Lillehamring

I doubt it'll be anywhere near a consensus: - some people enjoy watching this type of domineering football. - some people won't care one way or the other as long as we're getting the results (anything is better than last season, right?) - and the remaining section of people who want him out will just be the usual suspects who are never happy, regardless of how we're playing. - maybe there will be a small group who don't care about results but want to see football that barely exists these days. Ultimately though, as long as the results are good the consensus will be happy for him to continue -

To be fair, at that point he had at least 6 winger options that he didn't really know - and most of the rotation was in that position (plus#9) I think he knows now when how and who he wants to use in those positions

We don't know what he's being coached - maybe he is being told where to improve but is just struggling to do so in game situations?

Not sure if that's really something we can say - he's played his whole career at that level, no reason to suggest he can't do it in the prem playign enzoball - not every team (in fact probably the minority) of teams in the PL play a high press. Not sure what systems he played in germany.

I think it's impossible to really talk about progression/regression so early into the process. Learning curves are seldom the smooth arc we're inclined to imagine them as - the way i imagine things have been are like this: in the brief pre-season maresca taught them the fundamentals of his system and for the first series of games we had a very simple plan and stuck to it, with the quality we have we took that simple plan and made it work - getting better each game as it became more natural. gradually he has expanded the system and given them much more to think about, as such we dropped back to that earlier way of playing, whilst we started to acclimate the new ideas - that it combined with a run of tougher games probably hasn't helped. watford and west brom, even at times against sheffield, we've seen them settle back down into the rhythm again. I think, from an individual player point of view, you can also add in the possibility that we had something of a combined new manager/players/system bounce - as we know this is always hard to sustain and now it's everyday and players can't always get the performance they have previously - and so we have seen some dips in individual quality, bad decision making and poor execution for example. naturally there are confidence bounces that teams get - hopefully we'll hit one of these as a result of the great win at west brom.

I think it's easy to forget that mavididi has only played with this team and this system for 1500 minutes, fatawu just 846 - it's going to take time for them to adapt, and it isn't just a case of fitting in to a team that is already established, it's fitting into a team that is itself still learnign the system. I'm sure, given, time, we'll see a lot more from them - they've both played at a higher level than this.

We do see occasions where either mads, vesty or faes pass into space further up the field, but rarely when they are deep with the ball, normally when we've worked the ball forwards, playing between the press. This is the real quality of his system, that there are so many different ways of essentially doing the same thing, or same few things - but all depending on how the opposition react - which is why it's so hard to describe, sometimes even to spot what is happening.

This is true. But i don't think this is about trust or quality, i think it's more about fitness and easing a player back after a tricky injury.

I've definitely seen mads come for a cross and look to see if there are options, but can't remember the last time he saw one, or at least targeted one.

I noticed that first half - faes had a couple, winks, maybe ricardo or vesty?

Thanks for finding the exact ranking, i tried to post some stats but this makes it much clearer why there is this perception that we play boring football. But if you take this stat relative to our 4th ranked xG - it shows that the attitude of the players/instructions of the manager (and perhaps the problem right now) is that we'll only shoot when we feel like we have a good chances to score - thus the lowish shot count/high xG. I suspect some of these teams above us in your stat are the sort of teams that shoot as soon as they see the goal.

I'm more surprised that mads hasn't released a quick ball more often, especially when he's got it in his hands - i suspect that the expectation of the slow build up means that there's no real hustle from the players to get free for him. As for long balls, i think you'll only see them in this sort of situation where mads sees an opening, otherwise long ball is the kryptonite to possession football.

People still calling for Cannon to start - do you realise he hasn't played a minute of competitive football since May and is coming off a back injury, not just a sprained ankle. He'll get a few minutes in one of these games soon, but it'll most likely be a slow process over the next month.

And this is the beauty of our team right now, not only do we look super fit, but the system allows us to remain in the game longer than our opponents, I'm sure at the start of the game, that number two would have caught one of them up, and three of the other four west brom players don't even try - shades of Youri getting lapped by the ref. And their #5, i think it is, even has a head start, but once he tries to change direction, he's dead, there's nothing in his legs.

Enzo, he say, No.

And even this is weirdly unfair - with only free-scoring ipswich having bagged more than us. People talk about leeds as a better attacking side than us, yet they have the same amount of goals as us despite having a slightly higher xG. So it's not even the lack of an end product that is causing the 'boring factor', but, i would suggest, the amount of goals/chances relative to the amount of possession we have. Again to compare with Leeds, with similar goals scored and xG - they have achieved this with just 56.9% of the ball, whilst we have consumed 64.3% of the ball, and ipswich, who have outscored us both have managed it with just 52.3% of possession

This is exactly what i've observed. And this being as it is, the only way we'll see anything other than low scoring games is when either a) we get better at finding the gaps in their deep sit, or b) we take advantage of these teams when they push for something at 60-70 minutes with the score at, as you suggest, 0-0 or 1-0 as we did against blackburn and preston.

But if you look at the squad that played yesterday, only faes, ndidi, kdh, ricardo and nacho had played together with any regularity before this season - the others are either new to the club, up from the youth team or have been absent through injury/out of favour. So really the squad bears almost no relationship with those historical squads you mention.

The first goal came from a high press, the second a counter attack, and the rest of the game was possession to soften up their back line - that's a pretty decent mix of elements, to be fair. Also, although we have the highest quality squad in the league, it's one that really hasn't played much together: faes, ricardo, ndidi, kdh and the strikers - the rest are either new to the club, up from the academy or hardly played under rodgers - so it's understandable that we don't have the same (relative) fluidity of man city.

Perhaps. I'm not sure if it's a conscious decision, though - or simply a natural cautious reaction. And there are numerous games where we have scored and then gone on to score again, so i don't think it is policy to just sit back after scoring.

Granted, we need to get better at scoring more goals before it comes down to these kind of panicky endings - but in most of these games it's not through a lack of trying or chances, but simply the fact that we're having a bit of a struggle in the final third.

Let's not forget that we were 'lucky' for the entire 15/16 season

And forest have now only won once in the last 10 games, 7 points from their last 30. It's a good day.

i thought Justin had his best game today under maresca. Problem is, i still don't think he's got enough to his game to make a difference often enough. Also thought Fatawu played much more smartly today, so that's a positive.

it's because these fans have already decided that casadei is shit and that is it. final. period. the end.