Tactics Under Maresca

[StriderHiryu]

4 hours ago, Lionator said:

Fascinating to see that there are at least two methods to success in the Championship. The one similarity is probably that Ipswich and us fully believe in what we're doing 

I've watched a lot of Ipswich games. They are a great team, but that teams don't sit back against them, they have a go. If you watch Preston play them on the weekend, it was hard to believe it was the same Preston that showed up at the KP and parked the bus. When Southampton left space in behind, we destroyed them. We have plenty of fast and direct goals, but they tend to be in the last 20 minutes when teams get tired.

[Foxaholic ME]

1 hour ago, StriderHiryu said:

I've watched a lot of Ipswich games. They are a great team, but that teams don't sit back against them, they have a go. If you watch Preston play them on the weekend, it was hard to believe it was the same Preston that showed up at the KP and parked the bus. When Southampton left space in behind, we destroyed them. We have plenty of fast and direct goals, but they tend to be in the last 20 minutes when teams get tired.

I    fully agree when I  see championship highlights teams seem to play completely different against us and  if honest although we are very proficient  ipswich games are more exciting although if a team who have just come up and didnt  even win div 1 can  almost  equal Leicesters  amazing start   it does not say much for the standard   further reinforced by the performances of the 3 promoted teams one who only lost 3  and gained 103 points

[Lambert09]

you love to see it!!!

[Arriba Los Zorros]

On 10/10/2023 at 14:14, StriderHiryu said:

I've watched a lot of Ipswich games. They are a great team, but that teams don't sit back against them, they have a go. If you watch Preston play them on the weekend, it was hard to believe it was the same Preston that showed up at the KP and parked the bus. When Southampton left space in behind, we destroyed them. We have plenty of fast and direct goals, but they tend to be in the last 20 minutes when teams get tired.

I think it will suit Ipswich if teams sit back against them. It takes pressure off their defence which is a weak area, and they are good from set pieces. I think they are quite multi dimensional so can imagine they are well suited to breaking down sides. They were doing it all last year in league 1. Will be interesting to see it. 

[StriderHiryu]

Saw this thread on Twitter yesterday. Very nerdy but interesting to know what kind of analytics and data the big teams are using. It makes it really hard for people like us to use breakdowns and analysis in comparison, because we aren't privvy to this dataset. Arsenal supposedly have a system where they can pause play, then move players and the data model works out how that position change would statistically affect the game!

 

 

When you see how effective they were at limiting Man City at the weekend, it makes me think a lot of this stuff is pretty effective.

[Gazza M]

Interesting to see if Top and Rudkin have learnt from the Brendan experience on contracts and salaries. Will they be handing out a bumper contract to this guy so quick or hold our nerve and let him get to the Prem first before considering the 5 year deal fencing us in. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[MGLCFC]

1 hour ago, Gazza M said:

Interesting to see if Top and Rudkin have learnt from the Brendan experience on contracts and salaries. Will they be handing out a bumper contract to this guy so quick or hold our nerve and let him get to the Prem first before considering the 5 year deal fencing us in. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's a good point - hopefully they have learnt a lesson from the Rodgers debacle. I do feel that Maresca is unlikely to be tempted to leave at present and I hope he sees this as a long term project. Getting us back into the Premier League would be part 1 completed. Being able to compete in it is part 2. Perhaps in 12 months time if all is going well would be the time to consider renegotiating his contract. My main fear is that he exceeds expectations and he is poached by one of money rich clubs and we have to start the whole process again finding a similar replacement.

[Dan LCFC]

To be honest with the benefit of hindsight I think it was less about the money for sacking Rodgers and more the desire. We shouldn't hand out a contract like that again but the issue was more that we didn't want to sack him rather than couldn't.

[sacreblueits442]

2 minutes ago, Dan LCFC said:

To be honest with the benefit of hindsight I think it was less about the money for sacking Rodgers and more the desire. We shouldn't hand out a contract like that again but the issue was more that we didn't want to sack him rather than couldn't.

...I do not see it that way!!!

In the end he (Rodgers) had to come to the table and ask to be released and significantly, negotiate his settlement. 

  Rodgers had the club over a barrell regarding his payout (severance),and we were not willing to pay the amount. Very much bluff and counter bluff in this instance. 

  Prior to Rodgers leaving,  he did an interview where he said he had not spoken with Khun Top for a year, that does not sound like an amicable working relationship. Relegation became more and more likely the negativity around the club and no doubt within the squad, forced Rodgers to act.

  From what we are seeing,  nothing has changed behind the scenes and we have the same people with the same ideas running the club. Offering a new lucrative long-term contract to another manager, shouldn't come as a surprise,  it depends on the integrity of the manager to see if it is worthwhile. 

[Dan LCFC]

3 minutes ago, sacreblueits442 said:

...I do not see it that way!!!

In the end he (Rodgers) had to come to the table and ask to be released and significantly, negotiate his settlement. 

  Rodgers had the club over a barrell regarding his payout (severance),and we were not willing to pay the amount. Very much bluff and counter bluff in this instance. 

  Prior to Rodgers leaving,  he did an interview where he said he had not spoken with Khun Top for a year, that does not sound like an amicable working relationship. Relegation became more and more likely the negativity around the club and no doubt within the squad, forced Rodgers to act.

  From what we are seeing,  nothing has changed behind the scenes and we have the same people with the same ideas running the club. Offering a new lucrative long-term contract to another manager, shouldn't come as a surprise,  it depends on the integrity of the manager to see if it is worthwhile. 

I don't think we disagree. Tanner reported not long after the sacking that Rudkin was the one who wanted to keep Rodgers in and kept falling for his nonsense. Rodgers was playing a game to try and get the boot and subsequently his payoff, but we just wouldn't take the bait.

 

I'm not doubting that the contract helped the case to keep him but as proven by the fact they did sack him eventually, they were always able to do it and they just chose not to for ages. They ended up losing more money by not sacking him and letting him relegate us anyway.

[Stadt]

22 minutes ago, Dan LCFC said:

they were always able to do it and they just chose not to for ages. They ended up losing more money by not sacking him and letting him relegate us anyway.

Quite a few of this coming too

[sacreblueits442]

48 minutes ago, Dan LCFC said:

I'm not doubting that the contract helped the case to keep him but as proven by the fact they did sack him eventually, they were always able to do it and they just chose not to for ages. They ended up losing more money by not sacking him and letting him relegate us anyway.

...he (Rodgers) went to the board to discuss leaving!!!

  This is the reason why his severance was less than it should have been,  he had to accept less as he would have had "Relegation " as part of his cv.

  Normally such poor stewardship would have prompted the club hierarchy to dispense with a managers services, Rudkin, by himself, couldn't keep him (Rodgers) in a job, only Khun Top could fire him and the severance was vast, the only way to reduce it was for Rodgers to be so desperate to get out that he asked for less.

[Lambert09]

On 12/10/2023 at 04:34, StriderHiryu said:

Saw this thread on Twitter yesterday. Very nerdy but interesting to know what kind of analytics and data the big teams are using. It makes it really hard for people like us to use breakdowns and analysis in comparison, because we aren't privvy to this dataset. Arsenal supposedly have a system where they can pause play, then move players and the data model works out how that position change would statistically affect the game!

 

 

When you see how effective they were at limiting Man City at the weekend, it makes me think a lot of this stuff is pretty effective.

one day in the future the best player in the world is going to be someone like schlupp. 
 

Because unpredictability will become the most effective way to break away from these predictions. ain’t no way these things could predict your player not running when through on goal or going the wrong way. 

 

ahhhh i miss the days of jeff 😂

[Dan LCFC]

2 hours ago, sacreblueits442 said:

...he (Rodgers) went to the board to discuss leaving!!!

  This is the reason why his severance was less than it should have been,  he had to accept less as he would have had "Relegation " as part of his cv.

  Normally such poor stewardship would have prompted the club hierarchy to dispense with a managers services, Rudkin, by himself, couldn't keep him (Rodgers) in a job, only Khun Top could fire him and the severance was vast, the only way to reduce it was for Rodgers to be so desperate to get out that he asked for less.

A truly embarrassing set of circumstances all round. I do get the feeling Maresca might be a bit special though so we have a bit of a dilemma - lets just hope he hasn't got it in him to behave how Rodgers did. I'm not convinced he has, they seem very different personalities to me.

[lfu]

4 hours ago, sacreblueits442 said:

Prior to Rodgers leaving,  he did an interview where he said he had not spoken with Khun Top for a year, that does not sound like an amicable working relationship.

Where did you hear that?

[sacreblueits442]

1 hour ago, lfu said:

Where did you hear that?

...it was posted here some time ago in another thread!!!

The way he was spinning it was, that he had the full trust of Khun Top and there would have been no need for formal conversations.

[Spudulike]

 

[StriderHiryu]

Swansea City vs Leicester City Pre-Match

 

Swansea are definitely a team of two halves to their Championship start. They've gone from looking like a total disaster and an inevitable Manager sacking to 4 wins from 5, playing good football and looking upwardly mobile.

 

 

^ Their recent 3-1 away win. They played some really nice stuff in this one and were quite attacking and expansive.

 

 

 

^ One of the less impressive games earlier in the season where they slumped to a 2-0 defeat against Cardiff.

 

So what's changed, and why are Swansea suddenly good? A few things:

• Russel Martin was their manager last season, where they were a possession heavy side. After he left they appointed Michael Duff who has a different style of play.
• Duff started the season with a 3142, with wingbacks and two men up top, including Jerry Yates who was linked with us in the summer.
• However, this wasn't working well, and they moved to a 4231 shape with a really technical double pivot of Charlie Patino and Matt Grimes, who is a really underrated player in this division.
• The most interesting thing to me is they sacrificed their possession style at the start of the season to go to more of a toe-to-toe approach. And they've got results in doing so.
• In general, they push their fullbacks up high to create the width as per a typical 4231.
• However, against Norwich (a game that they won), they sat back a little more. However, they did still have more possession, more shots and more shots on goal.

 

 

^ Swansea started the season off with a 3142 system with wingbacks and two men up top. It didn't work out too well.

 

 

^ But since shifting to a double pivot and 4231 shape, they've really turned the corner and looked like a good team.

 

Given they are at home, I expect they will have a go, especially in the opening period, and I can see there being gaps behind their fullbacks if our high press does it's thing. However, more than any other team this season so far, including even Southampton and Norwich, I think Swansea have one of the more technical midfields in the division. Will this mean they dare to challenge us to a passing battle in midfield? They might have to because it's the primary way of playing. At the same time, if we win the midfield battle, they could be in trouble as the one thing I'd say they lack in midfield is a bit of bite. I can see a situation where we dominate the ball on their own turf, and they are caught chasing shadows as we have not only a man advantage in the middle of the park, but they lack someone to get it back off of us.

 

With our squad being so much better than anyone else's in this division, it's hard not to see another win on the road, but given their recent form, this is more of a challenge than it looked 6 weeks ago.

[Les-TA-Jon]

On 13/10/2023 at 22:33, Spudulike said:

 

"0.1% better than Pep...you'll never sing that" 

[AjcW]

On 13/10/2023 at 22:33, Spudulike said:

 

As an aside, said it last season too but Luke Williams at County is going to be a very good manager, one to watch! 

[Les-TA-Jon]

https://theanalyst.com/eu/2023/10/leicester-city-lightning-start-championship/

 

 

 

"They’ve tallied the most open-play passing sequences of at least 10 passes (222), with 55 of those ending in either a touch in the opposition box or a shot"

 

[StriderHiryu]

^ That's a great article.

 

This was taken from it, and is pretty unusual:

 

 

If I had to guess, I would suggest that because Ricardo inverts from RB, we are a bit more cautious attacking down that side in case we face a turnover. However, it is also possible that it's not intentional and it's something we want our right forwards to work on. 

 

I guess we will find out in this next set of games! 

[Les-TA-Jon]

49 minutes ago, StriderHiryu said:

^ That's a great article.

 

This was taken from it, and is pretty unusual:

 

 

If I had to guess, I would suggest that because Ricardo inverts from RB, we are a bit more cautious attacking down that side in case we face a turnover. However, it is also possible that it's not intentional and it's something we want our right forwards to work on. 

 

I guess we will find out in this next set of games! 

Yeah pretty sure that's what the article concluded - it's about Ricky coming inside

[LVFox]

1 hour ago, StriderHiryu said:

^ That's a great article.

 

This was taken from it, and is pretty unusual:

 

 

If I had to guess, I would suggest that because Ricardo inverts from RB, we are a bit more cautious attacking down that side in case we face a turnover. However, it is also possible that it's not intentional and it's something we want our right forwards to work on. 

 

I guess we will find out in this next set of games! 

Highly noticeable at the Preston match how often we played it to Mavididi despite Fatawu being in space.

 

Ricky's position has an impact yes but I think it's also down to Doyles injury leaving us without a left footer in our build up play. It's all on right feet and therefore is more natural, safer and quicker to play to the left.

[StriderHiryu]

 

Bit unrelated, but on the left is the pass map for Uruguay's recent win over Brazil in the WCQ's, who are now managed by Marcelo Bielsa. That is a thing of absolute beauty!