The Tactics Thread

[StanSP]

Tonight's 2nd half was class. Mainly because of the effort put in by every single player off the ball. Players are more aware on teams' strengths and seem naturally ready to try and stop it (set-pieces are still a focal point to improve!).

 

I can't remember which game it was earlier in the season where we absolutely bossed it in nullifying the opposition by cutting down the passing lanes/channels but today we did the same. They couldn't get the ball out quickly to Hudson-Odoi, Havertz, Chilwell, Pulisic and that stifled them. It meant they couldn't always get space to run in to and the tracking back of Albrighton, Justin, Castagne to stop that from happening was so key. Abraham barely had any touches in our box. Granted there were a couple of times that Ndidi lost Mount and they were able to pass through the middle and get forward, leading to the free-kick/penalty decision, but other than that the discipline of the team was pretty much always there. Even when that did happen anyway, Fofana and Evans' reading of the game was impeccable and they were ready to step in or step up to cut out the supply to their attackers. 

 

  

[StriderHiryu]

10 hours ago, StanSP said:

Tonight's 2nd half was class. Mainly because of the effort put in by every single player off the ball. Players are more aware on teams' strengths and seem naturally ready to try and stop it (set-pieces are still a focal point to improve!).

 

I can't remember which game it was earlier in the season where we absolutely bossed it in nullifying the opposition by cutting down the passing lanes/channels but today we did the same. They couldn't get the ball out quickly to Hudson-Odoi, Havertz, Chilwell, Pulisic and that stifled them. It meant they couldn't always get space to run in to and the tracking back of Albrighton, Justin, Castagne to stop that from happening was so key. Abraham barely had any touches in our box. Granted there were a couple of times that Ndidi lost Mount and they were able to pass through the middle and get forward, leading to the free-kick/penalty decision, but other than that the discipline of the team was pretty much always there. Even when that did happen anyway, Fofana and Evans' reading of the game was impeccable and they were ready to step in or step up to cut out the supply to their attackers. 

 

  

Will be very interesting to see a Tactical breakdown of this match. I myself will re-watch the game at least once before the weekend because tactically and systematically we were superb in that game. Many of us gave Southampton massive praise for their first half against us, and I felt like our performance last night was similar in the way that our players were organised. Chelsea tried to play Mount deeper to nullify Tielemans, something I am surprised other teams have not tried yet, but Youri was totally unaffected and gave him the run-around, the sign of a truly class player. Teams tried that against Xavi when he was at Barcelona, and had the same result, he was too good to be man marked! Maddison mentioned something about changing the system slightly in the second half, which makes sense as this season Youri does a lot more shielding (hence more tackles made) than he did last season, whereas Maddison is almost becoming Lampard like with late runs into the box. He himself said his role was more of an 8 than a 10 in that game, although I feel like that's not always the case in every game.

 

For me though the article @Ashley posted about our defensive pressing was the story of this game. Both teams tried to press last night, but one was organised properly with each play issued with clear instructions who carried out their plan to the letter. The other team, Chelsea did not know what to do. It's not a case of Chelsea's players being bad, but more that their tactical plan is chaotic, creating uncertainty. Look how many times they would try to press in packs, get turned and then Youri or Maddison could put one ball through to cut through two lines of their entire defence. An 11 a side pitch is massive, and if you just go running about like headless chickens there will be space all over the place. Conversely compare that to the Albrighton / Castagne double-act who were incredible all game long. Those two were like Atalanta, Leipizg, Bayern Munich or Liverpool at their peak. It is such a hard style to deal with, as Klopp has proved over the years.

 

Just overall, really, really impressive. Rodgers doing a brilliant job.

[HighPeakFox]

1 minute ago, StriderHiryu said:

Will be very interesting to see a Tactical breakdown of this match. I myself will re-watch the game at least once before the weekend because tactically and systematically we were superb in that game. Many of us gave Southampton massive praise for their first half against us, and I felt like our performance last night was similar in the way that our players were organised. Chelsea tried to play Mount deeper to nullify Tielemans, something I am surprised other teams have not tried yet, but Youri was totally unaffected and gave him the run-around, the sign of a truly class player. Teams tried that against Xavi when he was at Barcelona, and had the same result, he was too good to be man marked! Maddison mentioned something about changing the system slightly in the second half, which makes sense as this season Youri does a lot more shielding (hence more tackles made) than he did last season, whereas Maddison is almost becoming Lampard like with late runs into the box. He himself said his role was more of an 8 than a 10 in that game, although I feel like that's not always the case in every game.

 

For me though the article @Ashley posted about our defensive pressing was the story of this game. Both teams tried to press last night, but one was organised properly with each play issued with clear instructions who carried out their plan to the letter. The other team, Chelsea did not know what to do. It's not a case of Chelsea's players being bad, but more that their tactical plan is chaotic, creating uncertainty. Look how many times they would try to press in packs, get turned and then Youri or Maddison could put one ball through to cut through two lines of their entire defence. An 11 a side pitch is massive, and if you just go running about like headless chickens there will be space all over the place. Conversely compare that to the Albrighton / Castagne double-act who were incredible all game long. Those two were like Atalanta, Leipizg, Bayern Munich or Liverpool at their peak. It is such a hard style to deal with, as Klopp has proved over the years.

 

Just overall, really, really impressive. Rodgers doing a brilliant job.

Who do you think you are? Bloody smart-arse know-it-all....

 

[Ric Flair]

In simplistic terms, where we have improved in this 4-1-4-1 / 4-3-3 / 4-2-3-1 whatever you want to call it this season from last season where we seemed to get found out and hit a huge slump is we've become much harder to beat and more aggressive. We have stronger players physically and mentally in Castagne, Fofana, Justin and Albrighton. Barnes has gotten tougher, and Maddison has become more mature in the way he plays, likewise Tielemans seems able to cope with being pressed and harried and has adapted to any opposition.

 

We may have lost a little flair and ability to rip teams apart and rack up loads of goals but teams find it harder to do a number on us now and in a sense we are more effective and a better team. Albrighton has been a huge catalyst for this, it's the one position we have struggled in under Rodgers and you could argue if we want to improve our attacking dominance then that's the area we would bring in an elite attacking winger (Ünder possibly) but at what cost to our overall effectiveness? Do we need to be more attacking? I'd say right now, not at all! Let's see if we can pinch a trophy this season and/or get top 4 and that will help us continue to evolve.

[StriderHiryu]

2 minutes ago, HighPeakFox said:

Who do you think you are? Bloody smart-arse know-it-all....

 

 

Well actually I feel like I am a bit of a Lampard! For me, he's got an idea of what he wants his team to do; he sees teams like the ones I mentioned and is trying to recreate that style. But the problem is he doesn't know how to do it, which is not surprising because it's bloody hard! I genuinely wonder how coaches get players to pick up these systems and to give an example, Klopp often takes quite a while to introduce players into his team such as Keita, Fabinho, Oxlaide-Chamberlain. That's because when you try to play a high press, if just one person is not standing in the correct position, it opens up the entire team. I imagine clubs video tape training sessions, pull players over and show them what they did wrong on the iPad, etc. But in Lampard's case, he clearly doesn't have the textbook on how to play pressing football and hasn't yet been able to be able to work it out for himself. He would actually have been better off staying with Derby and practicing that system until he understood it to the minute detail before implementing it. Compare Lampard to Bielsa, Bielsa has Championship players at his disposal with one or two more established players, but are well organised and drilled. The same is true with Hassenhutl, and both of those managers have used time to understand the nuances of the systems they are trying to implement. Hassenhutl in particular survived getting beaten 9-0 at home to tweak his system to fantastic results. 

 

One of the reasons I am so interested in tactics is because it's the organisation of a team. A good team can beat a bunch of star players who don't work well with one another easily, as was proved last night. That's one of many reasons for me why Football is a brilliant game to watch!

[HighPeakFox]

1 hour ago, StriderHiryu said:

 

Well actually I feel like I am a bit of a Lampard! For me, he's got an idea of what he wants his team to do; he sees teams like the ones I mentioned and is trying to recreate that style. But the problem is he doesn't know how to do it, which is not surprising because it's bloody hard! I genuinely wonder how coaches get players to pick up these systems and to give an example, Klopp often takes quite a while to introduce players into his team such as Keita, Fabinho, Oxlaide-Chamberlain. That's because when you try to play a high press, if just one person is not standing in the correct position, it opens up the entire team. I imagine clubs video tape training sessions, pull players over and show them what they did wrong on the iPad, etc. But in Lampard's case, he clearly doesn't have the textbook on how to play pressing football and hasn't yet been able to be able to work it out for himself. He would actually have been better off staying with Derby and practicing that system until he understood it to the minute detail before implementing it. Compare Lampard to Bielsa, Bielsa has Championship players at his disposal with one or two more established players, but are well organised and drilled. The same is true with Hassenhutl, and both of those managers have used time to understand the nuances of the systems they are trying to implement. Hassenhutl in particular survived getting beaten 9-0 at home to tweak his system to fantastic results. 

 

One of the reasons I am so interested in tactics is because it's the organisation of a team. A good team can beat a bunch of star players who don't work well with one another easily, as was proved last night. That's one of many reasons for me why Football is a brilliant game to watch!

Well, you were chatting absolute s**t yesterday, I didn't like to say...

 

Seriously, I was more amused at Mr Angry taking you to task last night over absolutely nothing...

[StriderHiryu]

Rare for Sky to have a good tactical piece on the club, but these are crazy times we are living in!

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11712/12193227/james-maddison-says-jamie-carragher-analysis-helped-inspire-him-after-starring-in-leicesters-win-over-chelsea

 

"Credit to the manager as well. We made a bit of a switch at half-time to almost go 4-4-2 out of possession, 4-3-3 in possession. Just little things like that, thinking on our feet. We dealt with the threats that came our way and I thought we deserved the three points." - James Maddison

 

 

 

 

Why make the change? Probably because Pulisic drifted into space a few times, including the passage of play that let to their almost penalty from his starting left wing position. Second half we pushed up more and denied that space. Barnes and Maddison also pushed up a lot more in the second half, making Kovacic and Mount have to play further back than in the first half and also trying to find the gaps in Chelsea's poor pressing for the counter attack.

 

Overall in the game I felt like the first 15 minutes we were dominant, then lost control from 20-40 but then after getting our second goal controlled the game completely to see it out. The tactical change definitely helped.

[coolhandfox]

Biggest change this season to last is our tactical flexibility, we seem to be able to make more in game adjustments, and adapt to the our opponent shape and game plan.  

 

BR has become more pragmatic, before he wanted to control the game by have more possession then the other team, now he is also willing to control the game by allow the opponent to havethe ball and control it be denying space though changes in shape etc.

Edited 20 January 2021 by coolhandfox

[coolhandfox]

13 minutes ago, StriderHiryu said:

Why make the change? Probably because Pulisic drifted into space a few times, including the passage of play that let to their almost penalty from his starting left wing position. Second half we pushed up more and denied that space. Barnes and Maddison also pushed up a lot more in the second half, making Kovacic and Mount have to play further back than in the first half and also trying to find the gaps in Chelsea's poor pressing for the counter attack.

 

 

My thought was it was to deny the Chelsea CBs the option to step out with the ball by, Silva was coming into midfield with the ball a lot in the last 20 minutes of the first half, providing a overload, by going 4-4-2 we could keep them pressed back in a little easier.