Rogers tactics

[nnfox]

It's so frustrating to play so well all season and then turn out against Man City and Liverpool (and Utd) literally like rabbits caught in headlights. We set up scared, we set up for damage limitation for no reason.  We have a good team and there is no reason why we can't try and impose ourselves on the opposition, whoever they are. Man City have been beaten a few times this season, Liverpool have had some really tough games and have had to ride their luck to get the points. I'm convinced that Pep and Klopp will look back with utter bemusement at how we approached our games with them.

 

If we had played "our" game against them, we may well have still lost both games but I can't see how we would have conceded 7 goals and only scored one.

[Stoopid]

14 minutes ago, ALC Fox said:

We're firmly entrenched in the top 4. Trying to play a certain way and maintain a particular style will stand us in good stead in the future. These two games have exposed exactly how far we are behind Man City and Liverpool. Rodgers will know exactly what he needs to bridge the gap, and the players will have gained valuable experience in those games.

 

If we qualify for the Champions League, we're going to have some very good nights next season by continuing to play the way we want to play. In a couple of seasons, if BR stays at the helm and he gets the kind of support from the owners that we expect, we're only going to get better.

 

Look at Klopp and Guardiola. They play different styles but they don't compromise on their principles.

 

When Guardiola's Man City got thumped by a struggling Leicester in his first season in charge, he didn't tear up the blueprint and start again. He carried on because he knew his team could play the way he wanted with time and the right additions to the squad.

 

When Klopp finished 8th in his first season, he didn't abandon gegenpressing. He's made astute signings, tweaked things here and there and helped his Liverpool team evolve into an absolute machine, the likes of which I've never seen. What he's done is arguably more impressive than the fluid football of Pep's Man City and Arsene Wenger's Invincibles.

 

Rodgers has spoken of creating our own history. We're clearly, right now, the third best team in the league. Man Utd, Spurs and Chelsea will be vying for that position, but right now it's ours. By having a philosophy and a way of playing that we can impose on teams and tell them 'come on then, deal with us', we'll evolve into real top quality side.

 

It's not going to happen overnight, but it is already in progress. Let's not think we have to tear up the blueprint and have to succumb to playing hoofball to beat the teams who are currently better than us. We'll compete with the very best sooner rather than later 

Yeah - but what IS the blueprint?

We switch from 4-3-3 (which we look comfortabl in) to the diamond to whatever the mess last night was supposed to be.

Brendan's had a great start here, but I find myself a little concerned by what I see as his tendency to overthink tactically. Players like certainty and routine - especially if it brings results. Changing things around too much leads to players wanting too many touches and general lack of movement. Fatal against the best sides.

And I don't know why - but I don't like to see the manager making so many notes on the sidelines. Trying to nail every little detail (which it implies) maybe detracts from the bigger picture.

[Guest SO1]

2 hours ago, StriderHiryu said:

It’s hard to criticise the manager’s tactics when the team can’t string 3 passes together in the midfield area before a move breaks down. I suppose we could have played long ball and tried to sit and soak but ultimately if we are to reach the next step as a club we need to impose our fast, short passing game on everyone. 

 

More concerning for me is the mentality of some of the younger players who seem to go missing in the big matches. Hopefully it’s something that with experience can be rectified because otherwise we will have no chance if players don’t turn up. Otherwise it might be that we need to sign a more experienced player in central midfield as that’s the area that has looked poor over the last few games. 

This hits it on the head for me. "ultimately if we are to reach the next step as a club we need to impose our fast, short passing game on everyone."

Heard Rodgers say almost the same thing at Celtic and Liverpool to that effect when frustrated fans went at him for all the same reasons as here.

Can you think of any successful clubs that played possession/attacking in one match and long ball the next?

Maybe we can split Rodgers contract with Neil Lennon. Rodgers /possession and Lennon/direct.

Your whole comments a gem actually. Especially when thinking about Liverpool press us into turnovers consistently or one touch pass their way through us.

Thanks for bringing some light into to a very dark cave.

 

 

 

 

Edited 27 December 2019 by SO1

[Dr The Singh]

I thought this thread was roggering, my bad. 

[Sand cats]

11 hours ago, Aus Fox said:

TBF we’ve just played the world/ European Champions and the Premier League Champions who have two of the best managers in the world spending a combined 2 billion quid along the way, and built teams over years.

When he gets out thought by Moyes, Smith or Hodgson on a regular basis we have a problem.

Wolverhampton also played the PL champions before Leicester and they did very well, even Watford gave Liverpool a tough game and they didn't seem to be in fear of playing against the champions of Europe.

[StriderHiryu]

51 minutes ago, SO1 said:

This hits it on the head for me. "ultimately if we are to reach the next step as a club we need to impose our fast, short passing game on everyone."

Heard Rodgers say almost the same thing at Celtic and Liverpool to that effect when frustrated fans went at him for all the same reasons as here.

Can you think of any successful clubs that played possession/attacking in one match and long ball the next?

Maybe we can split Rodgers contract with Neil Lennon. Rodgers /possession and Lennon/direct.

Your whole comments a gem actually. Especially when thinking about Liverpool press us into turnovers consistently or one touch pass their way through us.

Thanks for bringing some light into to a very dark cave.

 

 

 

 

For all the talk about the "United way", Alex Ferguson changed tactics all the time to counter the opposition, for example his use of Ji Sung Park against Arsenal in Champions League matches. So there is definitely historical precedent for changing systems in that way. But these days the most successful teams tend to rely on system football and imposing their way of playing regardless of the opposition.

 

25 minutes ago, Sand cats said:

Wolverhampton also played the PL champions before Leicester and they did very well, even Watford gave Liverpool a tough game and they didn't seem to be in fear of playing against the champions of Europe.

For me this is the bigger issue. I appreciate the point others have made about our tactics, but I think our young players knew the last two games were big ones and failed the psychological test. It is dare I say it quite "Spursy" in terms of the way they bottled it. James Maddison pointlessly kicking the ball away and getting booked late in the game summed it all up for me, he knew he played awful and was frustrated at his inability to change things on the pitch.

 

But experience is the best way to learn and improve. As a club we bottled a play-off semi-final to Watford a few years ago too but came bouncing back the following season. We need to buckle down, focus and work hard and secure ourselves a top 4 position and cup final. We may well face Man City in the cup final which would make for a perfect opportunity to lay some ghosts to bed. 

[Dan LCFC]

I think Rodgers has generally set up a very nice plan A with the 4-1-4-1 or 4-3-3 (whatever you want to interpret it as) but there's some peculiar tweaking at times - Maddison on the left is my regular gripe and I just cannot fathom what he watches that makes him think it's the best way of setting the team up. Maddison's not a defensive minded player in the slightest, he's a creator, a decent dribbler but not overly quick - why in gods name would you put that on the left against Alexander-Arnold who is literally Liverpool's most creative player? What's worrying is that he did it at Anfield and it produced a similar performance, He set up the exact same way yesterday, saw an absolute shoeing all the way through the first half and didn't see fit to change a thing at half time.

 

I think it's just a meek attempt at trying to compensate for our lack of quality out wide. In practice it's been horrendous, I have literally never seen us look less like scoring.

 

I have come round to the thinking that Vardy's obscene form has bailed us out somewhat. When you say you have a front three with 22 goals you'd be pretty impressed - the flaw is 17 of those come from one player for us and that shows a weakness in my eyes.

[deep blue]

4 hours ago, Finnegan said:

Pretty much exactly what @ScouseFox said.

 

I like Rodgers, I'm happy with him as our manager, overall the season has been great. I've not enjoyed the football much since 15/16 (besides the odd game) and this has been a huge recovery. There's a lot to love, we play positively, with energy, most of the players show improvement, the results and league position are fantastic. 

 

But it is upsetting to see, not losses against Man City and Liverpool, but specifically those performances. If we'd lost both with stubborn one nil defeats you'd think, alright, okay. Good effort. But we've just conceded seven goals because we rolled over conceding all initiative. 

 

It is disappointing. We as a fan base need to let people express that concern without eye rolling and starting a witch hunt like nobody's allowed to criticise when things are going well. Equally, we need to learn that it's okay to be upset at something like this and not want a manager out. 

 

But he does need to sort it. Playing without proper wide defensive cover yesterday was stupid. Playing Maddison on the wing is and always has been stupid. It doesn't take a tactical visionary to spot it doesn't work, it's very clear within five minutes of a game where the space is and isn't on a pitch. 

 

I dunno. Maybe it's just a product of Rodgers lack of faith in his options out wide and we'll see improvement when we sign someone but still. I hope he learns from his lessons, I thought he had last time. 

Good post.

[Foxaholic ME]

46 minutes ago, deep blue said:

Good post.

I get the idea that a lot hanker after most past seasons when we were likely to lose to the likes of Brighton and  nearly always give a good often winning performance  against the best This year we have been unbelievablly predictable lost 3 against the best 2  drew with Chelsea and Wolves about our level narrow loss at United and narrow wins over Spurs and Arsenal  all the dross bar Norwich have been beaten. This has been good enough to keep us in the top 4 comfortablly    However when we won leagues we drew with Aston Villa one of the worst Premier teams ever  drew with Yeovil when winning the Championship  and when winning div 1 lost at Hartlepool   when every one expected to  go to Wembley in the Johnson Paint trophy. Many years ago when Liverpool had a team comparable to now we beat them twice and got relegated  so  take your pick

[Corky]

He seems to be stuck between making us compact in these bigger games whilst also wanting us to attack and we end up with this situation where we've got a lot of players back but the opposition have plenty of space to dictate the game. We weren't parking the bus yet Vardy was completely isolated for the majority. The midfield was totally overrun, Ndidi has almost been doing the work of two players in the last two matches.

 

Albrighton needs to support the left-back, that's been the main problem as Chilwell has been exposed with no help. If we can get a good centre-back in we could even go three at the back and push the full-backs wider to limit the space available.

[Gazza M]

I think we have been sussed out in recent times, starting with Norwich and then obviously the last two matches. Rodgers has yet to find a plan B during the match to tweak it. I never think we have much variation from the bench. We need a wide man who can make an impact and I would always prefer to have a target man on the bench to rough it up a bit if chasing the game. 

Edited 27 December 2019 by Gazza M

[l444ry]

2 hours ago, Stoopid said:

Yeah - but what IS the blueprint?

We switch from 4-3-3 (which we look comfortabl in) to the diamond to whatever the mess last night was supposed to be.

Brendan's had a great start here, but I find myself a little concerned by what I see as his tendency to overthink tactically. Players like certainty and routine - especially if it brings results. Changing things around too much leads to players wanting too many touches and general lack of movement. Fatal against the best sides.

And I don't know why - but I don't like to see the manager making so many notes on the sidelines. Trying to nail every little detail (which it implies) maybe detracts from the bigger picture.

He's only making notes when he sees something wrong or something that can be rectified. He'll be referring back these in the half time team talk. Can't say I've noticed him doing this in the second half of games to be honest. 

[Plastik Man]

3 hours ago, Finnegan said:

 

We needed to commit to doing something last night and in the end did nothing. 

 

I've said before, for me "formation" is less important to your defensive shape than it is going forward. A 433 can easily drop in to a defensive 451 if the right players are under the right instructions to do so, we could have picked a 433 on paper yesterday with Albrighton and Perez with them both under instructions to drop deep in front of the full backs to defend when Liverpool have the ball or to take less risks pushing forward. 

 

We could have parked the bus, maybe we should have parked the bus, as we did at Anfield. You can do this in almost any shape, you can even really do it with the 41212 diamond we used at Villa, with Praet and Tielemans under instruction to drop in in front of the full backs and Maddison coming in to the centre of midfield to defend with Ndidi. I don't think that would have been as effective but it would have been better at least than what we had last night, which, again, was nothing really. 

 

Rodgers just refused to make a decision to either go at them and try and stand toe to toe and swing OR to park the bus. It was really just... neither, it was strange. It was literally just rolling over and refusing to make the call either way. 

I agree with that but also that there's an element of too many of our players dipping in form. Our options are limited and we've resorted to shuffling the pack.

[ithuriel]

2 hours ago, Dr The Singh said:

I thought this thread was roggering, my bad. 

It is, from a certain point of view.

 

[Tom12345]

Our problem is that our main ball players are our defenders and Kasper. I would say the chances that they could do a killer pass to Vardy is much less than if it is from our midfielders. Yet, he spend much time passing about at the back. Our midfielders need more ways to get on to the ball. If it gets to Chilly, it means going back to Soy or Evans usually so our only way out is to pass it to Ricardo or if Ndidi or Maddison drops back to pick up the ball. Ndidi tried to do this a few times against Liverpool, and he did ok, but he is not the best ball player in the team so that job should fall more on to Maddison or Tielemans.

[cruzFOX]

Great analysis from everyone and thank you it’s been a great read even from the few who are fed up and don’t want to re-hash last nites horror show so I’m gonna bow out with a hope a prayer that today’s team sit down between the team and Rogers is a real ‘come to jesus’ Moment and the positive spirit we have seen this season is re-awakened. There is plenty of evidence to see in our last 2 highlights real for every single player and manager/coaches to take away from and start working on fixing it right away with grit, determination and hunger.

They all will have felt embarrassed and humiliated but hope they also know that the fans did too. Let’s get behind the lads again and see them show some guts against the hammers now and BR please show us again your smarts and set the team up right this time!

COYF 👊🏾🦊

[The Horse's Mouth]

What I dont get is the Hamza ndidi pivot was great for these games, gave us enough protection and kept the shape, why have we abandoned when it worked beforehand.

[Col city fan]

7 hours ago, Finnegan said:

 

TLDR: Just watch the video.

 

I'm sorry but I don't really agree with this and it's kinda the annoying rhetoric that used to annoy me about Puel apologists on here. I don't actually think that anyone started that badly, individually, I thought the players looked reasonably switched on and up for it to begin with. Yes, Liverpool make it difficult with their own press but we had pretty good control of the ball for periods.

 

The problem yesterday was very much the manager's tactics.

 

I used to say this all the time when CP was here, possession football isn't just about a player's ability to trap and pass a ball. You watch them playing rondo before kick off and they've been doing this for as long as I can remember, they're all perfectly capable of trapping and passing a ball in a small space under pressure of press. They all have that skill set and they always did.

 

But the ability to do that in match conditions depends on players being available in the right spaces, possession football is and always has been fairly structured because it's important that the game is spaced out the right way, that players are reliably in positions to receive the ball that the player with it expects, you end up having regular patterns and systems within the game-play. This is vital because to play at the speed required to break down an opponent it needs to be partially instinctive, if you're stopping to think about picking your pass you're playing too slow. There's a really good interview with Thierry Henry that Sky did when Pep Guardiola first came to the Premier League. He talks about how Guardiola once subbed him off angrily at half time in a game at Barcelona even though he'd scored and they were winning. Guardiola was furious that Henry kept drifting from his position and free roaming around the pitch during build up. This is a no-no.

 

People think of Guardiola's systems as creative and free flowing but it's not, in the final third players are given the freedom to move and to use their initiative but in the building phases you retain your shape and stay in your area.

 

We won about eight games on the bounce by locking down an established starting 11 with fixed positions and the key to this was two mirrored passing triangles on each side of the pitch. Tielemans and Maddison as central players are key to this, they hold an alternating 8/10 role playing vertically up their midfield channel in a passing triangle with their winger and full back. Maddison, Barnes and Chillwell on one side - Tielemans, Ricardo and Perez on the other. The familiarity of it is the beauty, they know where they're going to be at all times, some of the link up play- especially from the right hand unit - has been stunning this season. Quick, one-touch football, it's what Perez really brings to the game, he drops in short and really helps get the other two moving.

 

What we had yesterday was neither our match winning 433 or the new diamond, it was the same mess we started the season with. A chaotic, unstructured, asymmetrical shape with Maddison in an anonymous free role, drifting too far inside to provide width and too far outside to influence the game and too slow to either stretch play or defend actively out wide. To make it worse, Barnes was shoved out to the "wrong" side to accommodate him, Tielemans was taken from his position to accommodate Praet seeming more comfortable on the right, Chilwell is left stranded and alone way, way out on the  left providing the entirety of our width on that flank. Praet had a pretty anonymous game drifting far too far right and forward leaving Ndidi to frequently step up in to the centre of a lateral three instead of anchoring behind a pivoting two.

 

Almost everyone ends up in a position that is alien to where they've been during our winning games this season. And I know some smart **** is going to cry about how they're paid millions and they should be able to adapt but how many teams can you think of in world football where a rag-tag combo is thrown together out of shape or out of familiar ground and it works instantly? It doesn't ever. Familiarity is vital, look at that Liverpool side. How often does it change? There's a reason "Tinkerman" is a footballing pejorative. 

Another very good post. I agree completely about Perez

Edited 27 December 2019 by Col city fan

[cruzFOX]

10 hours ago, nnfox said:

It's so frustrating to play so well all season and then turn out against Man City and Liverpool (and Utd) literally like rabbits caught in headlights. We set up scared, we set up for damage limitation for no reason.  We have a good team and there is no reason why we can't try and impose ourselves on the opposition, whoever they are. Man City have been beaten a few times this season, Liverpool have had some really tough games and have had to ride their luck to get the points. I'm convinced that Pep and Klopp will look back with utter bemusement at how we approached our games with them.

 

If we had played "our" game against them, we may well have still lost both games but I can't see how we would have conceded 7 goals and only scored one.

Just look at what Wolves did to City today.  

[Plastik Man]

10 hours ago, Stoopid said:

And I don't know why - but I don't like to see the manager making so many notes on the sidelines. Trying to nail every little detail (which it implies) maybe detracts from the bigger picture.

We're top 4 now. Big time.

 

We're not getting an All or Nothing TV series but Amazon will be releasing an exclusive book written by Brendan, all by himself.

[deep blue]

6 hours ago, cruzFOX said:

Just look at what Wolves did to City today.  

Against 10 men; makes a huge difference.

[Deeg67]

11 hours ago, The Horse's Mouth said:

What I dont get is the Hamza ndidi pivot was great for these games, gave us enough protection and kept the shape, why have we abandoned when it worked beforehand.

 No offense,  but what games were you watching?  N’didi and Hamza together was a debacle.

[PaulW]

It's all very well having a blueprint for the future, but I hate my team getting humiliated in the process.

[Lazybass]

How about playing James right back with Ricardo In front as right mid and Fuchs left back with Chilwell in front of him left mid would give the defensive cover needed against teams like Liverpool etc  but also both chilwell and Richardo both good going forward 🤷‍♂️ 

 

                            Vardy

 

chilwell  Maddison  Teilemans  Pereira

 

                      Wilfred N’didi

 

      Fuchs  Soyuncu  Evans  James 

 

                     Schmeichel

[womp]

15 hours ago, l444ry said:

He's only making notes when he sees something wrong or something that can be rectified. He'll be referring back these in the half time team talk. Can't say I've noticed him doing this in the second half of games to be honest. 

Is it though?could he not be writing positives too,also it doesnt mean he will say all that is written.