The Tactics Thread

[davieG]

1 hour ago, st albans fox said:

it’s not like Sunday league where you turn up 45mins before kick off and the manager makes some general ‘up and at em’ statements .....  they work on the tactics for days before a match - the stuff pre match is just reminding them of the stuff they have been doing leading up to the weekend. The graphics shown to the subs will be existing patterns relating to the opposition and the state of the game - this wouldn’t be the first time they had seen them.

 

No need for the patronising reply I'm not a 10 year old as for Sunday league management I've been there and done that. 

As I've already stated I'm aware that they do in-depth tactics talks days before the game and to repeat myself I just feel that they overdo the pre-sub  information.

That's my last words on this.

[Vardinio'sCat]

2 hours ago, davieG said:

....and they can't do that without a clipboard or folder full of diagrams?

 

They can, but a decent diagram is quicker.

Tactics are important in football, look at England's world cup campaign, as an example. Everyone knows Southgate was doing things a bit differently, and we saw a real difference.

[l444ry]

3 hours ago, davieG said:

....and they can't do that without a clipboard or folder full of diagrams?

Possibly but it's much easier that way.

[Detroit Blues]

I have two concerns so far with Puel's tactical approach:

I think Mendy has been defensively solid this season, but we're more effective at maintaining possession when Silva is on the pitch instead. I think, quite frankly, we're a bit too defensive with both Ndidi and Mendy on the pitch. We need a midfielder who can do the defensive work and link up with Maddison and Iheanacho. 

My second concern is the right back position. Daniel Amartey is not comfortable in a back four, and Ricardo is a bit too keen to get forward. Quite frankly, Ricardo's defending makes me nervous to play him as a wingback if we we're to play in a back three. Chilwell gets forward but his first instinct is his defensive responsibilities.

Ricardo's first instinct seem to be to attack, and then he has to scramble back when we lose possession. Better counterattacking teams (like Liverpool) would easily exploit his instincts to get up the pitch. I like the idea of pairing Albrighton on the right with Ricardo, because Marc is defensively aware enough to provide cover when Ricardo gets in advanced positions.

[DJ Barry Hammond]

8 hours ago, davieG said:

I'm not saying tactics aren't needed just making the point re subs and bombarding them with graphics etc as you said in your first sentence and I said in my original post they mostly aren't listening a few words giving some specifics is going to have much more impact.

As for the go out and enjoy yourself that was a general thing I also added and close so and so down etc the point I was making was focus on a few specifics verbally not showing them pages of graphics it's surely too late for that.

Why not use both ways of getting instructions across? Having visual and verbal instructions increases the likihood of the instructions being taken on board - even if the substitute isn’t paying full attention.

The other thing to consider is how a key skill for every top footballer is visualisation - suggesting visual rather than audible instructions is a lot more effective - with basic formation visuals of a 4-4-2 or a 4-2-3-1 or a 3-4-3 testament to that.

To labour the point further - think of anything one might learn in life and consider what an advantage it is to learners to be able to see what they’re supposed to do. There are not many tasks where a teacher would rely on just vocal instructions.

[StriderHiryu]

Stumbled upon this blog today, very pertinent to this thread:
https://jadamsftbl.wordpress.com/tactical-terms/

It's got a lot visual examples to make the terms easier to understand and I found it useful and interesting to read.

[Stadt]

6 hours ago, StriderHiryu said:

Stumbled upon this blog today, very pertinent to this thread:
https://jadamsftbl.wordpress.com/tactical-terms/

It's got a lot visual examples to make the terms easier to understand and I found it useful and interesting to read.

 

On 24/08/2018 at 18:12, Stadt said:

Useful glossary of tactical terms: https://jadamsftbl.wordpress.com/tactical-terms/

 

 

[l444ry]

7 hours ago, StriderHiryu said:

Stumbled upon this blog today, very pertinent to this thread:
https://jadamsftbl.wordpress.com/tactical-terms/

It's got a lot visual examples to make the terms easier to understand and I found it useful and interesting to read.

Standard stuff if and when been involved in the game. Assuming everyone knows these terms probably explains some of the disputes on this forum.  

[Vardinio'sCat]

 

5 hours ago, l444ry said:

Standard stuff if and when been involved in the game. Assuming everyone knows these terms probably explains some of the disputes on this forum.  

 

 A bounce pass, eh.  Standard for you perhaps.

I look forward to getting a tremendously positive reaction when I drop one or two of those beauties into my posts. 

 

[Spicer]

I find Puel's general tactics slightly counter intuitive. He wants to play possession based football, fine. However in central midfield we currently play with Mendy and Ndidi who are both good without the ball but not great with it. Silva and Iborra are both better technically but are worse defensively and much less athletic. Maddison doesn't drop into deeper midfield that much meaning it is harder to control possession. If he wants us to keep the ball more we should have 3 central midfielders or play with a diamond. The greater numbers making up for the lack of athleticism with Silva/Iborra.

Silva                Iborra

Ndidi

or

Maddison

Silva                 Iborra

Ndidi

Against Liverpool we won't have the ball much, thus I fully understand why Mendy and Ndidi are being picked. But in every game we stick to a rigid 4411. Puel's tactics against all teams seem to remain the same and aren't addapted to keep possession easier. He says he wants us to play possession football but doesn't help us achieve that with the setup of the team.

[Stadt]

Too much space between the lines today and not enough pressure on Liverpool’s defence during their build up play. It was an issue against Wolves too, we need to be more compact if we’re only going to apply pressure on the half way line or confront the opposition more aggressively and higher up.

[AjcW]

The only issue I saw with tactics today was a lame horse at CB and someone who couldn’t be arsed to run up front (despite their pace!!)

 

I think shape wise if we’d had the right players in from the start we’d have got a draw at least. 

[Redouane]

 

[Shane]

According to Transfermarkt Puel mainly played a 4-3-1-2 in 15/16 at Nice when they finished fourth. 

 

If we sign another CM in January to partner Ndidi and Mendy then this could be a good formation for us. Alternatively we could just give Choudhury, Iborra or Silva a chance but I think Puel would have tried this by now if he had faith in them.

 

The 4-3-1-2 allows Maddison to drift in the hole and Vardy will have a strike partner alongside him. Plus having 3 CM's will surely solve the issue of having to cover our attacking full backs.

[Marutimon]

I know this is a closed subject, but saw this today and can't help but think after seeing Ghezzal, Gray etc. dissapoint, that letting go of Musa was a bit hasty. I mean - the first goal is spectacular, the second just what Leicester needs from a winger, while the third is just superb finishing.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWwCWY0KCWc&feature=player_embedded

 

Add to that his World Cup showing... 

[whoareyaaa]

11 minutes ago, Marutimon said:

I know this is a closed subject, but saw this today and can't help but think after seeing Ghezzal, Gray etc. dissapoint, that letting go of Musa was a bit hasty. I mean - the first goal is spectacular, the second just what Leicester needs from a winger, while the third is just superb finishing.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWwCWY0KCWc&feature=player_embedded

 

Add to that his World Cup showing... 

he's playing in the equivalent to the national league...

 

he blew hot and cold maybe it would have been worth holding onto him but the pace of the game is a lot quicker over here, when he does score he scores some great goals technically so he does have something in there.

 

and thinking about it keeping him for competition for Nacho and Vardy would have probably made sense

Edited 22 September 2018 by whoareyaaa

[kyleolly]

3 minutes ago, whoareyaaa said:

he's playing in the equivalent to the national league

Was going to say what’s the standard like in the Saudi League lol

[StriderHiryu]

The following in an excerpt from a press conference with Marcelo Bielsa the Leeds manager. Why am I posting this here? Well Bielsa is often called one of the most important coaches of modern times by no less than Guardiola and Pochetino, whose styles are definitely inspired by Bielsa. It was he who invented the idea of a high press to tire the other team out and dominate the game that way.

 

This excerpt is a fascinating response. Could you imagine Puel giving such a delivery? The room would probably fall asleep .

 

Bielsa gives some incredibly in depth answers here, which I think are very interesting to read about given the rarity of this type of discussion with the press in the modern game. I had Leeds down to get promoted this year based purely and simply because they have this guy as a coach. They've made some modest signings, but when you have a coach that truly understands the game like this, he can improve players and a team to no end. Only 9 games in of course, but he's impressed already.

 

----------------------------------------

 

 

Marcelo, what went wrong today?

The proposal I chose for this game at the beginning was not the right one. Phillips played in front of Jansson and Cooper. The goal was to make the link thank to Kalvin from defence to attack and we couldn’t reach this goal. In the first 30 minutes we were not fluid to move the ball and we didn’t feel safe because we didn’t recover the ball well.

Kalvin Phillips had to assume the consequences of a mistake that he didn’t make, but I made the mistake. When I did this substitution, in the last hour of the game we dominated the opponent, more than dominated the opponent. We didn’t suffer any situations and we created chances to score.  (Note in this game, Bielsa subbed Phillips off after just 30 minutes after being 2-0 down).

So the analysis of the performance is that it was better, but the play was not better. The game was very tough. It was not easy for us to move the ball. We made many technical mistakes and we were not fresh enough to develop our game, our style, because spaces were smaller and this exhausted our offensive players. The small spaces exhausted our offensive players.

We played in a manner that could have allowed us to get another result but we can't be satisfied how we beat the game.
How disappointed were you with the manner of the goals conceded?

No. The opponent for us is a difficulty that we have to resolve. We were better than our opponent. We should have demonstrated that, getting another result.
The visitors netted twice in the first half hour

If we had played well, instead of having eight chances to score we would have had 20 chances to score. And the feelings would be different. It’s hard to analyse a game and talk about what you deserve when the performance is not good. But even if we didn’t play well, you deserve or not the result at the end of the game.

To make conclusions about this loss, I would take into account the mistake I made in the beginning because when I corrected the mistake, the rival had already scored two goals and our team was less confidence and it’s a high price to pay when you make a tactical mistake.

You've had an excellent start - how would you expect the players to react now you've had a defeat?

We have the obligation for each game. We have to correct what was wrong. We have to recover from the mistake we made but it’s an exercise that we do after every game.

Even if the state of mind is very important in football, as you could see a positive state of mind didn’t allows us to play the kind of game we wanted to play. At the same time we can say that the feelings of this loss won’t prevent us from getting a good result in the next game.

One of your coaches got a yellow card in the second half, do you any complaints with the referee or the timewasting in the game?

No. I don’t have any complaints against the referee.

The situation that he had to solve are the one we saw and he used the rules to solve them, so we have nothing to say against him. He is not responsible for the facts that he has to judge. He has to take a decision about the facts, the events that happened in this game and I think he took the right decisions.


The irritation that the decision of the referee created are linked with the fact that we couldn’t do something else in the pitch. The irritation was also due to the fact the same event happened several times. But all that happened was respecting the rules. What I mean by that is you make a mistake, you get sanctioned and then the referee can sometimes take the right decision, sometimes he can take the wrong one. But I don’t think he had an influence on the result. For example if a player goes to the ground he has the obligation to stop the game, has to wait until the player gets off the pitch. He allows the player to go inside the pitch.

The problem is that this happened many times because the opponent had many injuries and this provoked irritation from those of us who wanted to have a different result. But I see this as we couldn't do anything more to get another result.

Why was Kalvin Phillips the player you chose to sub off in the first half?

I think I explained this. Phillips was in the line of three when we were defending and playing as a No 4 when we have the ball. I took this decision because at Millwall, Klich played as a No 4, Phillips as a centre-back. In the game against Preston Phillips played as a No 4, and Klich did a very good game as a No 8. Preston was playing with just one No 9, Birmingham with two No 9s. So the decision I took, defending with three and when we had the ball we were defending with a line of two.

So Phillips was playing as a centre- back in a defensive situation, and playing as a No 4 when we had the ball. The goal was to have Klich playing as a No 8, like against Preston. This didn’t work and it’s a consequence of the decision I took that didn't work.

In the first half hour we didn’t give the impression that we were safe defensively and we couldn’t make the link between defence and attack because Phillips didn't receive the ball. When this was clear I decided Dallas would play in the position of Ayling and I took the decision that Ayling would play in a three, a more stable line of three and I also took the decision to try to make Klich drop less as possible. This was a more conservative measure, gave a good balance to the team. We were safe defensively and even if we didn’t play well, we didn’t give the feeling that we were unstable.

That’s why I say that Phillips suffered from this decision. He’s not responsible for the problems that our team had during the first half hour. I’d like to make a reference. Which team played better? And if we can say one of the two teams played well. I have to talk about the result that we got and the fact that if we deserved the result or not. So we have many things to take into account and from my point of view, from my position, it’s hard to make this kind of analysis because I can’t base myself on the fact that we played well because the quality of the game was not that well.

Having said that, we dominated the game during 70 and 0% of the time and we had twice as more chances to score than the opponent. So it’s another perspective of the same situation. Of course if we assume our responsibility, we could have won this game, but we couldn’t win this game. It was a home game. There was a big difference in the ranking and without making any opinion on the players of the opponent I’m sure our players are not inferior to those of our opponent.

So we don’t have a lot of margin to find any justification.

Can I just ask the name of the coach who was cautioned?

I don’t even know who received a yellow card. I thought I would receive the yellow card, that I would be responsible for the behaviour of my staff, not because I behaved bad, but because I’m responsible for the behaviour of my staff.

I repeat again, we don’t hold a grudge against the referee and if he felt that one of us judged him and he decided to book one of us, we assume the responsibility.

 

[Foxxed]

What's Puel's game now (assuming he does the same as against Hudderfield)?

 

Four at the back. Maddison, Vardy and Ian floating up front. And Ndidi and Mendy behind them? And an extra player meandering around?

 

4 2 2 2? 4 2 4? 4 2 1 3? 0 8 9 1 5 0 5 0 5 0?

Edited 26 September 2018 by Foxxed

[StriderHiryu]

54 minutes ago, Foxxed said:

What's Puel's game now (assuming he does the same as against Hudderfield)?

 

Four at the back. Maddison, Vardy and Ian floating up front. And Ndidi and Mendy behind them? And an extra player meandering around?

 

4 2 2 2? 4 2 4? 4 2 1 3? 0 8 9 1 5 0 5 0 5 0?

Hard to draw out using online tools but I'd say that we played this system at the start of the second half against Huddersfield and think it's likely to be used versus Newcastle given it worked well. I'd call it a lopsided 4-2-3-1.
 

Chilwell is part of the back four, but this is the only way I could represent that he literally bombs up and down the left hand side all day long, with Maddison in front of him basically drifting into the middle to make two 10's with Nacho who had licence to join Vardy. Vardy stretches play to make space for other players.Literally you could draw the arrow in front of Chilwell as being virtually the length of the pitch as when we have the ball he's basically our left winger, but when we don't he's our left back. Luckily for us, he has started the season so strongly that he's been solid defensively and monstrous going forward. Really if he wasn't in such good form, we couldn't play this way, which is why the other side is not symmetrical.

 

The biggest different with this style compared to the one described in the first post of this thread is that it has some tweaks based on the strengths and weaknesses of our current team. So Whereas Chilwell can bomb on all day long, the system is lopsided because Amartey and Ghezall play more traditionally. Amartey basically sits back in case of a turn over and Ghezall sticks to the wing instead of cutting inside when compared to Maddison who plays as a 10 when we have the ball, but as an 11 when we don't. Basically this is a nod to the fact that even though Ricardo is great going forwards, he's been caught out a number of times defensively and we've suffered as a result. We keep conceding the first goal, so this is an attempt at increasing stability. Of course, we conceded after just 6 minutes against Huddersfield, but at least it was not a system specific issue and was more down to players forgetting to mark.

 

Gray is injured so right wing could be one of Ghezall, Albrighton or Ricardo. I think Puel will go for Ghezall who looked solid defensively against Wolves in the cup. No matter who starts there, that's a position that is very likely to be altered at some point during the game anyway.

 

And of course knowing Puel, be prepared for another random select TM formation when the match actually kicks off!

 

Edited 26 September 2018 by StriderHiryu

[Foxxed]

12 hours ago, StriderHiryu said:

Hard to draw out using online tools but I'd say that we played this system at the start of the second half against Huddersfield and think it's likely to be used versus Newcastle given it worked well. I'd call it a lopsided 4-2-3-1.
 

Chilwell is part of the back four, but this is the only way I could represent that he literally bombs up and down the left hand side all day long, with Maddison in front of him basically drifting into the middle to make two 10's with Nacho who had licence to join Vardy. Vardy stretches play to make space for other players.Literally you could draw the arrow in front of Chilwell as being virtually the length of the pitch as when we have the ball he's basically our left winger, but when we don't he's our left back. Luckily for us, he has started the season so strongly that he's been solid defensively and monstrous going forward. Really if he wasn't in such good form, we couldn't play this way, which is why the other side is not symmetrical.

 

The biggest different with this style compared to the one described in the first post of this thread is that it has some tweaks based on the strengths and weaknesses of our current team. So Whereas Chilwell can bomb on all day long, the system is lopsided because Amartey and Ghezall play more traditionally. Amartey basically sits back in case of a turn over and Ghezall sticks to the wing instead of cutting inside when compared to Maddison who plays as a 10 when we have the ball, but as an 11 when we don't. Basically this is a nod to the fact that even though Ricardo is great going forwards, he's been caught out a number of times defensively and we've suffered as a result. We keep conceding the first goal, so this is an attempt at increasing stability. Of course, we conceded after just 6 minutes against Huddersfield, but at least it was not a system specific issue and was more down to players forgetting to mark.

 

Gray is injured so right wing could be one of Ghezall, Albrighton or Ricardo. I think Puel will go for Ghezall who looked solid defensively against Wolves in the cup. No matter who starts there, that's a position that is very likely to be altered at some point during the game anyway.

 

And of course knowing Puel, be prepared for another random select TM formation when the match actually kicks off!

 

 

So with a left sided attack: Chilwell bombs forward, Mendy drops back, Maddison cuts inside, Iheanacho pushes forward.

 

It seems like Iheanacho has forced this formation. If you were only going to play one striker you could play:

 

                    Vardy

  Gray/Marc Maddison Richardo

             Mendy Ndidi

Chilwell Maguire Evans Amartey

 

(If we assume we can't cover for Richardo's attacking play. Otherwise play Richardo and Ghazzel instead of Amartey)

Edited 27 September 2018 by Foxxed

[StriderHiryu]

5 minutes ago, Foxxed said:

 

So with a left sided attack: Chilwell bombs forward, Mendy drops back, Maddison cuts inside, Iheanacho pushes forward.

 

It seems like Iheanacho has forced this formation. If you were only going to play one striker you could play:

 

                    Vardy

  Gray/Marc Maddison Richardo

             Mendy Ndidi

Chilwell Maguire Evans Amartey

 

(If we assume we can't cover for Richardo's attacking play. Otherwise play Richardo and Ghazzel instead of Amartey)

Definitely agree with you here, and that's credit to the player. At the end of last season, Nacho was in good form and he and Vardy were both liking up well and getting in the goals. I feel like the system we played at the weekend still had flaws but you can't deny that Nacho, Vardy and Maddison all played well and the interplay between them was good. So despite the "random" factor of the team selection at first, I feel it was justified because it did solve two weaknesses. Our right hand side looked more solid and our attacking threat was better. However, we did almost concede a second on the break at 1-1 and Gray can't play for at least a month, so there's still some work to do.

[Foxxed]

23 minutes ago, StriderHiryu said:

Definitely agree with you here, and that's credit to the player. At the end of last season, Nacho was in good form and he and Vardy were both liking up well and getting in the goals. I feel like the system we played at the weekend still had flaws but you can't deny that Nacho, Vardy and Maddison all played well and the interplay between them was good. So despite the "random" factor of the team selection at first, I feel it was justified because it did solve two weaknesses. Our right hand side looked more solid and our attacking threat was better. However, we did almost concede a second on the break at 1-1 and Gray can't play for at least a month, so there's still some work to do.

That's my biggest concern but this seems more an issue for the defence and the defensive midfielders. I'm not sure if Chilwell bombing up front was the cause of that problem - and Chilwell didn't seem to be forward as much as Richardo used too.

[StriderHiryu]

1 hour ago, Foxxed said:

That's my biggest concern but this seems more an issue for the defence and the defensive midfielders. I'm not sure if Chilwell bombing up front was the cause of that problem - and Chilwell didn't seem to be forward as much as Richardo used too.

Not Chilwell's fault as the the break seemed to happen after some misplaced passes / good pressure from Huddersfield between Mendy and Ndidi which caused a fortunate ricochet to create the space and opportunity. I wouldn't put too much blame on the players up front as though they lost the ball, that will inevitably happen from time to time when in the final third. The bigger worry was more that after just one small mistake / piece of misfortune, there was an empty chasm in the central channel for Deportre to run into. So it's a "structural" issue as someone should have been designated to be covering in case something like that happens. Might be Mendy or Ndidi as one of them should have been slightly behind the other (they were almost parralel if I recall), or perhaps the centre backs should have been much further up the pitch to make the space between midfield and defence more compact (this was a feature of our defensive play under Ranieri). Maguire eventually did get back to make the challenge, but we were fortunate the chance didn't fall to a player like Zaha, Mahrez, Salah etc who whould have been impossible to catch unless the space wasn't there to begin with.

 

Puel always says that "we need to work on the details" and this is probably what he means. We shall see how the season goes but from my perspective though I might not agree with the changes he makes, they are all quite logical in what they are trying to achieve. It does seem like we are slowly fixing up some of the obvious problems with the team.

 

Just remember that whilst tactics can sound great on paper, the players have to execute for them to be worth anything! A penalty given away after 2 minutes, conceding from a throw in after 6 minutes, conceding on the first counter attack after 20 minutes... these are all reasons why plans can go out of the window and it's aready happened a number of times. I actually think it's potentially a good sign that we already have 3 wins despite such obvious cock-ups. In theory if we fixed these problems we'd be a very good team indeed.

Edited 27 September 2018 by StriderHiryu

[Hanan96]

While I'm not watching all of our title winning season, I watch a lot. We did not use high intensity pressing that times. We using deeper block instead, allowing opposition to have the time with the ball while blocking passing lines instead of press the player, and made lightning quick counter attack asap when we won the ball.