The Tactics Thread

[StriderHiryu]

Time for an update based thanks to popular demand! (OK it's one person who is @CloudFox )

Our current formation is somewhat of a "Square Pegs in round holes" affair. Players in positions that aren't their natural positions and literally a system of playing that is unbalanced. We literally have one true raiding full back in Chilwell who has to do double the work as the player in front of him in Maddison drifts infield when we have the ball.

 

 

Rather than praise or criticise the system I think it's important to think about why Puel might choose to play the system first. What are his team goals and what is his footballing philosophy? I think understanding that allows us to understand why he kept the same team lineup when this is something he has rarely done since being in charge of Leicester.

 

• Puel's gameplan (and a word he uses often) is "control." It's something he has done historically at Lille, Nice and Southampton.
   
• He wants his teams to get on the ball and control the game such that the opposition doesn't get much possession and that we as a team attack and defend together.
   
• When we have control of the game, then we look to drag players out of position and play the intricate passing stuff to open the door.
• I think if you look at the second half of the Huddersfield game and especially versus Newcastle this plan succeeded. Newcastle had one shot on target in the entire game and that was from inside their own half!
   

That's why I think he chose the same lineup that we played against Newcastle again against Everton because it was the first time this season the team has executed the "Puel gameplan" down to the smallest of details.

 

I think it's also important to think about what changes Puel has made as the season has gone by and why he might have made these adjustments:

 

• Maddison started off as our 10 early in the season, but moved to a left inside forward so that Nacho, Maddison and Vardy can all play in the same team. Against Huddersfield, these three linked up very well indeed and created one of our best attacking displays of the season.
   
• Ricardo when played at Right Back left us really vulnerable at the back. Too vulnerable! So Amartey came in so that Ricardo or another player can play as a traditional winger. It also meant that we could have three at the back so that Chilwell doesn't have to worry so much about things defensively, which is important because the player in front of him Maddison will drift inside when we have the ball, meaning he often has to occupy two opponents.
   
• Another change I noticed today and at Newcastle was that of the midfield two, whereas Ndidi started off as the one that stayed further forward, now Ndidi is doing that role and Mendy as more licence to drive the game in midfield. Mendy must be a contender for our player of the season as he has done a fantastic job and I think in today's game he was even more influential now that he can drive forward as his passing is often forward, faster and more accurate than Ndidi.
   
• (There's a lot more we could talk about such as the experiment with Gray up front against Liverpool and dropping Evans for Morgan, but I don't think these are as relevant for today).

 

It's clear that several of our players aren't playing in their best positions, but if it improves us overall as a team, then it can still be a good call. To evaluate our formation and today's performance... whilst we did lose vs Everton, I would say that before we had Morgan sent off we controlled the game again (I appreciate this is a subjective opinion). Between minutes 45-60 Everton were really penned back and we were passing between the lines, playing side-to-side and dragging players out of position. We were building up a head of steam and looked the more likely to score. After we lost a man we fell apart though. Yes we had a man disadvantage, but we stopped doing what we had been doing and conceded the ball and control of the game for Everton who ultimately punished us.

 

If you are the manager of Leicester City and with the squad we have, you could opt to play any number of ways. Whilst we have some flaws in our squad (e.g. we haven't 1 for 1 replaced Mahrez with a player of equal quality), we do have a number of options and could choose to play in all manner of systems and formations. So it is interesting to see why he chooses this system specifically. As you imply in the  first post, we could play a more traditional system rather than this weird hybrid / hodge-podge system.

 

Personally I don't have a strong opinion on what system or formation we should play. However, as a fan I like to see exciting football of high quality and most importantly an entertaining game. If the Newcastle game is an example of Puel's ideal gameplan then personally I'm quite happy. Though our goals came from a set piece and a counter attack in that game, we played good stuff and looked like we could score from open play. We controlled the game and hardly gave Newcastle a kick and still looked exciting and threatening on the ball. You are right in that against a much better side than Newcastle in Everton today the system didn't look nearly as good. But do remember we have a very young team and they all need to learn how to play with one another. To make the sort of changes that Puel is trying (changing our style of play, changing the player profile of our squad and bringing through young players) is very tough to do in a short space of time and I think it's important to remember that. Sarri at Chelsea has done a great job in a short space of time in trying to change their style of play, but they have players that cost a hell of a lot of money recruited from around the top leagues and clubs.

 

It will be interesting to see how we play against Arsenal, but I think we will simply replace Evans for Morgan and continue with the same system. Ricardo scored today and for most of the game we were quite decent. Certainly in an 11 on 11 game you'd have thought we would have got a point at least from the game. I think 10 games into the season is a good time to judge where we are as a team. I personally see us as a team in transition and as a work in progress. That can't be used as an excuse forever (which is why Man United are a joke right now), but this is a super competitive league with a lot at stake. Everton have spent a lot more money than us in recent seasons but our relatively young team went toe-to-toe or better than them for large parts of the game today. There is definite potential in our squad.

Edited 13 October 2018 by StriderHiryu

[StriderHiryu]

On 07/10/2018 at 15:48, Col city fan said:

However, I don’t see us ‘controlling’ games particularly well at all. For me, ‘control’ stems from a very solid defence and a ball playing central midfield.

We concede far too many daft goals to be a side who can be said ‘controls’ games.

I'd bet Claude Puel agrees with you! It's been an issue for months going back to last season and it's very frustrating that we can't solve it. And whilst individual errors are hard to pin on the manager, it happens so many times that he has to take a lot of the flak here. We've signed 3 new CB's and a right back but don't play any of them in the back 4 and have the same problems as last year. We don't have to play our new players in order to fix the problems but it is so frustrating seeing us make the same mistakes over and over. Versus Everton had we not conceded first... well Morgan's sending off might not even have mattered!

 

I think an interesting and direct comparison is looking back to how two previous managers addressed problems in the side.

 

(This was our lineup versus QPR on the final day of the season where we won 5-1)

 

2014/15. Leicester are bottom of the table coming into the new year and despite competing OK in games look like they are on a one way trip back to the Championship. Nigel Pearson brings in Huth recognising that Liam Moore can't handle the Premier League and brings in Marc Albrighton who later switches to a right wing back. He eventually switches us to a 3-5-2 and Leicester go on an incredible run and stay up. Without those two and without making that tactical change, we might not even be in the Premier League right now!

 

 

(This was our lineup versus Man City in February 2016 where we won 3-1 away from home in what must surely rank as one of our greatest ever Premier League performances)

 

2015/16. Leicester start the season very well but keep conceding goals, often conceding the first or even a second goal before getting a result (sounds familiar...). Ranieri has two masterstrokes here, he brings in Fuchs and Simpson instead of De Laet and Schlupp. We lose a little going forward but now are less open at the back. Then he also talks up the need to keep a clean sheet with the promise of Pizza. The team respond, we keep clean sheets and win the league! We also go on a run of winning 1-0 four games in a row followed by a 2-0 win. That change in defence helped us win the league. Interestingly that season also saw Kante come into the team, but remember he started off on the bench and even came on in one game as a winger (!). But Ranieri recognised his talents and changed things up. It's *kind of* like Mendy in that no one would have had him even in the squad at the start of the season but he's actually been one of our best players so far. We signed Inler as our first choice central midfielder that year, but it was Kante who was the main man.

 

This season I think it's a lot clearer to see the picture of what Puel is trying to do, but we are still quite short from being able to achieve it. Hence why we have square pegs in round holes! But we have plenty of time and a young team. I very much understand the frustration of many of the forum posters here, but for me personally I think Puel (or whoever is in charge really) is entitled to a transition year given the team is so young. But if we are still making these kind of errors in January or dare I say even next season then I think it's no longer acceptable.

[Stadt]

One of our issues is that Puel gives the wide players too much freedom to move inside so we struggle to stretch defences when we move the ball quickly into the opposition half. We look better when Pereira or Albrighton start on the right as they provide more penetration. When both 'wide' players move centrally we're able to overload the half spaces and central ares but quite often the fullbacks will be too deep to provide width - it makes us easy to pressure because we're not covering a large enough area of the pitch and we lose the ball, what should happen in these instances is that Chilwell should be looking to run into space to properly stretch the opposition or simply have more variation in the movement asked from either wide player. 

 

Freedom is certainly a positive in some occasions but too much of it eventually leads to uncoordinated play and we resort to trying to be patient and find an opening but individually I don't think our players are good enough to do so

[StriderHiryu]

5 minutes ago, Stadt said:

Freedom is certainly a positive in some occasions but too much of it eventually leads to uncoordinated play and we resort to trying to be patient and find an opening but individually I don't think our players are good enough to do so

I'd agree with this statement, but would caveat it with "our players aren't good enough to do it yet." Many of our players are so young that they are kind of like sponges and can develop their decision making ability over time. Even Cristiano Ronaldo was dodgy in his first two seasons in the Premier League when he had the tricks but tried to take on too many people and his final ball was poor. Once that was corrected... well the rest is history. Puel has got rid of / phased out a number of players in our squad. Let's have a look at those players shall we?

 

- Islam Slimani. Powerful in the air but poor touch and technique. More of an old fashioned English number 9.

- Leo Ulloa. Same as Slimani but really slow and immobile.

- Andy King. Club legend but doesn't really have the technical skill to play in the top half of the Premier League.

- Danny Simpson. Another club legend, but is an old fashioned defender. Always took two or three touches to play the ball and wouldn't raid / deliver an attacking threat.

- Ahmed Musa. Insanely fast but had poor touch and technique.
- Aleksandr Dragovic. The player most harshly treated by Puel in my opinion but *possibly* not signed because he's not as comfortable on the ball as Puel would like.

 

So Puel has gotten rid of all players who had poor technical skill. Now we have a team that has decent to good technique, but often make poor decisions and / or lose concentration - to be expected with a young team I would say. I highly doubt that all of our young players will make the grade and one or two will end up leaving. One or two might also hit their "ceiling" faster than others. But surely Ben Chilwell is the poster boy of the Puel revolution? In his first game he promoted Chilwell and Gray to the starting 11. Both players have been called shit by many on Foxes Talk many times. But both recently got called up to the England squad and Chilwell won man of the match on his first start. That is proof that young players can improve and in Chilwell's case I would say that despite an incredible improvement this season, he still has a weak final ball. Once that's sorted out he will be the most in demand left back in the league.

 

Leicester City have only tried a passing brand of football twice before (in my lifetime) under Paolo Sousa and Sven-Goran Eriksson. Puel has already taken us way, way further than those two ever did in terms of our play in just one year. Patience is needed for such a project and whilst we may never completely get there and / or it might need someone (eventually) other than Puel to get us competing for the Champions League places, he is improving our team and I suspect that when he's gone he will be remembered for being the coach that promoted Chilwell, Gray and brought in James Maddison. And that is a pretty good legacy already I think.

 

Lastly on the subject of youth here is a picture I posted in another thread. It was published in 2013 and a reprint of an article in 2012, looking at the top Belgian talent in their country at the time and talking about their setup to improve the technical quality of their players. This took them a long time (20+ years) but as of right now Belgium are ranked joint 1st in the FIFA rankings and just finished 3rd in the World Cup.

 

Sometimes good things come to those who wait.

 

 

[Stadt]

1 hour ago, StriderHiryu said:

I'd agree with this statement, but would caveat it with "our players aren't good enough to do it yet." Many of our players are so young that they are kind of like sponges and can develop their decision making ability over time. Even Cristiano Ronaldo was dodgy in his first two seasons in the Premier League when he had the tricks but tried to take on too many people and his final ball was poor. Once that was corrected... well the rest is history. Puel has got rid of / phased out a number of players in our squad. Let's have a look at those players shall we?

 

- Islam Slimani. Powerful in the air but poor touch and technique. More of an old fashioned English number 9.

- Leo Ulloa. Same as Slimani but really slow and immobile.

- Andy King. Club legend but doesn't really have the technical skill to play in the top half of the Premier League.

- Danny Simpson. Another club legend, but is an old fashioned defender. Always took two or three touches to play the ball and wouldn't raid / deliver an attacking threat.

- Ahmed Musa. Insanely fast but had poor touch and technique.
- Aleksandr Dragovic. The player most harshly treated by Puel in my opinion but *possibly* not signed because he's not as comfortable on the ball as Puel would like.

 

So Puel has gotten rid of all players who had poor technical skill. Now we have a team that has decent to good technique, but often make poor decisions and / or lose concentration - to be expected with a young team I would say. I highly doubt that all of our young players will make the grade and one or two will end up leaving. One or two might also hit their "ceiling" faster than others. But surely Ben Chilwell is the poster boy of the Puel revolution? In his first game he promoted Chilwell and Gray to the starting 11. Both players have been called shit by many on Foxes Talk many times. But both recently got called up to the England squad and Chilwell won man of the match on his first start. That is proof that young players can improve and in Chilwell's case I would say that despite an incredible improvement this season, he still has a weak final ball. Once that's sorted out he will be the most in demand left back in the league.

 

Leicester City have only tried a passing brand of football twice before (in my lifetime) under Paolo Sousa and Sven-Goran Eriksson. Puel has already taken us way, way further than those two ever did in terms of our play in just one year. Patience is needed for such a project and whilst we may never completely get there and / or it might need someone (eventually) other than Puel to get us competing for the Champions League places, he is improving our team and I suspect that when he's gone he will be remembered for being the coach that promoted Chilwell, Gray and brought in James Maddison. And that is a pretty good legacy already I think.

 

Lastly on the subject of youth here is a picture I posted in another thread. It was published in 2013 and a reprint of an article in 2012, looking at the top Belgian talent in their country at the time and talking about their setup to improve the technical quality of their players. This took them a long time (20+ years) but as of right now Belgium are ranked joint 1st in the FIFA rankings and just finished 3rd in the World Cup.

 

Sometimes good things come to those who wait.

 

 

Even if our younger players were to develop into the absolute best they could be playing in such an unstructured fashion is still naïve. Guardiola throughout his career has said that during the first and second thirds he is strict with his instructions and gives players more freedom in the final third but now with his Man City team you can see very clear patterns of play and that they stick to positions very clearly.

 

Player’s don’t develop in a linear fashion either, Demarai Gray, as an example, has played a lot of games and hasn’t showed much improvement at all - to assume a player will improve just because they’re young is unrealistic. I can see Maddison improving significantly because he’s played less than 10 games at this level and already looks at home but the young team narrative is very optimistic I think.

 

Of course players can dramatically improve, it’s happened to Chilwell but i think that’s down to his mentality, playing time and faith from Puel. Ndidi is another example, brilliant ball winner but it’s unlikely he’ll ever be great on the ball, players are largely at the same level by 21/22 as they will be at the rest of their career. This here are exceptions but there’s a cut off between saying a player is young and can improve and the realisation that a player is already playing at their level, so to speak.

 

 

 

 

Also Dragovic was more than comfortable enough on the ball, especially as Puel likes Morgan so much. Not that these sorts of rumours deserve any credibility but I’d heard Puel fell out with Dragovic as he wanted new signings to live in Leicestershire 

[WigstonWanderer]

2 hours ago, StriderHiryu said:

It's clear that several of our players aren't playing in their best positions, but if it improves us overall as a team, then it can still be a good call. 

My worry is that these players will eventually get pissed off and leave.

[StriderHiryu]

Right! Time for some Sherlock Holmes style evidence to explain what's going on. Or at least, what I think is going on.

 

Leicester City 2018/19 - On the Ball

 

^ Exhibit A. Wes Morgan is on the ball.

 

- Notice how just in front of him is Wilfred Ndidi who has dropped very far back almost to make a central three.

- Ben Chilwell is hugging the left hand touchline to act as our threat from wide situations.

- James Maddison is just behind Jamie Vardy. He has drifted in from left win the occupy the 10 position.

- Furthest forward on the right (in view) is Kelechi Ihenacho who is also occupying a 10 position, so we have two players in behind Vardy so all three can interchange passes with one another.

- You can't see him but Ricardo is hugging the right hand touchline to act as a wide threat on the right hand side.

- One player you can't see is Daniel Amartey (more on this later). As Chilwell has pushed so far up front, he's dropped back a bit to act as another body to defend on the turnover.

 

 

^ Exhibit B, taken earlier in the same passage of play. Wilfrid Ndidi is on the ball and playing a pass to Papy Mendy.

 

- Notice that Ben Chilwell has drifted inside (marked in red) as another attacking option.

- Harry Maguire (our centre back!) has pushed up to left wing, marked with my incredible photoshop skills.

- Vardy has come deep, and actually Ihenacho is up top now (but out of view).

- Maddison is still in the 10 position turning to try and find some space after occupying two players.

- Ricardo is indicating where he wants the ball to be played. He has come off the right wing and is not joining the attack.

 

 

 

^ Exhibit C. Harry Maguire is on the ball, six seconds after the previous snapshot.

 

- Amartey (18) has just come into the shot. But compare his position to Ben Chilwell (3). Amartey isn't nearly as far forward because Maguire and Chilwell are forward.

- Notice Mendy's position, he is effectively filling in for Maguire here in case of a turn over.
- Once again though notice Ndidi. He's taking the same position as in Exhibit A.

 

 

All these examples show you our system on the attack. It's quite similar to the diagram above, though if I would probably draw an arrow on Ndidi showing how he drops in just in front of the two centre backs when we have the ball.

Edited 13 October 2018 by StriderHiryu

[StriderHiryu]

So that was a little look in our last match at our team on the ball, but Football is more than just about attacking. Sometimes you got to defend! Even if we don't do it too well at the moment

 

 

^Exhibit A. Bernard of Everton is on the ball on the left wing. The skillful Brazillian was arguably the man of the match in this fixture.

 

- Notice how much higher up the pitch Daniel Amartey is compared to the other defenders.

- Chilwell is not in line with Morgan and Maguire who are (or rather should be) in line.

- As you can see when we are defending and not yet regained our shape, we often have a back 3 of sorts, even if there are gaps.

- Just behind Amartey is Mendy who is running back into the space that was left by Amartey going forwards.

- Ricardo is also dashing back from an inside forward position.

- Jamie Vardy is also running back.

- James Maddison is having a stroll! This is one of the reasons why he sometimes gets hooked later in the game. Football is a team game... you have to attack and defend together as a unit.(Still love Madders though!)

 

 

 

 

^ Exhibit B. Just two seconds after the previous picture. This is an example of when we have structurally formed our defensive shape.

 

- Harry Maguire has made a mistake here. If he was level with Wes Morgan then Richarlison would be offside. But because he was slightly too slow, he's actually playing him onside. Notice how as Bernard plays the pass, he is onside and if the pass had been better, would have been 1-on-1 on goal.

- Amartey might be criticised for not putting in a challenge, but actually he has done OK here. He, Mendy and Ricardo have boxed Bernard in, forcing him to get rid of the ball. If Maguire was standing in the correct position, then the move would come to nothing without having to make a challenge, but just by pressing instead.

- Amartey and Chilwell aren't quite in the same line, but both players are more or less fulfilling their defensive obligations. Chilwell has 5 yards on Walcott so should be able to recover if the ball is switched over to him and is also perfectly in line with Morgan for the offside trap. His improvement defensively has come about through improving his positioning and physicality and it's no wonder he's often thought of as our player of the season so far on these forums.
- Morgan has come in for a lot of stick recently which is fair given his sending offs, but he's the one that leads the back four in terms of pushing up and holding the line. And note here that he is in the correct position but Maguire is not. Eventually Maguire is likely to become the leader in the back four, but this is something he needs to improve first.

- Ndidi and Mendy when we don't have the ball play as a traditional "double-pivot" see the first post in this thread for more information on that. The thing to note is that when we have the ball, Ndidi actually drops deeper than when we don't. When we don't have the ball he helps form a barrier with Mendy and his aerial ability means we can win the ball from goal kicks and clearances played in to the centre circle.

- Once again notice that James Maddison is not in shot! Ricardo has got back to defend, but Maddison who starts on the left hand side has not yet got back into the left wing position. Luckily because the attack is coming down our right this is not terminal and later in the same passage of play he did eventually get back. Something for him to work on though!

 

 

 

 

^ Exhibit C. Kurt Zouma of Everton on the ball.

 

- There is no high press here. We are OK to let teams have the ball in their own third and only start to engage with they are in the middle third.

- Vardy is the furthest man forward, Ihenacho is the sole number 10 now.

- James Maddison is in the correct position, as a left inside forward and making sure Jonjoe Kenny can't raid down out left hand side without being challenged.

- Ricardo mirrors Maddison, but has not yet got into position. He's jogging to make sure he does so that Zouma does not have an easy pass to Lucas Digne (12).

 

 

Hopefully these posts give you an idea of what we are doing when we play. It's very easy to watch football and just follow the ball, but so much of the game is going on outside of the object that has our attention. Standing in the wrong place can lead to providing an opportunity for the opponent, and equally making space when we are attacking can make opportunities of our own.

 

Defensively this season we've been lapse and it's cost us dearly. When we are on the ball we are not too bad at all in terms of position and keeping control of the game, but on the turnover some moments of naivety need to be improved.

 

If there's one consolation, Alan Hansen once said "you'll never win anything with kids!" and well, we all know how that turned out. Hopefully Puel and Jacky Bonnevay (our new assistant manager) can sort it out.
 

 

 

 

Edited 14 October 2018 by StriderHiryu

[LCFC hub]

Is the Foxes inability to break teams down causing defensive frailties? #LCFC 

https://t.co/3L3mxN89wG

[l444ry]

36 minutes ago, 80's fox said:

Is the Foxes inability to break teams down causing defensive frailties? #LCFC 

https://t.co/3L3mxN89wG

Puel's preference for a slow build up allows the opposition to get into defensive shape at leisure and the choose their moment to trigger a press. Possession of the ball is not always controlling the ball and both Bournemouth and Everton have shown Leicester's possession game (in its current form) could turn into our achilles heel.

Edited 14 October 2018 by l444ry

[The Doctor]

14 minutes ago, l444ry said:

Puel's preference for a slow build up allows the opposition to get into defensive shape at leisure and the choose their moment to trigger a press. Possession of the ball is not always controlling the ball and both Bournemouth and Everton have shown Leicester's possession game (in its current form) could turn into our achilles heel.

Everton showed nothing of the sort. What the Everton game showed was playing with 10 men is difficult. Don't forget we were easily the better side prior to the sending off, with Vardy missing two reasonable chances and one gilt edge one.

[ThaiFox]

13 hours ago, StriderHiryu said:

I'd agree with this statement, but would caveat it with "our players aren't good enough to do it yet." Many of our players are so young that they are kind of like sponges and can develop their decision making ability over time. Even Cristiano Ronaldo was dodgy in his first two seasons in the Premier League when he had the tricks but tried to take on too many people and his final ball was poor. Once that was corrected... well the rest is history. Puel has got rid of / phased out a number of players in our squad. Let's have a look at those players shall we?

 

- Islam Slimani. Powerful in the air but poor touch and technique. More of an old fashioned English number 9.

- Leo Ulloa. Same as Slimani but really slow and immobile.

- Andy King. Club legend but doesn't really have the technical skill to play in the top half of the Premier League.

- Danny Simpson. Another club legend, but is an old fashioned defender. Always took two or three touches to play the ball and wouldn't raid / deliver an attacking threat.

- Ahmed Musa. Insanely fast but had poor touch and technique.
- Aleksandr Dragovic. The player most harshly treated by Puel in my opinion but *possibly* not signed because he's not as comfortable on the ball as Puel would like.

 

So Puel has gotten rid of all players who had poor technical skill. Now we have a team that has decent to good technique, but often make poor decisions and / or lose concentration - to be expected with a young team I would say. I highly doubt that all of our young players will make the grade and one or two will end up leaving. One or two might also hit their "ceiling" faster than others. But surely Ben Chilwell is the poster boy of the Puel revolution? In his first game he promoted Chilwell and Gray to the starting 11. Both players have been called shit by many on Foxes Talk many times. But both recently got called up to the England squad and Chilwell won man of the match on his first start. That is proof that young players can improve and in Chilwell's case I would say that despite an incredible improvement this season, he still has a weak final ball. Once that's sorted out he will be the most in demand left back in the league.

 

Leicester City have only tried a passing brand of football twice before (in my lifetime) under Paolo Sousa and Sven-Goran Eriksson. Puel has already taken us way, way further than those two ever did in terms of our play in just one year. Patience is needed for such a project and whilst we may never completely get there and / or it might need someone (eventually) other than Puel to get us competing for the Champions League places, he is improving our team and I suspect that when he's gone he will be remembered for being the coach that promoted Chilwell, Gray and brought in James Maddison. And that is a pretty good legacy already I think.

 

Lastly on the subject of youth here is a picture I posted in another thread. It was published in 2013 and a reprint of an article in 2012, looking at the top Belgian talent in their country at the time and talking about their setup to improve the technical quality of their players. This took them a long time (20+ years) but as of right now Belgium are ranked joint 1st in the FIFA rankings and just finished 3rd in the World Cup.

 

Sometimes good things come to those who wait.

 

 

We also had Mark McGee playing this type of football, which was very successful and had us top of the old second division until he decided Wolves were a much bigger club. In fact I've still got a video cassette somewhere (showing my age in this post!!) issued by City called 'Simply the best' which was out after we'd won 5 of our first 7 matches.

 

By the way...another great post! 

 

 

Edited 14 October 2018 by ThaiFox

[st albans fox]

Time for a bit of a reality check?

 

teams go into games with tactical plans ...... sometimes the opponent will have out thought you and in this case, you will need to make adjustments during the game  - you can wait for half time but best to do it before because if they are really sharp, they will change again at the break, knowing that you will be making plans to counter their set up for the second half. best to get through their whole raft of plans  ASAP so that you can get control. 

 

Wolves out thought us but us but we made a change during the first half and got control (the goals helped big time)

 

bournemouth  - oddly, Puel got the better of Howe early on with his attacking opening.  Without getting that first goal, we were susceptible to their tactical changes and we saw it as they allowed us to push ever further forward en masses and countered superbly. 

 

Everton - silva got the upper hand early on and we looked so open. However, we made some alterations, got the upper hand and would possibly have gone on to win the game with eleven men. 

 

the game is often a tactical ‘chess game’ ...... it seems Claude is pretty comfortable to allow the opposition to make the first move. I would prefer to be making the running but Bournemouth shows what can happen if you don’t take your chances when in the driving seat. I wonder if, once we seem more secure defensively, Puel would be happy to play his hand first ?? 

[l444ry]

39 minutes ago, The Doctor said:

Everton showed nothing of the sort. What the Everton game showed was playing with 10 men is difficult. Don't forget we were easily the better side prior to the sending off, with Vardy missing two reasonable chances and one gilt edge one.

Disagree. It was plain to see their pressing strategy first half and you obviously missed the press on Maguire that led to their first goal. In fairness, the adjustments at half time were working until the sending off which possibly shows that the side were aware of what Everton's game plan was.

[LCFC hub]

25 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

Time for a bit of a reality check?

 

teams go into games with tactical plans ...... sometimes the opponent will have out thought you and in this case, you will need to make adjustments during the game  - you can wait for half time but best to do it before because if they are really sharp, they will change again at the break, knowing that you will be making plans to counter their set up for the second half. best to get through their whole raft of plans  ASAP so that you can get control. 

 

Wolves out thought us but us but we made a change during the first half and got control (the goals helped big time)

 

bournemouth  - oddly, Puel got the better of Howe early on with his attacking opening.  Without getting that first goal, we were susceptible to their tactical changes and we saw it as they allowed us to push ever further forward en masses and countered superbly. 

 

Everton - silva got the upper hand early on and we looked so open. However, we made some alterations, got the upper hand and would possibly have gone on to win the game with eleven men. 

 

the game is often a tactical ‘chess game’ ...... it seems Claude is pretty comfortable to allow the opposition to make the first move. I would prefer to be making the running but Bournemouth shows what can happen if you don’t take your chances when in the driving seat. I wonder if, once we seem more secure defensively, Puel would be happy to play his hand first ?? 

Good Post. You may be right with regards to making a first move. I'm still sure we have only being playing Wes as he isn't confident the others brought in aren't upto speed yet. 

 

He's realised Wes needs protection, more so after the Bournemouth game, with Amartey coming in at RB. 

 

Once he feels Evans or Soyuncu are ready he will feel he can alter again further. 

[StriderHiryu]

33 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

 

the game is often a tactical ‘chess game’ ...... it seems Claude is pretty comfortable to allow the opposition to make the first move. I would prefer to be making the running but Bournemouth shows what can happen if you don’t take your chances when in the driving seat. I wonder if, once we seem more secure defensively, Puel would be happy to play his hand first ?? 

A recurring theme this season has been conceding a sloppy goal early in the game which really plays havoc with any tactical plan! So whilst I don’t know if we’d “play our hand first” until we sort out the defence I don’t think it’s even an option. But I get the feeling we will be more of a front foot team once our young squad learn when to curb their attacking enthusiasm and when to embrace it. 

 

If there’s one real positive this season it’s that even when we go behind we rarely get blown away and in fact often dominate the game even against Liverpool and Manchester United. The only outlier was against Bournemouth where quite simply our defensive concentration as a team fell apart. 

[The Doctor]

2 hours ago, l444ry said:

Disagree. It was plain to see their pressing strategy first half and you obviously missed the press on Maguire that led to their first goal. In fairness, the adjustments at half time were working until the sending off which possibly shows that the side were aware of what Everton's game plan was.

What else was plain to see was that we dominated the first half and the total of any threat they offered was a couple of minutes around the goal, which was their only meaningful attempt (i.e. one that even worked the keeper). Your assessment of the performance is based off the result and your inability to give Puel any credit, not the performance itself.

[l444ry]

4 minutes ago, The Doctor said:

What else was plain to see was that we dominated the first half and the total of any threat they offered was a couple of minutes around the goal, which was their only meaningful attempt (i.e. one that even worked the keeper). Your assessment of the performance is based off the result and your inability to give Puel any credit, not the performance itself.

Looks like my Level 3 PSFA Scouting qualification went to waste then.

Edited 14 October 2018 by l444ry

[The Doctor]

5 minutes ago, l444ry said:

Looks like my Level 3 PSFA Scouting qualification went to waste then.

When you ignore it in favour of framing anything in a way that justifies disliking the manager, yep.

[l444ry]

Just now, The Doctor said:

When you ignore it in favour of framing anything in a way that justifies disliking the manager, yep.

I'm certainly not a 100% Puel person that's for sure but I thought my recent posts were being fair to the chap. Hey ho.

[st albans fox]

3 hours ago, The Doctor said:

What else was plain to see was that we dominated the first half and the total of any threat they offered was a couple of minutes around the goal, which was their only meaningful attempt (i.e. one that even worked the keeper). Your assessment of the performance is based off the result and your inability to give Puel any credit, not the performance itself.

Just shows you that two sane people can see things completely differently.....

 

we didnt dominate the first half imo and we were taking control of the game when wes screwed up ....

 

the game was pretty well balanced overall until the red card ....... they shaded the first half and we were edging the second .....

[Hanan96]

16 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

Just shows you that two sane people can see things completely differently.....

 

we didnt dominate the first half imo and we were taking control of the game when wes screwed up ....

 

the game was pretty well balanced overall until the red card ....... they shaded the first half and we were edging the second .....

We have more possession, shot on target, and clear cut chances didn't we? 

[st albans fox]

9 hours ago, Hanan96 said:

We have more possession, shot on target, and clear cut chances didn't we? 

Not in the game I watched we didn’t ..... we probably would have with eleven on the pitch though .....

[Bigboss204]

I don't agree that Maddison has to play inside forward in order to accommodate Vardy and Iheanacho.

 

The formation almost picks itself if you want to play players in their natural positions.

 

 Schmeichal

[Morgan/Soyuncu] Maguire   Evans

 Ricardo                                                Chilwell

Iborra Ndidi

Maddison

Vardy Iheanacho

[Hanan96]

1 minute ago, Bigboss204 said:

I don't agree that Maddison has to play inside forward in order to accommodate Vardy and Iheanacho.

 

The formation almost picks itself if you want to play players in their natural positions.

 

 Schmeichal

[Morgan/Soyuncu] Maguire   Evans

 Ricardo                                                Chilwell

Iborra Ndidi

Maddison

Vardy Iheanacho

His role is different with inside forward. Inside forward are start from wide then cut inside with the ball. 

Maddison only stay wide in defensive scheme. As soon we got the ball, we did play like you wrote, only difference is the player selection. 

 

Except, if you wanna change the defensive scheme. When against 4 back system which got 2 wide player, which from your position to additionally cover wide position? The wide cb or the wide cm?