StriderHiryu

Maresca proving he was an amazing manager once again! Got the orc the boot!

Post match analysis here. Maresca used Cooper's own system against him and made him look stupid!

Post match analysis here. Maresca used Cooper's own system against him and made him look stupid!

I couldn't even tell you what Cooper was trying to do. If he was trying to park the bus, then play 5 at the back and embrace it. Instead we tried to defend but helped Chelsea out by making James Justin run out of position as often as possible. Take personal opinions out of it, purely from a coaching perspective he makes obvious errors that others will pick up on. In this game, Maresca changed the way Chelsea played so that Cucurella joined as a winger in attack, where usually he plays as either a CDM or number 8. In other words, Maresca used Steve Cooper's system against him. Yet Chelsea looked well coached and clinical whereas Leicester... embarrased themselves.

Needs to be dropped from the squad for a few games. Awful mistake (4 chances to clear it) and then his behaviour for the rest of the game was embarrasing. Not the type of player that should be anywhere near the club or dressing room.

Going to be going live with this at 7PM tonight. Enzo's come up with some new tactics whilst at Chelsea and I'll walk you through them in the match preview!

I only see us signing loan players in January. Prior to Fatawu's injury I would have suggested playing like Forest do, 4231 midblock with a 4 man counter attack. Mavididi and Fatawu doing the job of Hudson-Odoi and Elanga. But the way our squad is setup I don't think that's possible anymore. Looking at the squad building in the summer, I don't think we brought in the right positions. If instead of Cooper we had David Moyes in charge, could he keep us up? Sean Dyche managed to keep a honking Everton side up for many seasons, so maybe it's not impossible. But I'm not seeing a world where free flowing football is going to serve up results for us. I'd love to be wrong, but think these injuries ruin it.

I was going to say this too. I don't think Cooper is a good manager, but no matter who was in charge, we would be in a tough situation not just now but for the rest of the season. I just hope he does not keep playing the same system, leaving Justin high and wide, otherwise we will get killed. I'm actually not bothered what he changes it too, I just hope he tries something to at least give Chelsea something to think about. I am very worried for the rest of the season though. It's going to require siege mentality and playing for the manager, but sadly I don't think we have the squad or manager to produce that effect.

Long video, but in this one we cover why Cooper's system sets us up to fail, and offers some constructive ideas for how we could fix things.

Here's the live stream we did for the game. We showed where a lot of our issues come from, including how some of those signs could be seen in preseason, and try to discuss some constructive things we could try going forwards. There's also a Q+A session at the end.

That could take a while! The referee was not kind on us, but I don't think anyone can say he was the reason we lost that game. That said Dalot fould Fatawu so many times, he could have been booked 3 times over.

Sure looks like it...

I'll be honest, a bit like some of our players on Saturday, I misplaced my pass and hit the enter key too quickly! Once the stream has finished I will post the video up here so you can skip through it, but we did a poll today and a lot of the channel viewers wanted it live, so that's the way we are going to go!

^ I'm going to be doing my match analysis for the game tomorrow night LIVE at 7PM, but in the mean time, I am going to give you a preview of what happened in the game. Once the stream is done, I will also post the full video above! ^ A lineup that sends shudders down your spine. No Vardy and no Ricardo mades this lineup look awful from the get go, and many of us were expecting a long afternoon... ^ Man United went super strong. This was probably their strongest lineup, with maybe a tossup between Garnacho and Rashford for the left wing. ^ I was asked to cover the body language of the players as they came out for the game. I don't think it was too bad, but at the same time, I appreciate the point that the players didn't look totally up for it. Winks who played well but was frustrated all afternoon, already looks upset before a ball has been kicked! ^ A look at the average positions and passing networks of the two teams. This tells us quite a lot about both teams. Man United are a transition team, going for direct long balls, and support these passes by committing many players forwards. Leicester on the other hand, try to move up the pitch together and control the ball in the middle of the park. However, you can see from our netowrks that we aren't committing enough men forwards and this don't look too hot in terms of scoring goals. ^ This is the shape we have been using under both Cooper and Maresca, a 325 shape. Note Justin's high position on the right hand side, which simply does not work, and will be covered later. ^ United on the other hand try and play direct balls vertically through the pitch and then attack with their fast forwards on transition. They don't have much control of the game, hence a fairly even amount of possession for each team, but can spring a break at any point in time. ^ You know it, I know it, even James Justin knows it. He is being hung out to dry because of the system we play under Cooper. He had a really poor game, but I think that no matter who we had in this position, we would see the same outcome. The system simply does not work. ^ We have conceded most of our goals this season down our right hand side. This is because of a systemic issue we have under Cooper. In this example it's not so bad, but is a warning sign. Man United compact the ball down one side so they can switch the ball out to the other side. In this example it wasn't such a big issue, but as I will go into in the video, this caused issues time and time again, leavin Justin exposed and leading to him being utterly frustrated when taken off. ^ Jumping round a bit, but this compounds itself with United' third goal. Faes has pushed up high for the set piece, with Justin sat back, but on transition, Eriksen takes a ton of players out of the game with a clever pass, Justin has no idea who he should be picking up and Garancho finds himself free to take a shot, from which he scores. ^ Man United didn't score from this sequence, but is some of the most compelling evidence I can show for how poor this system is. WIth JJ up so high, a fast turnover leaves Garnacho in acres of space and if was more composed, this would have been another breakaway goal against us. But I want to stress this isn't just a JJ problem, this is a problem with the overall system. If you tune into the video I am going to show you multiple examples, including how this was a problem even in preseason. ^ However, if Justin had a bad game, I would argue that Viktor Kristiansen was even worse. Already guilty in some of the clips above, he made many mistakes during the game that would prove to be costly. ^ Viktor Kristiansen, who had an awful game, fails to deal with a routine punt up the ball from Hojlund. He get's lucky in that Amad doesn't take full advantage, but the ball goes out for a throw-in... ^ Look at poor our setup is from the resulting throw-in. Man United have a 3 on 2 situation with easy passing triangles. Meanwhile we have packed our box, marking no one in particular. Yet despite all of the players we have in the box, Rashford is free. ^ The sequence continues and it's a goal for Manchester United. It's a great strike by the United man, but it's a catalogue of errors that lead to a poor goal from our perspective. ^ More poor defending. Again it comes from the right hand side. Buonanotte and Justin get caught ball watching, with no one looking out Mazraoui who has pulled off to the wing. He has time to pick a cross, which Fernandes attacks, eventually coming off Kristiansen for an own goal. ^ Another mistake from Kristiansen. This time he at least deals with the Man United clearance, but after he receives the ball back from Hermansen. He plays a poor pass into the middle of the park. I think he is trying to play a diagonal switch, but the pass is cut out, and we are lucky to get away with not conceding another goal from the mistake. ^ So what about going forwards? We had scored in every game so far this season up until this game. Why weren't we able to break United down? ^ For me the biggest issue was square pegs in round holes. Fatawu had a good game, but was put on the left. So even though he had the beating of Dalot, he wasn't able to threaten with a strike at any time during the game. ^ Wilfred Ndidi is anotehr square peg in a round hole. His stats this season are among the best in our team, but is he in the right place at the right time? ^ These stats are pretty crazy, but do tend to suit a player of a defensive profile rather than an attacking one... ^ Here was a good opportunity we made for Ndidi. His first touch is actually very good, but he hasn't quite got the composure to find the back of the net, whereas had this been Maddison from yesteryear or Buonanotte from today, he may have been more effective. In isolation I don't think he was that bad, but at the elite level, attacking with a front two often made of Jordan Ayew and Wilfred Ndidi... well not a surprise we didn't score. ^ Here's another example. Ayew recieves the ball here and with a better pass, could have put Buonanotte in, but he can't quite play the right pass that would get Facundo free, and United deal with the threat. ^ I don't really need to do a second half analysis, look at the stats above. The players had simply given up. No changes at halftime, 1 shot in the entire half with an xG of 0.05. Hard not to say the manager has lost the dressing room with stats like these, especially as though Man United were two up, they had been functional not fantastic. ^ It's clear we are in big trouble, and with Ricardo out, things get even worse. What do we need to do? What can we do?! ^ This would be my objective suggestion. We are giving up way too many chances per match and that's why we are losing so many games. But there is another team in the midlands that has a great defence and are doing well, despite not having a star-studded squad. Perhaps they might act as the blue print for how we could play? ^ Patson Daka!? Has Strider lost his mind?! Well I am trying to be objective here and I would suggest that if we changed our gameplan to a be a midblock counter attacking team like Forest, we might get more joy. With Daka, Mavididi and Fatawu up top we could carry a threat whilst only breaking with 3, allowing us to keep the rest of the team deeper. Our back 4 is pretty poor, but this might give them more protection and tighten things up. With our squad and current manager, I don't see a way forwards playing with a raiding full back up high. ^ I am going to leave it a bit light today, but do encourage you to watch the live stream at 7PM on Tuesday on Blue Tinted Glasses as Lox and I can answer any questions you might have. I also have a ton more analysis to show in that stream, none of which portrays the manager in a particularly good light. Hope you have a better week than you did weekend, there's a lot of thinking to do over the international break...

Ultimately he would still be a fairly risky appointment. I think he should have taken the Burnley job personally, as that would give him the perfect chance to find his style under a bit less pressure. But credit must be given where it's due, and Man United notably improved under him, fixing some of their key issues. Their attack is still focussed around individual quality, but it would be hard to fix that in such a short space of time.

To give Ruud some credit, he also made some fairly simple changes to Man United that made them way more stable. under Ten Haag Man United were way too open, and Casimeiro was exposed. So he put in Ugarte next to him and focusses defending down one side of the pitch to make the game more compact. These things are pretty basic, but anyone coming into Leicester first and foremost needs to have a good idea of how to stop the rot, and there's some evidence RVN could do that. He also makes the Turtle Neck look extremely elegant on the touchline!

This is a big issue that needs fixing ASAP. There's two possible options IMO. Go to a standard 4231 that doesn't look to build in a 325 shape. This will mean a lot less possesion and probably a worse attack, but on paper would make us more resilient. Forest play this way and look how well they've done. With Ricardo injured and VK and Thomas on the other side, this sort of setup scares me though. The other way would be to go 3/5 at the back. But then you're not getting the best out of our wingers. Really poor squad planning overall. What do Reid, Skipp offer here? Some players don't fit into either system we have tried.

I was rewatching the game for the post match analysis and he was truly awful against Man United. Justin in some phases of the game does offer something, even in this awful system Cooper uses. VK in many games neither improves the defence nor aids the attack. The first goal comes because he makes an awful backpass after one of our corners.

Yes I think you're right. Those injuries killed his potential, which is unfortunate for JJ.

There's only so many ways you can say "these tactics are rubbish and the person using them even more so" using fancy words and stats. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. We did a match reaction, and it was very noticable that many people who previously had been behind the manager changed their mind with a lot of vitriol throughout the stream. Given that Ricardo is out for a while, this is big trouble for us. I would suggest doing what Forest do and go for a more bog standard 4231, focussing on being hard to beat and hitting on the break. We ship way too many goals every game, and that will send us down.

Pretty much all of our woes come down to the system we play. Here's Garnacho's goal. Look at where JJ is compared to Garnacho. He doesn't know if he's coming or going. IMO it's not even about positioning, because I think playing this way means even the best team will get caught out of positoon. Here's their second goal. He and Facundo are out of position so Mazraoui has time to pick a cross. Ndidi not covering himself in glory either by not picking up Bruno. ^ Here was his reaction to be taken off. I feel sorry for him, I don't think he wants to play this role because it's an impossible task. Every team in the league knows what side to attack Leicester, and it works every single game.

He was, but he's being hung out to dry because of the system Cooper is trying to play. It's just not working. Any player in that position would struggle. With Ricardo out for four months, it's going to be JJ there for a lot longer.

How it feels watching Cooper manage Leicester City...

Does this mean Fatawu on the left, Buonanotte on the right and then ether Soumare our Ndidi as the 10?