the second half. I don't think it's fair to say they were hanging on, but we definitely looked the most likely to score. It's a shame that we couldn't start the game this way, and for me even worse that no subs were made at half time, given the obvious sub was the reason why we got back into it, Buonanotte for El Khanouss. ^ El Khanouss was the one change we made to the starting line-up and a player I was super excited to see play. Sadly he did not have a great game, but I want to go on the record and say that any player from a foreign league is unlikely to hit the ground running, especially without a preseason. For me he 100% needs to start in the cup game midweek, even if he was poor today. ^ One of his big issues was the positions he took up. He drifted too deep and too far to the left on too many occasions, reducing his effectiveness. I think this is muscle memory from his time at Genk, where he got involved in the build up frequently. ^ This is where I WANT to see BEK play. Here he is a good distance away from Mavididi, is high up the pitch and can get involved with the attack. ^ But too often he got into sub-par positions. Here he is not offering a good passing outlet, and worse if Mavididi received the ball and spun, he would be in Stephy's way! ^ This is KDH and Mavididi in the early part of last season all over again! They are standing in each other's shadows! Did they watch Gareth Southgate's England? ^ Compare BEK's position to Kristiansen. I want to see the Moroccan be the box crasher and get invovled. Instead he is sitting back with Winks and Ndidi and staying our of the action. ^Overall, he struggled to get involved in today's game. ^ Next I want to focus on James Justin, who has started to feature a lot more in the offensive phase of the game for us in the last two games. In fact, it now seems like we his more of the attacking fullback than Kristiansen. ^ Here we see our general build-up shape in the first half. Ayew would invert from the wing and in the vacated space, JJ would push on to become a winger in the offensive phase. ^ Similar to last season, we would try and find our wide players by switching the ball to them / going long. Faes was good at this last season, and has been doing this for us more and more as the season has continued. ^ JJ puts in a half decent cross, and did this a few times. However, I can't help but think how much more effective this would be if it was Ricardo instead... ^ Everton signed Ndiaye in the summer and because JJ pushed up, it meant he had more time than most to get the ball and drive with it. And you have to say, he had a great game. ^ He's 1 on 1 versus Justin here and after playing a 1-2 leaves him for dead. (NOTE: Replace with GIF later) ^ Despite being surrounded by players, he engineers an opening and finishes to make it 1-0, and at this point in the game, it's no more than Everton deserved. We had struggled to get going, had made a few unforced errors, and couldn't connect passes together. ^ Cooper has tried to establish his own system on the team this season, but I don't think it's working too well. There are too many occasions where players are standing in awkward positions, or when we succesfully transition, we aren't effective in our attack because of the positions we are taking up. ^ It's possible that in the above picture, the players are in the positions that Cooper wants them to be. But I think that strucuturally this has many issues that would leave us in big trouble on a turnover, and in this case, even though we progress the ball, lead to a suboptimal attacking situation. ^ Following the above sequence, Ayew receives the ball and drives forwards. But because he has inverted heavily, it means that in this attack, there is a lack of a wide man to find. Compare this to last season where we would attack with 5 players, the two wingers, two box crashers and the striker. If there was a wide man supporting here, it's an easy forward pass into acres of space and a great opportunity. But we don't play like that anymore. ^ Ndidi changed back to be more of a build up player today instead of a box crasher. He had a good game, despite lacking somewhat in the offensive phase. ^ JJ pushed up, meaning he's out of position in transition after a turnover. Ndidi needs to come across and help him out. And that's just what he does. Winning the ball back and giving us an offensive transition. ^ Ndidi supposedly "has the touch of a donkey." But does he? He's much better than people give him credit for. He's no Kevin De Bruyne, but I think he has overall been our best player this season, and is the top assist provider for the team. ^ But I can't defend him every time. Here, the less said the better. But here I also want to point out that when the team has players like Kristiansen and Ayew, you might be better at winning duels, but you lack quality in the final third. I don't think either should be starting for us in games where we are expected to attack and go for it. ^ Our underlying data stinks. It suggests we have acutally outperformed our expected results because of chances created and given up. This is scary to see. ^ We've just had a stinking first half and been comfortably second best. We'll obviously make a few subs at half time and get into Everton straight from kick-off right? Wrong! We leave it to minute 55 to make the obvious sub and bring on Buonanotte for the struggling Khanouss. ^ And we immediately improve. Facundo takes up the right positions, facillitating build-up and box-crashing where appropriate. Mavididi now has space to run into, and changes the game. ^ Ndidi now starts to attack and push up much higher he and Facundo combine regularly to drag the whole team furhter up the field. ^ The entire system starts to work. Faes can now pick up the ball and switch the ball out to find Mavididi free. ^ How do we get the best out of Mavididi? We isolate a full back 1v1 against him. In his current form, Mavididi can put them on toast and cause havoc. ^ From this sequence the ball finds it's way to Ndidi. Sadly he lacks the killer pass, but there's nothing wrong with this move. This is the sort of sequence and play we need to see us do more often! ^ The change of shape unleashes Mavidi. Not only does the goal come from him, but he's responsible for almost all our best moments. ^ Mavididi driving at Garner and causing him all sorts of problems. ^ Garner goes into the book. He simply can't handle Stephy. ^ More great work from Mavididi from a corner. Our set piece coach is putting in work! ^ Ndidi involved (again) with winning physical duels to get us a goal. Scoring off a set piece again, good to see. ^ So we get back to 1-1 with 20 minutes to play. Surely we push on for the winner right? We make lots of attacking subs, use the bench and go for it!? Erm... ^ In total we made just 3 subs in the match. A gassed Vardy removed on 83, and our best player subbed off at 90 for Fatawu. That's right despite one of our wingers having a booked full back on toast, we take him off. We keep on Ayew, even though Fatwu cuts in on his left foot, and do this on the 90th minute. Awful, awful subs. ^ Here are my overall thoughts from the game. ^ Shout outs to these 3 players, who I think had strong games. ^ Crazily though we dropped points, we stay in the same position, 15th. Wolves are the suprise team at the bottom and might be the first team to change their manager. The longer you leave a manager change, the fewer good options there are that available... ^ I am not Cooper's biggest fan. We are currently NOT in the relegation zone, which is a good thing. However, if that PSR penalty wasn't avoided, we would not be looking too good right now. The above are facts from this season, and for me make grim reading. ^ In my opinion these are the best aspects of our play this season. They are actually the same as last season, though I feel we are less gooat them. ^ So how do we fix things? If it was down to me, I would go back to the same system as last season. You could have Ricardo in here as an inverted fullback, or get Vestergaard back into the team. But I want to see BOTH wingers come into the team, or at least two wide players, and drop the supporting fullback nonsense. ^ If we have to use Cooper's system, then get Ricardo into that team and drop Kristiansen. He puts in maybe two left crosses a game, we won't miss much. Not playing Ricardo feels like a decision on the same level as dropping Vardy for Demarai Gray, or dropping Alan Shearer when in a relegation battle. Hope you enjoyed the write-up and would appreicate liking, commenting, subscribing and all that jazz on the video above! Next week is a nice easy game at... Arsenal

I think you need to head to Pornhub to get any xBJ stats (Expected Blowjobs). If my missus catches me on that site, my own xBJ value will decrease from it's already very low number...

The backheel pass some were talking about. Audacious!

You have to laugh because otherwise you'll cry!

That's a good shout, but would have Ndidi over him.

Working on the analysis now, but I think he was really good again, our second best player after Mavididi. The game changed when Buonanotte came on, him and Ndidi working together as box crashers got the whole team going, the rain easing off probably helped.

In every match so far, the other team has had a higher xG than us, implying that the underlying data suggests we have actually outperformed our fairly weak results. Data doesn't always tell the full story, but it's hard not to argue that Cooper is holding us back and that it could be determental to us. When you make BIG calls like dropping Ricardo and playing Ayew over Fatawu, they only work if you get the result. If you don't, then you look like a clown. or in Cooper's case, a ghoul.

Pay attention to Ndidi's position. If Everton sit back as much as they have in some games, he will push right up to almost be like another 10/8 like he did last season next to El Khanouss. I would have put Buonanotte into the team instead of Ayew though. Not because Ayew has done badly, but because the way to beat Everton is to move the ball quickly and play between the spaces. And then Fatawu should have come on after 60 to run rings around tired fullbacks. Still overall I am excited to see how our new number 11 plays.

Pre Match preview time!

Something like this is the way I would go. If we drop Kristiansen then we don't have to drop either of Skipp or Winks. The only issue is that would mean Ricardo is still out of the team, as Skipp would essentially be playing the inverted role instead of him. Or you could change Skipp for Ricardo. The problem if we go to this system is that when we defend, we sit in a 442 shape, so someone needs to fill in as one of the fullbacks in that situation.

This was a very interesting comment, so I went back and watched the first 10 minutes of all our games so far! I don't agree with you BUT I do see why you've said this. In recent games especially, in the initial phases it feels like some of our players go man for man with the opposition and look to win duels early to establish some initial dominance. Palace themselves had wingbacks, so it meant Ayew targetting Mitchell, and Kristiansen on Munoz, giving the look of matching them up. You've said Ayew up front, but I think he was just chasing Mitchell as he retreated.

Fair comment and i will keep that in mind for next time, especially on here. I can tell you that so far compared to the last video I put out, this one already has a ton more views and comments, which sadly indicates that click-baiting works. But it has been my intention to try and be more of a classier type of content creator so I will keep that in mind. At least take some solace in the fact that the thumbnail wasn't Steve Cooper wetting the bed, which I'm not going to lie, did cross my mind!

For me changing shape is acceptable if you don’t have the squad players to bring on. In this game we had a plethora of options other than a striker. And even then, Ayew could have started on the bench and come on to cover that possibility. Reading about his time at Forest from some of the posts here is really worrying. Managers tend to be stubborn so I don’t see this changing

I can’t believe the decision was given but don’t think it’s the sole narrative of the game. If I was Cooper I’d be really angry with it too though.

You have to play the clickbait game I’m afraid! I hate it, but it works.

That's pretty depressing to read!

They will be able to make suggestions post match for sure. The assistant probably has the biggest say of all, especially mid-match. One reason I do this work is that for positions such as football analysts, you may be asked to compile a report / dossier either for an upcoming match, or one that has previously been played. The content of such a report would be slightly different and more technical, but would probably reach the same conclusions. Will Still who is now the Lens manager got his start doing this for a 2nd division Belgian team as an example. Maybe I might try to get into football later down the line? I suspect I'm too old, but you never know! Going back to Cooper, trying to be objective here: - Seeing out games by going into a defensive shape was in the past seen as "the percentage play" in years gone by. I wonder if it's an England coaching setup thing, because Southgate did it, as did McLaren and many other English based managers. - In this game, if Cooper did want to defend the 2-1, he did it in the wrong way. - Palace put on Kamada and moved Nketiah up front, so that means they've added an extra attacker. Responding by putting on another defender is the "correct" way to answer that move. - However, Cooper also packed midfield by putting Hamza on and withdrawing Ayew, and that doesn't make sense. Palace kept their wingbacks the entire game and in fact replaced them to have players with more energy later on. If Palace had added another attacking midfielder so they had 2 up top AND another central player, then the Hamza move would make sense. But instead it meant their wingbacks who were previously pinned back could do what they wanted to.

Cooper threw away 2 points because he went to 532 to try and see out the game, giving complete control and initiative to Palace when there was no need to. Here's my full analysis and stats to make my argument.

Aargh! What a frustrating game! 2-0 up away from home, good performances from several players, and yet we go away with just one point when we should have 3! In the video above I break down the game, with some more detailed examples here in the thread Palace Setup Under Glasner, Palace play an aggressive 343 formation with two wingbacks. Both Mitchell and Munoz push up high to support the attack, giving them options on attack. However, it also means that on transition, there are gaps behind those wingbacks that can be exploited, and this is something that for the first 64 minutes, we did well. The Double Pivots ^ This game was going to heavily focus around which of the double pivots for each side could dicate the play. Palace started with Doucoure instead of Hughes, but he picked up a knock and Doucoure came off at half time. For the most part these players wouldn't be up against one another 1v1, which meant that in order to win the midfield battle, it was going to be other players that needed to disrupt them. Enter the stage, Wilfred Ndidi. Wilfred Ndidi Playing Wilfred Ndidi as a 10 / Box Crashing 8 was ridiculed last season, and that was in the Championship. And yet when he was out of the team, we had worse results and didn't play as well. And that has continued into this season too. He was brilliant in this game, with two assists, but also an all-round performance that was stand out. ^ Ndidi blocks the passing lane to Wharton. Winks steps up to put Doucoure under pressure, who plays the ball to Clyne. Ndidi pushes up and presses and does brilliantly to win the ball and setup a half chance for Ayew. ^ Recieving the ball, then using his strength to ride a challenge, pick himself off the floor and drive forward to play the ball into Mavididi. ^ Often in the match, we used Ndidi as our outlet when being pressed by Palace. When under heavy pressure and we can't play the ball on the floor and / or have to head clear, we would aim for Ndidi, who did a great job in the game at holding the ball up and keeping the ball for the team. Once he was taken off and replace by Hamza, we no longer had the ability to do this, and it was one reason why we invited wave after wave of Palace pressure onto us. More on this later. ^ Ndidi plays his part in the goal, he shrugs off Wharton again and plays the ball over the top to the GOAT. Vardy on the shoulder of the last man, attacking the goal you say? Only one outcome there! Transitional Game Now we are back in the top flight, games are way more even than playing against teams that stick 11 men behind the ball. Regardless of who was in charge this season, it meant that a change in style / outlook was inevitable, and under Cooper, we have become a team that looks to exploit opponents in moments of transition. We were quite good at this last season, and we've started this season with a decent threat. The first goal above is a great example of us landing the sucker punch on transition. I describe a moment of transition as the moment when one team loses the ball and the other team gains possession. Moments of transition are decisive because they require quick, co-ordinated action and organisation as a collective to try to take advantage of the opponent's temporary, disorganised state. All teams press in the Premier League to stop teams dicating the game and to force them into mistakes. This means that when a team loses the ball, there is usually a 5-10 second window where they will be out of their defensive shape. Sometimes when a team tries to exploit the opponent when they are out of shape, they themselves lose the ball and are out of shape too, this is a counter-transition. Most games in the Premier League tend to be determined by these moments, and teams ability to maximise their effectiveness in these moments. ^ A danggerous moment for Palace on transition. The ball breaks and Eze gets on his bike to box crash. Kristiansen is in a predicament as he's been attracted all the way over from left back as we try to compress the defensive phase into one side of the pitch. This gives Munoz a totally free run at goal from right wingback, but luckily Faes makes a sensational challenge to bail us out. ^ Leicester almost score a second with another opportunity on transition on the stroke of half time. The hard-working Ayew wins the ball back and plays the ball into the wingback channel. Vardy peeled out to the right hand side and plays in Mavididi. Perhaps Vardy's pass is a bit strong, but I think Stephy could do better and chop back into his right to test the keeper at worst. But luckily Stephy would make ammends pretty quickly! ^ To say the second half started with a bang is understamement of the century with two goals in the first 3 minutes. Hermansen plays the ball into the wight wingback position, Ayew wins the ball and plays it to Justin. Justin crosses to Vardy who lays it off to Ndidi, who unselfishly passes to Mavididi to put Leicester two up. This was good play from JJ, but perhaps makes us wonder why Ricardo isn't in the team and why we don't try to use the right back position more aggressively with a top quality player more often. ^ Unfortunately, Palace scored immediately afterwards. I feel we were a bit unlucky here and still am not sure why it wasn't offside! But that was the official decision so the goal stood. Okoli and Faes did well as they had stepped up to play Mateta offside, but JJ's dangling foot played them on. I think if we had of stayed 2-0 up for longer we would have won. Palace Changes At 64 minutes, with roughly 30 minutes of the game left, Glasner went for it. He put on Kamada, but also changed shape and pushed Nketiah up front with Mateta. This left them even more open at the back, but gave them better attacking threat. Sadly, the way Cooper reacted to this was poor. Despite Palace getting a goal back, up until this change, I felt we were comfortable and looked like we would see out the game. ^ Cooper made 3 subs, but drastically changed shape. And for me this change of shape cost us the game. He was super defensive and went 532. Forget the fact that Coady had a brain fart for a second, this change caused several issues: - The Palace wingbacks could push much higher up the pitch. With both wingers removed and Fatawu playing more centrally, it meant that they were not being pinned back. - With Ndidi gone, we no longer had an effective outlet for the longball. After he came off, we lost aerial duels when going long. - Vardy was tiring (he's 37!) and was not able to run the channels as effectively. - Whilst defending a lead makes sense, with no outlet or coutner threat, it meant that we lost the ball over and over and couldn't get out! - IMO it would have been more sensible to maintain the same shape and structure but change the personel. El Khanouss is pretty tall and maybe could have played 10 instead of Ndidi? Ayew could have been replaced by either McAteer or De Cordova Reid, so along with Fatawu we had wingers. Putting anyone on for Vardy, even if they weren't a striker would give us more running up front. Buonanotte might have had a bit of a knock but surely could have made an impact for the last 10? ^ This chart shows the attacking momentum of the game. Look how it spikes for Palace towards the end of the game. This is a direct result of the changes that both managers made. This objectively shows that our changes invited pressure onto us, and meant that a second goal for Palace was inevitable, whereas it was almost impossible for us to score a third. The gamble was that if we held out, we come away with all 3 points, but it didn't work out. ^ Here we see us going to long to try to hit Fatawu. But despite him being 6 foot, he's not so used to winning midfield aerial duels and lost out. The ball is easily cleared up by Palace, and it's backs against the walls again. We didn't have wide players, so we had to go central, rather than having options across the pitch. ^ For someone as experienced as Coady is supposed to be, this is an absolute brainfart. This is something that is out of Cooper's control, but Coady started season injured and clearly isn't up to speed yet. Overall for me the Coady addition destroyed out shape, killed our momentum and then as the icing on the cake, threw away 2 points with stupid play. Overall Thoughts - This was our best 1st half performance. Our ability to create a threat on transition was good. - Up until the Kamada sub from Palace, we were the better team. So despite the gloom and poor game management from the manager, he did at least get 2/3's of the game correct and showed we can be a good team at this level. - However, poor game management and inability to understand / react to changes cost us, and this has not been the first time this has been the case. - Coady had a brainfart, but we had been inviting pressure onto us with the shape change. - The lack of an outlet cost us. We removed our width and got pinned back, because we took our wingers off and moved Fatawu more centrally. - In the end this result was super frustrating and Cooper needs to learn! It's not a surprise he only won 2 away games for Forest if this is how he tries to see games out! Onto Everton, and a game that already feels like a must win!