StriderHiryu

The TL:DR of my analysis is that I think it did work, but was undone by some catastrophic defensive mistakes. To be fair to Nuno, he did make some adjustments to try to stop Leicester in the second half, but overall it was effective. At the same time, we must berudgingly give Forest some respect. Liverpool couldn't score against them, and whilst we got one goal, we never looked like scoring another. At the moment you'd have to say they are the best counter attacking team in the league.

I will cover this in the post match analysis. I do agree with the statement on passing, but there were a few times when Okoli cleaned up on a counter attack where Vestergaard simply would not have had the pace to catch up to Elanga or Hudson-Odoi. And whilst this game was defined by indivdual mistakes, this was a tactical battle of possession football versus a counter attacking team with pace. And in games like that, you need players to help you on those counter transitions.

My notifications have blown up, but here are some of the guys and I's thoughts on the game. Liked the first half, but tweaks from Forest and some awful individual mistakes made for a comprehensive victory for Nuno's men. I hope Cooper sticks with the system, but think some of the senior players (Faes!) need to take some accountability tonight.

I don’t care about the result, that’s the team I wanted to see! Makes me think player power won!

Me right now:

Very fair points. I think we are more vulnerable this season compared to last, but yes it was also an issue last season. To try to compenstate Enzo would: Change which full back position Ricardo would invert from based on the wingers we were up against Change Faes or Justin around so Justin was on the side with the faster winger Instigated a more aggressive 5 man press when losing the ball high up the field Instructed players to make more tactical fouls on the turnover Despite all that, playing with a 325 shape inherently is less stable than a 4231. Look at Forest on Friday. They don't create much because they don't try to generate a player superiority high up the pitch, but equally, they don't give away so many because there are men back in key positions even on transition. Football is always evolving, so what works today might not work later in the season.

You can see the pre match thread for more on this, but I want to try and explain visually the issue Cooper has with his system compared to Enzo's. A situation like this almost happened against Southampton on the weekend, and I am worried it will happen again on Friday. I am going to use two examples. In both examples, we are going to imagine that Leicester from a goal kick start building and one of the CDM's goes for a ball to one of the wingers, which gets cut out by Milenkovic. The opposition then go direct and try to counter as fast as possible, which is exactly how Forest play. ^ In this example, because the right back moves so far upfield and Buonanotte drifts in centrally, on the counter, Fatawu gets 2 on 1's, meaning Faes has to step over. That makes a gap behind him, which can be exploited. Fulham's Iwobi scored a goal very similar to this earlier in the season. ^ In this example, Ricardo is in the team. This time round, because he covers the RB position when in the defensive phase, he can get back to help out on the wings, wheres Buonanotte can stay central. In this case, because we aren't overrun, I suggest that Ricardo wins the ball back and sets Fatawu on his way, who goes for a trademark long shot by cutting in. You can even see that in this example, Buonanotte makes the trademark "half space run" to drag players out of position to help Fatawu have more room to cut in. Now both these examples are totally imaginary and do involve some "Disneyland" scenarios. but hopefully they go some way to help explain the problem with Cooper's system, and why so many goals have come down our right hand side (the opposition's left) this season. It's the system not the player!

Here's my match preview: In this video, I am also going to try something new, to explain why Steve Cooper's use of Fatawu as a right back (or James Justin as it has been in recent games) leads to issues. I am going to use two examples. In both examples, we are going to imagine that Leicester from a goal kick start building and one of the CDM's goes for a ball to one of the wingers, which gets cut out. The opposition then go direct and try to counter as fast as possible, which is exactly how Forest play. ^ In this example, because the right back moves so far upfield and Buonanotte drifts in centrally, on the counter, Fatawu gets 2 on 1's, meaning Faes has to step over. That makes a gap behind him, which can be exploited. Fulham's Iwobi scored a goal very similar to this earlier in the season. ^ In this example, Ricardo is in the team. This time round, because he covers the RB position when in the defensive phase, he can get back to help out on the wings, wheres Buonanotte can stay central. In this case, because we aren't overrun, I suggest that Ricardo wins the ball back and sets Fatawu on his way, who goes for a trademark long shot by cutting in. You can even see that in this example, Buonanotte makes the trademark "half space run" to drag players out of position to help Fatawu have more room to cut in. Now both these examples are totally imaginary and do involve some "Disneyland" scenarios. but hopefully they go some way to help explain the problem with Cooper's system, and why so many goals have come down our right hand side (the opposition's left) this season. It's the system not the player!

Last season teams parked the bus against us, and that’s one reason we struggled towards the finish line. Not one team has done that to us yet this time round, which is why the Enzo system will likely work well against most teams.

That is a great question. The best answer would be to go back to Winks and Ricardo and have Ricardo in the team as the inverted player who moves back to RB when we reach the defensive phase of the game. Ndidi could do it, but do you want to move him back there when his defensive stats are absurd as the ones below? I don't think so, which means you have to have him operating centrally in the team somewhere, meaning he has to be one of the 8's. Maybe you can have Fatawu play there, but as said at the end of the video, you want Fatawu and Mavididi available as soon as we break to hit teams on the transition. You don't want Winks inverting because he's the quarterback that makes the key line breaking passes. However, if Ricardo isn't coming into the team, then I think the player next to Winks is the one that inverts, even if that player is Ndidi. It might not work out, but I would try that approach first. You have to remember that the player in the right back slot is only there in the defensive phase, they move back to the middle as soon as we get back on the ball.

I am crap at Graphic design, but have been using Canva. As you can probably tell, throughout my career I have had to give a crazy amount of presentations, and I find that making some slides means you can arrange your thoughts and structure a video in a much better way. Many fan channels are good, but they feel all over the place. I'd love it if I could do a high quality video with animations, custom video, etc like the top channels do, but maybe that will happen in about 10 years time!!!

Great comment! If you look at the underlying xG, we might have scored the 9th most amount of goals, but we certainly didn't deserve to score that many. ^ According to the underlying stats, we are the 16th best performing team. ^ And if you want a really terrifiying stat, we should have conceded the most amount of goals in the league, but because we have a Schmeichel regen in goal, we haven't! Stats don't mean everything though, a lot of this is down to us being defensive and parking the bus when Cooper is negative. So I think it's also fair to say that if he unleashed the shackles a bit, we are a better team than the underlying data suggests. For me the TL;DR is that our squad is better than we maybe give it credit for, but that the manager needs to recognise that fact too. And so far when he has let them go free a bit more, such as against Spurs and Southampton second half, even against Villa after going two down, we have looked much, much better.

What an unbelievable game of football! Red cards, a penalty, a two-goal comeback and a winner with the last kick of the match! I ran around my flat like a kid after Ayew grabbed the winner in a game that I enjoyed massively. But now 24 hours later, can we make sense of the chaos and the carnage? Let's try and find out! ^ The stats show we produced our highest xG of the season. Yes the game turned on the red card, but we were already at 2.4 xG at the moment the penalty was awarded. I might be on my own with thinking this, but I genuinely think we would have won the game even at 11 v11. ^ Leicester made one change to the team that beat Bournemouth with El Khanouss coming in for Jordan Ayew. ^ In my pre-match preview I mentioned how against Leeds, Southampton used a different system and beat them three times, including in the play-off final. In those games they were content to have less possession and try and hit Leeds on transition. Given what a huge game this was for Russell Martin, I thought it might be possible he tried the same thing... ^ But in fact Southampton went 343 or 541, depending on your view point. Given Ross Stewart was injured, and Tyler Dibling had been a breakout star, this made a lot of sense and allowed them to keep the same gameplan of being a bit more solid and better on transition, but retain their best players. This meant right from the start that Martin threw a spanner in the works. Would Cooper be able to recognise the change and make the neccessary adjustments? Well not in the first half as we all saw. I will say that on paper the decision to start El Khanouss and Buonanotte against a team that was going to sit back should have helped us out. But clearly the system change was not expected. ^ Southampton started the game very strongly and a big reason why was their obvious aggression. They racked up a lot of yellow cards but also raced into a two goal lead. But this wasn't mindless aggression, this was tactical fouling at it's best, to keep them on top and more importantly to stop Leicester from getting going. ^ Here's a great example from early on in the game. Last season against Maresca, we killed Southampton on transition. Quite simply we waited for Southampton to do something stupid, then robbed them of the ball and raced down the other end to score. So what Russell Martin made sure his team do was to stop that from happening. After Fernandes loses the ball, Manning takes one for the team and cynically brings down Skipp. But the foul did it's job, it stops us in our tracks and keeps them on the front foot. ^ Another example of Southampton's physicality, but also the special attention given to our wingers. More examples can be found in my video, but Southampton frequently doubled up on our wingers, proving Martin had learnt from last season's encounters. ^ A star turn for Leicester against this physical approach was Facundo Buonanotte. We are all in love with him, he's got to be one of the best signings any team made this summer! Here you can see that despite being under pressure and despite being dragged back by Walker-Peters, he progresses up the field with the ball and lays it off to Vardy. El Khanouss who is new to the Premier League should try to learn from him, because this was fantastic, and the argentine not for the first time this season, was electric. ^ However, the story of the first half was that Martin out thought Cooper and beat him in the tactical battle. They take the free-kick quickly to catch Buonanotte out of position, exposing the achilles heel in the Cooper system. Because Buonanotte drifts inside, on a fast break, James Justin will be exposed 2v1, meaning Faes has to move out of position. Despite this, it must be said that Okoli was poor in this move, even if overall he had a good game. Yes the ball takes a bit of a nick of Faes, but this exposes the flaws in our raiding full back system but also that we didn't get out of the gates fast enough in this game. ^ The second goal IMO is even more egregious. Quite simply our team is at sixes and sevens and don't know which of our players need to pick up which of Southampton's. Aribo as the extra man in midfield finds himself totally free, but notice how Dibling and Manning were also free, meaning that the Southampton tactical change totally unlocked the Leicester door. For me this is on the coaching team, so that's Cooper and whoever the defensive coach is. The Southampton change of shape was obvious when the team lineups came in and if not, definitely was after 5 minutes. Better instructions are needed. Aribo as a midfielder should have been picked up either Ndidi or Skipp. Skipp here I feel is poor, neither blocking the passing lane to Aribo or Manning. This possibly led to his withdrawal at half time. ^ This was our best move of the first half. This is what Cooper's system is supposed to achieve, having the raiding fullback, the drifting 10 and the nominal 10 all combine in triangles to create an opportunity. El Khanouss who grew into the game was desperately unlucky here, and I was impressed with the way he turned with the ball and opened up his body for the shot. ^ I have been critical of the Cooper system throughout the season. My major issue with it is that it means our fullbacks join the attack, which is nowhere near as dangerous as having two tricky wingers attack the opposition fullbacks. Kristiansen had a good first half, but for all his endeavour, I could find just one cross in the entire half he put in. Is it worth having him in the team when we could start with two wingers instead? Well this game gave us our answer. I want to say again that this is not an issue with the player, it's an issue with the system, and it's why objectively the stats show we don't create much when we play the Cooper system. You'd need someone like Andy Robertson to get it to work. Even Ricardo IMO would not have the stamina to go up and down all the time and would be found out 2v1 and it's the reason why Justin gets exposed time and time again. ^ Just to prove my point, here are the differences in stats between the two halves. Yes the red card made a difference, but even prior to it, our xG was significantly up. Incredibly despite only having an xG of 0.8, that is actually higher than some enitre matches we've had under Cooper, further underlying my criticism of his system. It's not creative enough. ^ If Carlsberg did second halves, this was one for the ages! ^ In every post match analysis post I have made so far this season, I have been critical of the manager's lack of substitutions and for not making them soon enough. But credit must be given where it's due. Cooper went for it, made daring changes and it worked! Some people have suggested that it was the players that bullied him into changing the system, and thay maybe he was facing the sack if the result stood. Perhaps that is the case. But by hook or by crook, changes were made, and eventually those changes swung the game. And I am all for it! ^ We can see that Cooper's changes made a huge difference, whereas Southampton got progressively worse. I think we see just how strong our squad is comparitively to theirs, but also shows that due to the yellow cards picked up in the first half, Southampton had to make changes. And of course the red card, totally changed the game into attack vs defence. ^ Winks was the first change, and though by himself he did not change the game much, we can see he demanded the ball and looked to be the key pass instigator. It was noticable after the next change I will talk about how often he demanded the ball from Okoli and was actively orchestrating the attack. In fact to me it seemed like this was the first half of football that Winks seemed to enjoy, and he looked way more like his best from last season. ^ But the key change we made was the return of Abdul Fatawu. FINALLY, Steve Cooper gave into the fans and played BOTH wingers at the same time. And for me Fatawu was Man of the Match because this change swung the game. ^ Here is how the team looked after Kristiansen went off. Justin moved to Left centre back (VERY interesting he went on the left by the way, making the recent rumours seem quite believable), we had two box crashers and two wingers. Maybe Ricardo could also have come in, but if we lined up like this against Forest, I would be pretty happy. ^ Here's a shot some of the lads asked me to make during the game. They wanted to point out the clear attacking 5 and return to the "Enzo system." Two wingers hugging the touchline, a five mat attack, the false 9 and the double pivot. And Leicester looked SO much better as a result of it. ^ Just before I get to the good stuff, I want to point out the reason why I think Cooper does not like Enzo's system. In the video, I go into it much more detail, but in this situation we see that in the defensive phase, you have Fatawu at right back, and maybe isolated. On paper a winger isn't as good defensively as a full back. However, it should be noted that Enzo solved this by using an inverted fullback, so in this example, the right back would have been Ricardo, who would have moved back from CDM to RB. In this case, Ndidi moved out to right wing, and Fatawu to RB. It should be noted that even in this instance, we deal with the attack and that overall, the threat that 2 wingers give you for me is worth way more than having both Justin and Kristiansen in the team. ^ Now onto the stuff you clicked on this thread for! Time for the Abdul Fatawu show. What an impact he made. You could audibly hear on TV the fear in the stadium every time he got on the ball. Either inside or out, he was a threat and Southampton not for the first time simply could not handle him. This goal made me smile as it was very reminscent of our best moves last season. Fatawu gets to the byline after being found by Winks, and cuts it back for a box crasher to tap it in. Lovely stuff! ^ Here is the entire sequence for the second goal. So much to love here. First is the outrageous cut inside and shot from Fatawu. I would note that the 5 man attack means Fatawu can hug the touchline and we can isolate him 1v1way more often. But in this case Fatawu is 1v2 and still has the beating of both men! After his shot cannons off the upright, what I love is that we recycle the ball and maintain the attack. Then Mavididi, the other winger, crosses to Fatawu, so that's both wingers combining together. Mavidid doesn't even have to look that much, in this system, he knows the man will be there. And then even though Fatawu doesn't score, Vardy is there to pick up the pieces. It's definitely a penalty and though the red card might be harsh, it is serious foul play. And all of a sudden from two down, we are looking for a winner. ^ What I loved about our performance was that even though the winner was on, we didn't force things. Those lessons from Maresca last season kept true and we were patient. This is a nice move and though the final pass is a total miskick from Bobby Reid, I could not believe Buonanotte missed given the form he's in! ^ Did we get lucky against Southampton? Of course we did, but it doesn't take away from an incredible fightback. However, we must say that if we deserved a penalty, then Southampton did too, this is a pretty obvious shirt pull from Ayew to stop Onuachu. ^ I didn't include Faes almost scoring the OG of the season, but did want to include this brilliant block he made late on. Even though they were down to ten men, Southampton were always going to get one half chance, but Faes stood firm and kept the dream of a winner on. ^ But there was still room for one more twist in the tale! For me one of the signings of the summer isn't even on the pitch, it's on the sidelines! Norwich scored tons of creative goals from set pieces last season, including against us. And he's made a big difference to us, with us being joint top in terms of goals scored and having only conceded once from a set piece ourselves. ^ And how's this for a training ground special. The audacity from Winks to even try this in the 98th minute is amazing. The team pushes right up against the touchline to exploit the man-to-man marking from Southampton, leaving TWO men free on the edge of the box. It falls to Ayew who sends the away fans into delerium! ^ So wow what a game of football! What does it mean? Well if the manager chooses, this could be the turning point. We looked so much better with the system change, that surely he's got to start that way on Friday? I suspect he will drop Mavididi and bring in Fatawu, but it's clear to me the players want them both in the team, along with Winks and possibly Ricardo in the double pivot. No one wants to dislike the manager and he must be given credit for a brilliant turnaround and making the right subs at the right times. Play both wingers, attack the game and the fans will get behind you. Is he humble enough to admit he needs to change it up? I honestly don't know, but I hope that he is!

Funnily enough there is a bit about this in today’s video. However, I will say that Southampton changed their formation which clearly bamboozled Cooper for a long time. They kept finding the spare man because Cooper wasn’t fast enough to organise the defence to match their changed system.

Great image on the official site! "My work here is done!"

Fraser was sent off at 73 minutes, we made the change at 60. So we got the two goals whilst both teams were even, more or less. Playing 2 fullbacks on paper seems stronger defensively, but the way Cooper plays, it isn’t. In fact I’d argue it’s even more susceptible on transition because the raiding full back will be up too high and lead to the frequent 2v1s that JJ has to face. So we end up with a weaker attack and a weaker defence. If we played more of a traditional 4231 like Puel or Rodgers in his second full season then I’d buy the better defensive stability argument. In fact there’s a lot of good arguments for going that way; Everton are churning out results playing that way. If that’s the suggestion for the system to play, it’s a good discussion to have. The reality is that Cooper has tried to replicate Enzo’s system but didn’t understand how it worked. And that’s why it hasn’t worked all season long. Enzo’s system also had flaws but it was proven today that it’s way better than Cooper’s system.

He seems good as a player to bring on in the last 30 minutes of the game, either to see it out or get something from. He can play anywhere in the front line. What's his best position? I don't know! Palace fans said he was best on the wing, but had his best season playing up front. I think there are better starters, but he's a good squad option and has turned out to be a good purchase overall. That team was the one that got us back to 2-2 today. That system was the one we used to win the Championship. The players clearly prefer it.

Yeah I am looking forward to doing it for once! One of my favourite games for a long time, because of the stark contrast. I can see it coming on Monday as a result. In the meantime, we did out Instant Match thoughts here: Warning, at the start my mic is too loud mainly because I had just been screaming my head off after Jordan Ayew got the winner!

A message for Facundo, if you read these forums:

I've got to say I strongly disagree with this. The answer isn't having the back 4, it's playing the Enzo system! Ricardo is a top class player and certainly could / should play in the starting XI. But if he does so, he should be in one of the double pivot positions and come in for Ndidi, who could move up and play as a CAM instead of El-Khanouss. The reason we won the Saints game is we went back to the system that worked in the Championship, a 5 man attack with 2 wingers. NOT two fullbacks.

For me he was the reason we won the game. Perhaps overall Buonanotte gets MOTM, but that was peak Fatawu and why we all love him so much.

Post Match Analysis video will be 5 hours long today! Switched to Enzo's system and smashed it! That was the key difference.

It is quite incredible isn't it!

Ha I was just about to say! Are they going 2 men up top or just one, that's what we need to look out for. If they are, who is that player? I think it might be Dibling, though he will start from deep. This will change the game a lot, we will probably have more possession than Southampton now. This makes the BEK and Buonanotte pick look even better.

My match preview if you are interested!