High Press or Low Block?

[CosbehFox]

55 minutes ago, StriderHiryu said:

Maddison starts wide but drifts in. Castagne pushes up behind him. End result? Acres of space behind Castagne for any opponent to use. 
 

This tactic can work but needs better defensive organisation on the turn over. Instead Justin is equally far forward and no one else is rapid enough to cover. 

Often find our centre midfielders closing down opposition full backs as well. It's a mess. 

Edited 21 September 2022 by CosbehFox

[st albans fox]

We’ve morphed into a side with a low press and a high block ………..

 

it’s Xmas for our opposition 

[StriderHiryu]

27 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

We’ve morphed into a side with a low press and a high block ………..

 

it’s Xmas for our opposition 

 Perfect description of our playstyle at the moment!

 

To be somewhat fair, most of this is on our players. We've had sustained patches across the years of executing the plan perfectly. Belive it or not, I think the lack of Ayoze Perez and Ricardo really explains the right hand side, because for as average as Perez is going forwards, his pressing and defensive contribution was always very good, and he worked especially well with Ricardo. Maddison is definitely our best player, and I'd even argue that he has proved he can play from the right, drifting into the middle... IF the defensive stability was there to allow him to do it. But it's not working, even though Castagne is a good player.

 

At the moment we play like Liverpool... when Liverpool are rubbish. For as good as Liverpool are, sometimes they can be horrifically exposed like in their recent Napoli game. That's because if one piece of the system doesn't work, there are massive holes in behind which are highly exploitable. We have about 4 parts of our system not working, which means are always open. The same problems Liverpool often have with Alexander-Arnold can be found in our system, except without all the attacking benefits Trent provides for Liverpool. That's why Brendan is to blame because he's not making adjustments when right now they are desperately needed.

 

This recent video by James Alcott was amazing and well worth checking out. He finishes with saying we should go back to 4231 with Maddison in the middle. I think we are so poor I would go back to 4411 like 15/16 with Maddison in Okazaki's role and using Barnes instead of Mahrez. Time to remind all of the lads about how good Pizza tastes! 

 

 

 

 

Edited 21 September 2022 by StriderHiryu

[An Away Move]

5 hours ago, An Away Move said:

I've been thinking for ages that part of this equation comes down to running. I'd love to see our stats for sprints. When Moyes first went to West Ham he said they were bottom of the league for sprint stats and transformed them by addressing it.

 

5 hours ago, Finnegan said:

 

I promise you you wouldn't 

Does anyone here have access? I would actually genuinely like to see where we are in the league on this. If I, just a fan, can intuit this is a big problem area - why isn’t it being sorted?!

[Finnegan]

19 minutes ago, An Away Move said:

 

Does anyone here have access? I would actually genuinely like to see where we are in the league on this. If I, just a fan, can intuit this is a big problem area - why isn’t it being sorted?!

 

It's been posted on here before, for a considerable amount of time last year we were literally last on sprints I think. We probably still are.

[Pete from the USA]

6 hours ago, StriderHiryu said:

When Rodgers first came in he got the high press working really effectively for us. It did work really well for a while. It's fair to say the really top teams dominate games and that's something we would need to do if we ever wanted to challenge for the title again.

We shouldn't forget that Rogers' high press won us an FA cup. That was almost as important for the club as the 15/16 title.

[An Sionnach]

8 minutes ago, Pete from the USA said:

We shouldn't forget that Rogers' high press won us an FA cup. That was almost as important for the club as the 15/16 title.

We spent most of the final camped in our own penalty area defending grimly then scored a breakaway goal , nothing at all to do with a high press.

[ARM1968]

6 minutes ago, An Sionnach said:

We spent most of the final camped in our own penalty area defending grimly then scored a breakaway goal , nothing at all to do with a high press.

You are indeed correct here - and despite the epic FA Cup win, the most important thing that happened that season was letting 4th place slip AGAIN. That, right there, was the beginning of our slow but steady decline - now free fall. 

[Pete from the USA]

8 minutes ago, An Sionnach said:

We spent most of the final camped in our own penalty area defending grimly then scored a breakaway goal , nothing at all to do with a high press.

The goal came from Perez winning the ball high up the pitch (maybe with his arm?) and Tielemans shooting before Chelsea's defense could get into shape. Looked like a high press to me.

Edited 21 September 2022 by Pete from the USA

[Chrysalis]

23 hours ago, An Away Move said:

If I were an incoming manager I'd be tempted to go back to basics and make us difficult to beat. When we came up in 2014 we never got spanked and rarely lost by more than one goal I think. I think the high press is currently exacerbating our defensive frailties. With a low block and a shift to counter attacking I think we have enough up front to nick more wins than playing via Rodger's current tactics. I'm sure if Dyche came in this would be his starting point.

 

However, if we play in a low block and defensively I imagine we could concede quite a few more corners! Gulp!

 

What to do? 

 

Would you be tempted by the the former? Or stick with?

Exactly the reason I would accept Dyche.

 

We need to learn the basics before we can consider winning games with fancy football again.  Play dirty and scrap for every point because we sure need them.

[Chrysalis]

23 hours ago, OntarioFox said:

Low block, counter with pace. We have the players for it. Barnes, Daka, even a properly managed Vardy feeding off fast through balls? We'll score shedloads and concede waaaaay less.

 

We don't get the space to be effective because our wanky possession for the sake of it game means other teams don't need to commit bodies forwards and nullify us easily unless someone pulls a moment of magic out of their arse, á la Madders at Spurs on Saturday. We have always been most successful in this stay in the Prem when we invite pressure, do the basics and punish them on the break. Even our best runs and results under Rodgers and Puel have come when we ripped the rule book up and reverted to pur strengths - anyone remember Rodgers complaining when we beat West Brom comfortably with counter attacking footy and he was unhappy with the 'style' of the win? That was two years ago. The warning signs were there that long ago.

 

Don't know about you folks, but the most depressing part of our decline has been seeing teams steamroller us with exactly the same tactics we used to employ. I thought it as long ago as home against Palace in Puelball days, and it's been proven many, many times during Brendan's over-welcome stay in the dug out.

 

It's probably a fringe opinion, but I firmly believe us (and Atletico Madrid) were responsible for the sea change in tactics across top flight football. We killed tiki-taka by proving that discipline and a fast counter could kill what many thought was peak football.

 

Counter attacking football with high workrate is a recipe for success. It's frankly insane that Rodgers is trying to turn us into a side playing a style that we ourselves were at least partially responsible for ending the dominance of. Ranieri tried it, Puel tried it and now he's refusing to let it go.

 

We are NOT a possession side. It's shite, it flies in the face of everything we spent ten years building. Let Rodgers go, then get with the times before we're deservedly left behind by a wave we helped create. 

Pretty much yeah, always frustrating when we trying to play possession with barnes, he isnt built for that type of game.

 

Agree with everything you said really.  We taught the EPL how to counter, and now to devastating effect its used against us.  Rodgers ball is out of date now.

Edited 21 September 2022 by Chrysalis

[sacreblueits442]

On 20/09/2022 at 20:50, OntarioFox said:

We are NOT a possession side. It's shite, it flies in the face of everything we spent ten years building. Let Rodgers go, then get with the times before we're deservedly left behind by a wave we helped create. 

...people have been saying we had to give up playing on the counter as we were found out and teams sought to negate us by sitting deeper and denying the space for Vardy!!!

  What we needed was players who could play the style a bit better and someone who could unlock a team.

  Playing a highline is not a problem for us, we look great doing so, it is playing that style under Rodgers that is the issue. He has no clue how to do it and constantly leaves us exposed. Why would you bring in Vestergaard if you are going to use him in a highline.

  Getting the fitness right is also a big part of how we operate and we are dropping off our levels near 70 minutes in games, something is quite wrong there.

[grumpy old git]

Some say we should use the high press others say no we should use a low block, all this talk about tactics is laughable to say the least under Rogers for the last 6 months!

All I've seen is his favourite tactic of side pass, side pass, back pass, back pass until everyone gone asleep watching it. Even if we do pick the ball up from an opposition attack ready for a quick break then all we do is the old sidey sidey back back routine a couple of times then even my granny has time to get back to defend.

I have lost count of the number of times our counter attack starts with our players doing a series of back or side passes …..then the counter attack is lost.