Tactics Under Maresca

[Lillehamring]

1 hour ago, Stevosevic said:

 

 

Boring, boring Leicester 

[Lillehamring]

Another reason why it's not always smart to play intense football:

 

unavailable spurs players (injured or suspended)

 

[Matt]

39 minutes ago, Lillehamring said:

Another reason why it's not always smart to play intense football:

 

unavailable spurs players (injured or suspended)

 

 

And the defence for slow, pedestrian (<Not saying Enzo's is that personally) possession based football is?

 

I present to you the following exhibits; Last season, the season before?

 

(It's fair to say this thread's been hyjacked and derailed, I bit my tongue with a similar comment yesterday but i'm sorry this reasoning has to be pulled up for the nonsense it is)

 

Edited 27 November 2023 by Matt

[EastAnglianFox]

2 hours ago, Lillehamring said:

because going all in early on is no guarantee that we'll 'put teams away by half time'.  Also most of these teams sitting deep have a game plan to go on the attack last 20-minutes or so if they're still in the game - if we don't get the goals we leave ourselves vulnerable.

 

the way we're playing still gives us the chance to finish games off by half time, anyway - we had more than enough chances to have got a few goals first half against watford, so why bust a gut  just to leave yourself shattered for the last half hour, when alternatively you can play it easy, still get some early goals and then see out the game.

 

You can't go all in for 90 minutes, so there's going to be a phase of the game where we have to control the ball - logic suggests it's better to do that early, given that it doesn't necessarily influence the likelihood of us scoring or not.

 

Those complaining need to realise that playing with more intensity/speed/urgency DOES NOT GUARANTEE that we will score more goals.  playing the way we do has still seen us score 12 1st half goals, only 6 teams have scored more  (13, 15, 16, 16, 17 & 19)

 

But equally it's worth noting what impact this has on their defensive capabilities - those teams have conceded 11,17,11.12,13 & 11, respectively, we've conceded 6.  And the benefits in the 2nd half are clear - those teams 2nd half are 15-6, 15-15, 11-8, 13-15, 11-14, 17-12 - we are 19-4.  

Great reply but I probably worded my post wrong.

 

I don’t want us to go all guns blazing every single game, id just love us to mix it up, we have the squad depth to go from minute one and blow teams away and also have shown we can dig in and grind teams down over the 90.

 

We have the ability and depth to absolutely take the opposition by surprise every single game if we mixed it up

[Lillehamring]

3 hours ago, Matt said:

 

And the defence for slow, pedestrian (<Not saying Enzo's is that personally) possession based football is?

 

I present to you the following exhibits; Last season, the season before?

 

(It's fair to say this thread's been hyjacked and derailed, I bit my tongue with a similar comment yesterday but i'm sorry this reasoning has to be pulled up for the nonsense it is)

 

whilst it's not absolute, It certainly is not nonsense - i'm not saying that playing conservative football doesn't bring risks, but spurs have only played 13 games and have 11 players out injured - so that's quite a significant issue.

 

I don't think the injury issues we had over the last couple of seasons were as a result of playing possession football, but some intrinsic issues with the health management at the club and from a lack of rotation/rest. Anyway, last season there were 8 teams with more injuries than us - top of the list liverpool - a high tempo team, then, chelsea and newcastle, again high tempo teams..  fewest injuries last season: man city and brighton-

 

 

The fact is, at our level we play more games against more physical teams, it makes sense to play in a way that is less likely to sustain injuries - enzo has said that he doesn't need the players running about, but to let the ball do the work, and that means less impact on bodies and less likelihood of sustaining some injury.

[Lillehamring]

2 hours ago, EastAnglianFox said:

Great reply but I probably worded my post wrong.

 

I don’t want us to go all guns blazing every single game, id just love us to mix it up, we have the squad depth to go from minute one and blow teams away and also have shown we can dig in and grind teams down over the 90.

 

We have the ability and depth to absolutely take the opposition by surprise every single game if we mixed it up

Sure, but that doesn't seem viable over a whole season and, frankly, doesn't, as i say, seem necessary.

 

I think there have been games where we certainly could have pushed a bit more - stoke for example, when they had like one recognised centre back? - but we still won that comfortably.

And there have definitely been games where we've looked a bit lethargic, but again the only time that's been a problem was the leeds game.

 

So it seems that the old 'if it ain't broke...' logic seems to apply to our current situation pretty well.

[coolhandfox]

Some people will find a way to be unhappy.

 

Life is to short....

[SecretPro]

Imagine being top of the league by 10 points with the best start to a championship season by any club ever, way ahead of where Burnley were this times last year, after most of us assumed we'd struggle to even get near the play-off places, with obvious deficiencies in forward roles and still moaning it's shit. 

 

[5waller5]

4 hours ago, Matt said:

 

And the defence for slow, pedestrian (<Not saying Enzo's is that personally) possession based football is?

 

I present to you the following exhibits; Last season, the season before?

 

(It's fair to say this thread's been hyjacked and derailed, I bit my tongue with a similar comment yesterday but i'm sorry this reasoning has to be pulled up for the nonsense it is)

 

Enzo has only been here this season.

[Collymore]

3 minutes ago, SecretPro said:

Imagine being top of the league by 10 points

It's the Championship which is 10 times less of an achievement than being top of the bottom half of the premier League.

 

For the people moaning at the people moaning, I find it remarkable that so many think we're like some sort of amazing team that are on a special journey.

 

We were favs to win this league and we are comfortable - it would have been more odd if we weren't top.

 

We'd be butchered in the Premier League next season with this squad but hopefully players can develop and we can have a decent couple of transfer windows. 

 

[Lillehamring]

59 minutes ago, coolhandfox said:

Some people will find a way to be unhappy.

 

Life is to short....

Like being bothered by you spelling 'too' wrong 

[Lillehamring]

42 minutes ago, 5waller5 said:

Enzo has only been here this season.

I think his implication was that we were pretty pedestrian last year and had lots of injuries. 

[Babylon]

11 hours ago, Lillehamring said:

Although, let's face it, none of these 'we suck' 'i'm bored' posts belong in this thread.  There'd be less animosity if we stuck to the topic and got back to tactics!

Yeah, only talk tactics if it’s positive comments and not negative comments. 

 

If the tactics lead to people feeling bored, it’s a valid opinion. So pehaps the thought police can just ignore those posts if they don’t like it. 

[Dr The Singh]

I like Maresca's conviction on his style of play, especially “We are born with this idea, we are going to die with this idea. If some of them are not happy, it’s their problem.”

 

Its cheap, when you have the luxury of the most expensive championship team etc. judgement i suppose will be next season,.like Company i suppose. 

[Lionator]

8 hours ago, Collymore said:

It's the Championship which is 10 times less of an achievement than being top of the bottom half of the premier League.

 

For the people moaning at the people moaning, I find it remarkable that so many think we're like some sort of amazing team that are on a special journey.

 

We were favs to win this league and we are comfortable - it would have been more odd if we weren't top.

 

We'd be butchered in the Premier League next season with this squad but hopefully players can develop and we can have a decent couple of transfer windows. 

 

 

I don’t think anybody thinks we’re on a special journey. The club had stagnated massively over the past couple of seasons and a rotten mentality had stunk the place out. A sizeable chunk of our fans thought we’d struggle to come straight back up. So not only are we in a great position on the pitch, but Enzo has revitalised us off the pitch. It’s pointless saying that we’d get butchered in the prem, because we wouldn’t go into the prem with this squad. Just because Burnley are struggling this season, does not mean we will given the historical precedent. 

[SecretPro]

8 hours ago, Collymore said:

It's the Championship which is 10 times less of an achievement than being top of the bottom half of the premier League.

 

For the people moaning at the people moaning, I find it remarkable that so many think we're like some sort of amazing team that are on a special journey.

 

We were favs to win this league and we are comfortable - it would have been more odd if we weren't top.

 

We'd be butchered in the Premier League next season with this squad but hopefully players can develop and we can have a decent couple of transfer windows. 

 

 

You need to go back to the pre-season threads and find the people that thought we'd be 10 points clear at the top, because those people don't exist. Everybody thought we would struggle. 

[coolhandfox]

8 hours ago, Lillehamring said:

Like being bothered by you spelling 'too' wrong 

Yep.

Edited 28 November 2023 by coolhandfox

[Jobyfox]

9 hours ago, Collymore said:

It's the Championship which is 10 times less of an achievement than being top of the bottom half of the premier League.

 

For the people moaning at the people moaning, I find it remarkable that so many think we're like some sort of amazing team that are on a special journey.

 

We were favs to win this league and we are comfortable - it would have been more odd if we weren't top.

 

We'd be butchered in the Premier League next season with this squad but hopefully players can develop and we can have a decent couple of transfer windows. 

 

 

I know that some have been quite slow to come to terms with it but: 

 

WE’RE NOT IN THE PREMIER LEAGUE !!!!! 
 

…. and I also sometimes wonder whether people who seem to think that promotion for a relegated team like ours is some sort of foregone conclusion have actually watched any football over the last 50 or so years 

[honeybradger]

16 hours ago, Lillehamring said:

I'd rather watch us how we're playing this season than the dross we served up (CL aside) in the two seasons after we won the league, or last season.

The only three seasons we were actually a consistently good watch in the PL was 15/16 and the two years when rodgers was good - the rest was at best average.

 

Whatever you may feel about our current style, the quality is there, the goals are there and the times when we really click have been fabulous - i assume you've seen enough highlights to have caught the 33-pass goal, for example - yes, we've become a much more acquired taste under enzo, but learn how to appreciate it and it tastes really good.  And just wait until it matures!

19/20 was one of the worst years to watch overall for me, alongside our relegation seasons. Yes the first half of the season was good but the second half was worse than watching us last year. We had champions league football to fight for but couldn't manage better than relegation form for almost half of a season. I just cant reconcile how a couple losses made us completely lose our heads that year.

[Trav Le Bleu]

10 hours ago, coolhandfox said:

Some people will find a way to be unhappy.

 

Life is to short....

By supporting LCFC?

[5waller5]

9 hours ago, Lillehamring said:

I think his implication was that we were pretty pedestrian last year and had lots of injuries. 

I understood the implication… 

 

It’s wrong on so many levels though. Last year we had a manager that picked the same 11 players relentlessly, made very few substitutions and ran the same players into the ground.

 

His style seemed to be 80% pace all the time because those players were knackered. This season the “tippy tappy” football or probing for openings at a slow pace is then exploited with explosive pace (yes this is where we could improve but it’s the hardest aspect to nail). 
 

It’s not slow or possession based football, it’s reposition the ball and players until a good chance opens up to exploit.

 

Outside of possession we have much better organised triggers to win back too, under Brendan it just seemed to be 1/2 the team run yourself ragged and hope to win it back. Hence the injuries. 

[Babylon]

1 hour ago, SecretPro said:

You need to go back to the pre-season threads and find the people that thought we'd be 10 points clear at the top, because those people don't exist. Everybody thought we would struggle. 

I've just looked, that's not true.

[James_lcfc]

2 minutes ago, Babylon said:

I've just looked, that's not true.

I was one of them who thought we'd struggle (very happy to admit I was wrong!)...but I do remember feeling like I was in the minority.

 

Most seemed pretty confident we'd be one of the challengers. 

[SecretPro]

11 minutes ago, Babylon said:

I've just looked, that's not true.

And what did you think?

[Chelmofox]

21 minutes ago, Babylon said:

I've just looked, that's not true.

There wasn't a unanimous feeling we would be 10 points ahead of the play offs for sure. I was very much in the camp that we should do well (we should have done well the previous season), but with the dodgy preseason, and thinking Coady and Winks were PL cast offs, i was very concerned. Everything that has been achieved so far has exceeded any expectations I had. Which is why i find a lot of the very negative posts a bit frustrating.

 

I think it could/should be better, and I think we are a few players away from a much better implementation of it. But, the main priority is getting the job done, and so far that is being done admirably. 

Edited 28 November 2023 by Chelmofox