Man City Away Last Season

[foxes21]

...Is the blueprint we need to follow against the big sides away from home! 8 players camped in our penalty box, Mahrez/Vardy waiting to counter and Drinkwater/Okazaki supporting.

 

Against United/Liverpool we played a line too high, didn't press & lost concentration. If we approach the big teams like we did Vs Man City away last season, 4-4-2/4-4-1-1 is still do-able.

[Danizen]

It's not that easy. Teams have been dropping deep on us since precisely that game. 

 

Plus Man City were all over the place that game. Against Liverpool and Man U we were outplayed for large periods of the match.

[Callabinho]

We're still trying to allow teams to have the ball but unlike last season we don't have the capability of high pressing forcing the turn over in possession. This season we're conceding possession and then getting murdered. Any team with a dynamic front line is going to crucify us this season....I can see the same happening against Southampton in weeks time. 

[Filbo1974]

2 hours ago, Callabinho said:

We're still trying to allow teams to have the ball but unlike last season we don't have the capability of high pressing forcing the turn over in possession. This season we're conceding possession and then getting murdered. Any team with a dynamic front line is going to crucify us this season....I can see the same happening against Southampton in weeks time. 

 I couldn't agree more.... Plan B needs to be activated... It could be argued that we won league playing plan B as we started last season with marauding full backs (plan A)....

[Ted Maul]

Completely agree with the OP. Teams are setting up differently against us, we can't do anything about that (although they will probably just attack us now after our start). 

 

What we can do something about is keeping our shape, avoiding the gaping chasm between the midfield and defence, making sure no one is getting caught too far forward, and if they are, having someone to cover them. We're all over the place at the moment, and I feel camping out with 2 deep banks of 4 waiting for the counter against the better sides would solve a few issues. 

 

[Monk]

As I see it teams are playing off our high pressure game by drawing players out of position and filling the holes with pacey players. 

 

Look at the goals we conceded in the charity shield, against Liverpool and much of the United game. We are committing players to tackles just like last season but teams are wise to it now - and the for me the reason that we are doing well against mediocre teams and terribly against good teams is simply that the best teams have the strength and pace to get in behind our high pressure style. 

 

The answer has to be playing an extra midfielder against stronger faster teams. Yes that will affect our attacking abilities but we simply can't go on conceding 4 goals every other week. 

[ARM1968]

Kante. Yes we've moved on. Without him our team only works sporadically and anyone can beat us. 

[Fox92]

46 minutes ago, ARM1968 said:

Kante. Yes we've moved on. Without him our team only works sporadically and anyone can beat us. 

Exactly this! We lost a World Class player who covered for our players (specifically the defence). This is why, in the summer, I was laughed at on here when I said I'd rather lose Mahrez than Kante.

[Babylon]

28 minutes ago, Fox92 said:

Exactly this! We lost a World Class player who covered for our players (specifically the defence). This is why, in the summer, I was laughed at on here when I said I'd rather lose Mahrez than Kante.

As I said in the other thread, far more to it than that. Our shape has changed. Used to be narrow and deep, now the full backs are wider, which pulls the cb's wider, strikers are further forward and that isolates the CM's.

 

Liverpool last year v Liverpool this year as an example. Losing Kante shouldn't cause some of these issues. This is an extreme example as the full backs weren't always this narrow. But there is a definite pattern to them being wider this year... thought design, or through before forced out there by team pushing wingers and full backs higher up the pitch.

 

[foxy boxing]

everyone knows our blueprint now, we counter attack at pace after getting the ball back, but teams have worked it out now and we need to be more than that. teams will sit deeper against us now and leave little space to run into, we need to be able to adapt our game and be able to change things accordingly

[Stadt]

When you sit deep and counter sides you don't really have to be proactive with the ball, sides over commit and create space for you because they're pushed up themselves - last season we had the 'luxury' of sides being quite aggressive (even later on in the season despite our success) whereas now sides are more willing to concede possession and try and beat us at our own game. Certainly against bottom half sides we'll have the impetus in games that's why Fuchs and Simpson's average positions are higher and wider in order to create a bit more space by stretching the pitch. The biggest problem so far has been the space in front of Huth and Morgan because they're having to step up and deal with threats because Amartey in particular isn't covering the space and tracking runs like a certain someone could. The reason we're playing a higher line is to try and compress that space but that doesn't really suit our defenders, I think Hernandez and Mendy (possibly Ziegler, too) were purchased with a mind on transition to a slightly more possession orientated game of which our backline aren't really suited too.

[deejdeej]

Fair enough, but we scored after 3 minutes and completely changed their game plan, we also had a lot of momentum.