Tactics Under Maresca

[egg_fried_rice]

The keeper stepping up into a flat back four during possession was very evident last night.

 

It gives us an extra man in midfield from the get go, and is another reason why the "it's just rodgersball" argument holds no water whatsoever - just use your eyes!

[filbertway]

11 hours ago, Lillehamring said:

Ndidi may not be in the half space, but he's in exactly the right place, and thank goodness, cause nacho has hopelessly overran this, his first touch is poor.  It's a great finish but the defending is horribly naive, but definitely good to see that the system means we can take advantage of such sloppiness-

Pretty sure nacho knew exactly what he wanted to do there.

 

Defending is really poor though yeah, all ball watching and not aware of their surroundings.

[Greg2607]

1 hour ago, Col city fan said:

A striker who can collect the ball at the edge of the opposition area and hold it up for oncoming midfielders would look great in this system. 
A type of striker who can lay it off, then spin the defender to get in behind, would be ideal.

so Kelechi then.... 

[FoxinNotts]

Pass them to death

[st albans fox]

24 minutes ago, egg_fried_rice said:

The keeper stepping up into a flat back four during possession was very evident last night.

 

It gives us an extra man in midfield from the get go, and is another reason why the "it's just rodgersball" argument holds no water whatsoever - just use your eyes!

There is a notable difference and that is the same as brighton do.  The defenders or keeper are happy to just stand with the ball and wait for the opposition to do something which leaves a space somewhere. I think that’s a problem at the KP but away from home you can’t imagine many crowds will allow their players to just stand off  and be passive 

 

I think rodgers would have liked to do this but his message had gone stale and the players wouldn’t buy into him any longer 

 

 

[Chrysalis]

13 hours ago, StriderHiryu said:

Part of Tactics is coaching your players so that they can play the role they are given to the best of their ability in the tactical system.

 

Ndidi has always been a poor finisher, and someone with a heavy touch. But if you coach players in the proper manner, you can improve them. Open up your body, wrap the side of your foot round the ball and guide it into the net...

 

 

One swallow doesn't make a summer, but that is a top quality finish, no two ways about it! And that's 3 goals in 1.5 games from attacking midfielders attacking the half space. I'd also like to draw your attention to the way that Iheanacho attracts three Burton defenders towards him, then makes the cutback for an "easy" finish. Man City, Arsenal and even Burnley all score a lot of goals this way. And we have just joined the "half-space cutback" club.

 

EDIT: Actually to be honest in this example he is not attacking the half space, but that will be the next evolution of this type of move.

 

 

Finally we doing cutbacks, that clip is a joy.

[Sparrowhawk]

Any chance people could not use this thread (or indeed lots of the other threads) as a vehicle for Rodgers bashing?

 

It got tedious enough while he was here, but at least you could understand it when he was actually our manager.

 

He's gone. Can we just talk about the current manager? Especially in threads about the current manager?

 

[Dames]

4 minutes ago, Sparrowhawk said:

Any chance people could not use this thread (or indeed lots of the other threads) as a vehicle for Rodgers bashing?

 

It got tedious enough while he was here, but at least you could understand it when he was actually our manager.

 

He's gone. Can we just talk about the current manager? Especially in threads about the current manager?

 

Its naturally going to happen in this thread when we notice things that are different and better from the previous regime tactically. For all this talk about Rodgers being an elite coach the difference between his tactics and those of a rookie in pretty much his first job is night and day and it isn't in Rodgers favour. 

[Sparrowhawk]

19 minutes ago, Dames said:

Its naturally going to happen in this thread when we notice things that are different and better from the previous regime tactically. For all this talk about Rodgers being an elite coach the difference between his tactics and those of a rookie in pretty much his first job is night and day and it isn't in Rodgers favour. 

I've no problem with people noticing and discussing differences and improvements.

 

But there's a difference between "we look so much more positive now" or "the players seem to know what's expected of them, they looked lost last season" and something like "we're moving it much faster now, that would never have happened under the egomaniac dwarf, I hope he fails at Celtic, he destroyed our club out of pure arrogant spite..."

 

That's what I find tedious and irrelevant. Comparing the tactics and effectiveness of Mariesca with Rodgers is fine. Good, even!

[Kopfkino]

It’s early days and it’ll click better when we’ve got a better balance to the squad but in both games we’re still not high enough up the pitch. The build up is great in the middle third but it doesn’t connect into and around the final third, partly because we’ve not yet really got a player between the lines and the wide players seem too disconnected from the rest. Thus when we lose the ball, we lose it in bad areas and we look vulnerable. 

 

I think I read that this was part of the issue at Parma but hoping it’s a personnel and time problem rather than a system and coaching issue

[Daggers]

3 hours ago, foxfanazer said:

What type of striker do we think would thrive in this system? A poacher type? Someone to link up the play from deep? 

 

I'm undecided 

Haaland. We should be making all efforts to sign him. 

[StriderHiryu]

Posting my tactical tidbits from the Burton game. Please feel free to add things that I missed. The point of the thread is to learn together and discuss!

 

- Hamza Choudhury played the inverted fullback role, being a LB when out of possession! However, because we had so much possession (76%!), he very rarely had to go back to that position, though he did on a few occasions, winning the ball back well.

- James Justin played at right back, moving into RCB. This was speculated as something that might be done in the future to fix the lack of pace at the back.

- Wout Faes was the centre of the 3CBs in this game, Vestergaard was against Coventry.

- Wilfred Ndidi played as the left 8, Praet as the right. Kind of interesting as Praet I feel would have the better left foot. Wilf was very good, and not just for his goal.

- In the second half McAteer came on and Praet was played as the man up top / false 9. Was it really a false 9, or just the player selected to play that position? That's a good topic to debate.

- Burton started the game pressing us, and that left a lot of space in behind. I think Leicester looked better and more fluent when Burton pressed, and the reason the game got "boring" was because they stopped pressing and concentrated on defending.

- Our system still made chances against the deeper block, but you can see a lot of the combinations still need work to get the fluency to really cut teams apart.

- Kelechi Iheanacho thrived in this game. Haaland doesn't touch the ball much for Man City, probably because they have so much of the ball he's there to attack the spaces rather than link. But for our stage of development, Kelechi is a real plus point, being a very creative outlet for the team.

- This is the most possession and total passes we've made for a long time. Possibly ever! It is kind of boring when we just choke the life out of the game, but I suppose it's a real first world problem to be "bored" because your team is 2-0 up after playing wonderful football for the first half and are just seeing out the game.

 

 

My overall takeaway would be that this style of football makes it hard for teams that are much worse than us to beat us. Man City do the same in the Premier League and I feel like we will do it in lower tiers. It doesn't mean there won't be any shocks, but when you dominate and control the game like this, the opposition can't do much. Zero shots on target from Burton says it all.

 

 

Edited 10 August 2023 by StriderHiryu

[davieG]

I know he's only back up but Hamza just doesn't have the full package to play along side Harry, because he's nearly always facing the goal when receiving the ball and because he lacks the ability/confidence to turn with it he's nearly always going to pass it back so he's rarely going to be an outlet from defence to attack and this was against a weaker team.

[Plastik Man]

1 hour ago, StriderHiryu said:

Posting my tactical tidbits from the Burton game. Please feel free to add things that I missed. The point of the thread is to learn together and discuss!

 

- Hamza Choudhury played the inverted fullback role, being a LB when out of possession! However, because we had so much possession (76%!), he very rarely had to go back to that position, though he did on a few occasions, winning the ball back well.

- James Justin played at right back, moving into RCB. This was speculated as something that might be done in the future to fix the lack of pace at the back.

- Wout Faes was the centre of the 3CBs in this game, Vestergaard was against Coventry.

- Wilfred Ndidi played as the left 8, Praet as the right. Kind of interesting as Praet I feel would have the better left foot. Wilf was very good, and not just for his goal.

- In the second half McAteer came on and Praet was played as the man up top / false 9. Was it really a false 9, or just the player selected to play that position? That's a good topic to debate.

- Burton started the game pressing us, and that left a lot of space in behind. I think Leicester looked better and more fluent when Burton pressed, and the reason the game got "boring" was because they stopped pressing and concentrated on defending.

- Our system still made chances against the deeper block, but you can see a lot of the combinations still need work to get the fluency to really cut teams apart.

- Kelechi Iheanacho thrived in this game. Haaland doesn't touch the ball much for Man City, probably because they have so much of the ball he's there to attack the spaces rather than link. But for our stage of development, Kelechi is a real plus point, being a very creative outlet for the team.

- This is the most possession and total passes we've made for a long time. Possibly ever! It is kind of boring when we just choke the life out of the game, but I suppose it's a real first world problem to be "bored" because your team is 2-0 up after playing wonderful football for the first half and are just seeing out the game.

 

 

My overall takeaway would be that this style of football makes it hard for teams that are much worse than us to beat us. Man City do the same in the Premier League and I feel like we will do it in lower tiers. It doesn't mean there won't be any shocks, but when you dominate and control the game like this, the opposition can't do much. Zero shots on target from Burton says it all.

 

 

Agree with all of that. 

 

I can't remember who played which role when Winks went off and Ricardo came on. Was it Ricardo in his usual role and Choudhury in Winks role?

 

It's really interesting to see where Maresca sees each player fitting in the formation, depending on their strengths and weaknesses. As you pointed out, JJ played in the role some had suggested, adding pace to the back line. I'm not sure he has the skills.to play the Ricardo role.

 

As for Praet, I said to my mate at the match last night it looked like he'd taken the false 9 role. The funniest moment for me was when he laid a flick on for the striker, and then realised he was the striker!🤣

[StriderHiryu]

51 minutes ago, Plastik Man said:

Agree with all of that. 

 

I can't remember who played which role when Winks went off and Ricardo came on. Was it Ricardo in his usual role and Choudhury in Winks role?

 

It's really interesting to see where Maresca sees each player fitting in the formation, depending on their strengths and weaknesses. As you pointed out, JJ played in the role some had suggested, adding pace to the back line. I'm not sure he has the skills.to play the Ricardo role.

 

As for Praet, I said to my mate at the match last night it looked like he'd taken the false 9 role. The funniest moment for me was when he laid a flick on for the striker, and then realised he was the striker!🤣

That's what it looked like to me. Hard to say because at this point in the game, there was no need to revert to a back 4!

 

What part of the match was the Praet part? We need to make a clip of that ha ha ha.

 

I've said before that I think it's healthy to try players in different positions. We get overly caught up with the position a player is. Their attributes and skillset should determine how and where they are played. Eddie Howe's reinvention of Joelinton the best recent example of this!

[Plastik Man]

1 hour ago, StriderHiryu said:

That's what it looked like to me. Hard to say because at this point in the game, there was no need to revert to a back 4!

 

What part of the match was the Praet part? We need to make a clip of that ha ha ha.

 

I've said before that I think it's healthy to try players in different positions. We get overly caught up with the position a player is. Their attributes and skillset should determine how and where they are played. Eddie Howe's reinvention of Joelinton the best recent example of this!

Yep, certainly Choudhury played the Ricardo role alongside Winks, I just wasn't sure of they switched when Ricardo came on for Winks. I'm sure I looked last night but can't remember!

 

You're right Choudhury hardly had to cover left back as we had so much possession.

 

The Praet incident I think must've been in the last 20 mins, not long after Iheanacho had gone off? maybe 5-10 minutes after? He was running into a right channel just past half way and flicked the ball behind him towards the centre of the pitch, where you'd expect a striker to be.  Itade me chuckle.

[Col city fan]

7 hours ago, Greg2607 said:

so Kelechi then.... 

All depends if he wants to stay doesn’t it 

 

[BenTheFox]

8 hours ago, Sparrowhawk said:

Any chance people could not use this thread (or indeed lots of the other threads) as a vehicle for Rodgers bashing?

 

It got tedious enough while he was here, but at least you could understand it when he was actually our manager.

 

He's gone. Can we just talk about the current manager? Especially in threads about the current manager?

 

I agree. I'm still bitter towards the man and how he behaved during the last year or so of him being our manager, but we have a new manager to get behind now, who should be judged on merit. 

[Matt]

9 hours ago, FoxinNotts said:

Pass them to death

We did that last year.

 

The difference? We're doing it with purpose now.

 

Does still irk me and make me cringe someones in an a little box somewhere counting how many passes are made though. Get a life.

[Kopfkino]

10 hours ago, Kopfkino said:

It’s early days and it’ll click better when we’ve got a better balance to the squad but in both games we’re still not high enough up the pitch. The build up is great in the middle third but it doesn’t connect into and around the final third, partly because we’ve not yet really got a player between the lines and the wide players seem too disconnected from the rest. Thus when we lose the ball, we lose it in bad areas and we look vulnerable. 

 

I think I read that this was part of the issue at Parma but hoping it’s a personnel and time problem rather than a system and coaching issue

When I said this I hadn’t seen the stat that Burton had more passes in the final third yesterday than us, despite the fact we made over 550 passes more than them and they were diabolical.

 

Which encapsulates the issue at this very early stage, it’s better passing in the defensive and middle third - it’s not just grim u-shape passing, it has purpose and pace but it’s not connecting where it matters so I’m not quite understanding how some people are being brought around by it unless it’s just hope about what could be. But fair play of people aren’t tarring all possession with same brush.

[OntarioFox]

On a more general level, was gonna post in the Burton post match thread based on debate over possession footy, but probably fits better here...

 

I still personally prefer a counter attacking style - our success with it was a big reason it's now a blueprint for teams with limited budgets, and has kept the likes of Palace and Forest in the Premier League at the expense of more languid teams (like us) who can't cope with the press and quick transitions.

 

I'm liking what I've seen of Enzoball so far, though. As others have said, possession is only a pointless endeavour if you do nothing with it, which we've been forced to endure under most of Rodgers' tenure.

 

My worry is what happens if players start to get too comfortable and effort levels drop. Our press and ability to pick forward balls quickly will be key to this working. Lose that and it may as well be Brendan / Puel Mk. 3.

 

Part of that should probably come from healthy competition for places. We can never again afford to have players sat on fat contracts and manager favourites playing without merit. Enzo's willingness to try academy products in McAteer and Marcal-Madivadua is a good start, but I think we may need to get used to a more regular turnover of senior playing staff than in previous years as well.

 

He's going to have to be a little ruthless for that to happen, so I hope he strikes the right balance. I don't think any of us really know the details of why Souttar doesn't seem to factor into his plans for example, but it's got to be seen differently to Rodgers' spat with Soyuncu, where he was stubborn enough to play DMs at centre back ahead of him. I guess we'll see.

Edited 11 August 2023 by OntarioFox

[Simmo86]

Could somebody who knows far more about tactics then I do tell why them playing man to man will make it harder for us, I would be thinking that although I guess players will be more tightly marked surely it leaves more space if you get it right?

[Bordersfox]

5 minutes ago, Simmo86 said:

Could somebody who knows far more about tactics then I do tell why them playing man to man will make it harder for us, I would be thinking that although I guess players will be more tightly marked surely it leaves more space if you get it right?

I am not sure you can read jack sh1t into media stuff like this really. 

 

He said after the Burton game that teams being aggressive and on the front foot against us actually meant there will be more space for us to play his style of football.  As you mentioned in your post.. 

 

But obviously he isn't going to come out and say that prior to Huddersfield.  

[lcfcdamo]

On 10/08/2023 at 11:18, Kopfkino said:

It’s early days and it’ll click better when we’ve got a better balance to the squad but in both games we’re still not high enough up the pitch. The build up is great in the middle third but it doesn’t connect into and around the final third, partly because we’ve not yet really got a player between the lines and the wide players seem too disconnected from the rest. Thus when we lose the ball, we lose it in bad areas and we look vulnerable. 

 

I think I read that this was part of the issue at Parma but hoping it’s a personnel and time problem rather than a system and coaching issue

I think with a good attacking mid anda right winger with nacho up front that will all change!

[Stadt]

1 hour ago, Simmo86 said:

Could somebody who knows far more about tactics then I do tell why them playing man to man will make it harder for us, I would be thinking that although I guess players will be more tightly marked surely it leaves more space if you get it right?

They'll be following our players more aggressively over the pitch rather than being content to stay in their zones. E.g our usual overload of Ricardo stepping into midfield might be slightly less effective as they'll have their winger follow him. It does however open up space outwide for the RW. If McAteer starts he'll have a lot of space.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if Ricardo plays at LB to invert inwards from there creating Mavididi more space outside to isolate their fullback 1 v1 as that'd be more effective than McAteer having the space.

Edited 11 August 2023 by Stadt