Marti Cifuentes - Style of Play, Tactics and Analysis

[LVFox]

9 minutes ago, Bourbon Fox said:

I feel like the early days of Enzo were more chaotic, in a positive sense, and we got the ball forward more incicively due to player movement.

 

The Liverpool game early on was a good example, we were breaking the lines more and it seemed like the wingers had more licence.

 

As things progressed we seemed to be more bogged down.

 

Potentially, although I feel teams just got smarter to us throughout the season. Early on we constantly beat the press through a Winks/Ricardo bounce pass combo, but then struggled when it went wide to a Wanya or Kasey.

Vividly remember the Cardiff home match thinking that Vestegaard had plenty of opportunities to find Kelechi early on and we didn’t do it.

[Shane]

I wonder if he’ll try a PSG style front 3 with a winger up front and everybody interchanging.

[Stadt]

18 minutes ago, Shane said:

I wonder if he’ll try a PSG style front 3 with a winger up front and everybody interchanging.

I've thought about this too but if it doesn't work we don't have many other avenues to explore.

[Aleksz]

33 minutes ago, Shane said:

I wonder if he’ll try a PSG style front 3 with a winger up front and everybody interchanging.

Think that's very likely at the moment whilst we haven't got a stand out striker. 

[Parker Pen]

On 15/07/2025 at 18:33, StriderHiryu said:

 

Going live at 7PM!

Great analysis and certainly leaves you feeling positive which is what we all need and will hopefully clear some of those negative waves. 
 

[Jazzy_Jeff]

1 hour ago, Aleksz said:

Think that's very likely at the moment whilst we haven't got a stand out striker. 

Quite like the idea of Ayew coming a bit deeper and Mavididi/Fatawu/Monga going in behind.

 

Play BEK if still here as advanced 8 pulling the strings 

[Richmondfox]

2 minutes ago, Jazzy_Jeff said:

Quite like the idea of Ayew coming a bit deeper and Mavididi/Fatawu/Monga going in behind.

 

Play BEK if still here as advanced 8 pulling the strings 

I would prefer a better player to play that role but I doubt we will get anyone.  The problem with moving Ayew around is he still plays the same way. Struggles to hold the ball up and actively looks to stop play rather than progress. 
 

I can’t see Ayew suddenly bringing players into the game when he wouldn’t all last season. 

[FoxFossil]

Loving the Barca videos and position names, just wonder if our players are smart enough to work out what's going on.

[honeybradger]

16 minutes ago, Richmondfox said:

I would prefer a better player to play that role but I doubt we will get anyone.  The problem with moving Ayew around is he still plays the same way. Struggles to hold the ball up and actively looks to stop play rather than progress. 
 

I can’t see Ayew suddenly bringing players into the game when he wouldn’t all last season. 

How Ayew has earned a reputation as a player with good holdup play i have no idea. He usually slows down play looking for the foul or passes backwards killing the move.

 

Would much rather Jake Evans in that position, against Pourtsmouth he was very good at collecting the ball deeper and looking to distribute it to the wings. Very underrated player on here.

[honeybradger]

On 16/07/2025 at 09:20, Finnegan said:

 

Mavididi is a bit of a dick, Winks thinks he's better than the squad, it's amazing how good some of you lot are at deep psychological analysis of people you've never met before.

 

Really wish FoxesTalk would ****ing knock it off sometimes. We don't actually know what goes on at the club and I can't really blame anyone for having their morale hit by the year we've just had, in particular them having to work with two absolutely honking managers.

 

Enzo came in and turned Jannik Vestergaard - who had been completely frozen out - in to one of our two or three most important players on the way to promotion. Who knows who Cifuentes will like and be able to get a tune out of? Everyone pretty much just gets a clean slate, as far as I'm concerned. 

 

We got massively burned last season by giving Vestergaard and Faes a clean sheet under Maresca.

 

We cannot make that mistake again, that Everton game last season should be the last competitive game that Winks and Vestergaard have in this shirt, disgraceful performance from the both of them. Two very highly paid experienced players completely switched off in an important game.

 

Edit: in summary we will die a slow death if we keep giving poor players on extortionate wages clean sheets. If they havent performed in the past they're unlikely to perform for us in the future, shift them at any opportunity and rebuild with younger players on lower wages that hopefully will not keep letting us down like our current lot do.

Edited 17 July 2025 by honeybradger

[Finnegan]

22 minutes ago, honeybradger said:

Winks and Vestergaard

 

22 minutes ago, honeybradger said:

If they havent performed in the past they're unlikely to perform for us in the future

 

You mean two of our best players last time we were in this division? And we won it? And got promoted?

 

[bmt]

On 16/07/2025 at 10:41, Stadt said:

Refusing to stay one day week at the training ground (with excellent lodgings) wasn't reasonable, the "I miss u Enzo", paraphrased, wasn't professional.

Winks has a year left on his deal and he's not up to in the PL we should sell whilst we can recoup a small fee.

Winks never actually held that sign did he?

[Stadt]

14 minutes ago, bmt said:

Winks never actually held that sign did he?

No - but he was the most pro-Maresca player generally. Bit of a leap to blame him for it but it's ceompletely secondary to not staying at the ground.

[Stadt]

I'd be worried if Winks was the lone pivot defensively. Great analysis and picking up on Cifuentes' sometimes weak defensive transitions is really important -  so Winks' lack of defensive output and physicality would leave us exposed down the middle.

 

 

 

*Last season (his championship profile is very similar)

 

 

I can see it being Skipp - he played as the more defensive of the pair in Norwich's 4231 in 20/21.

 

Looks a better fit for me - plus Winks only has a year left, cash in now or we lose him on a free or extend ffs.

[honeybradger]

33 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

 

You mean two of our best players last time we were in this division? And we won it? And got promoted?

 

Look you've clearly made that Championship winning side your Roman Empire, which is fine I guess but you cannot ignore how those same players let us down last season and in particular the terrible performance of those two.

 

They are both on good PL wages but are clearly only good enough for a championship promotion push. It would be fine if they were earning lower wages appropriate for their level as players but they're not. For example Maxime Lopez who is identical to Winks as a player is on £10k a week at Paris FC, for reference winks is on £70k a week.

 

You also cannot ignore the fact that those two were frozen out by our manager last season, say what you want about Van Nistelrooy as a manager but he was elite as a player and knows when players have the right mentality and Winks and Vestergaard did not fit into that standard.

[turtmcfly]

8 minutes ago, honeybradger said:

Look you've clearly made that Championship winning side your Roman Empire, which is fine I guess but you cannot ignore how those same players let us down last season and in particular the terrible performance of those two.

 

They are both on good PL wages but are clearly only good enough for a championship promotion push. It would be fine if they were earning lower wages appropriate for their level as players but they're not. For example Maxime Lopez who is identical to Winks as a player is on £10k a week at Paris FC, for reference winks is on £70k a week.

 

You also cannot ignore the fact that those two were frozen out by our manager last season, say what you want about Van Nistelrooy as a manager but he was elite as a player and knows when players have the right mentality and Winks and Vestergaard did not fit into that standard.

 

 

 

[Finnegan]

20 minutes ago, honeybradger said:

Look you've clearly made that Championship winning side your Roman Empire, which is fine I guess but you cannot ignore how those same players let us down last season and in particular the terrible performance of those two.

 

They are both on good PL wages but are clearly only good enough for a championship promotion push. It would be fine if they were earning lower wages appropriate for their level as players but they're not. For example Maxime Lopez who is identical to Winks as a player is on £10k a week at Paris FC, for reference winks is on £70k a week.

 

You also cannot ignore the fact that those two were frozen out by our manager last season, say what you want about Van Nistelrooy as a manager but he was elite as a player and knows when players have the right mentality and Winks and Vestergaard did not fit into that standard.

 

And you cannot ignore the fact we've got to get out of the ****ing Championship first. 

 

Everyone's so obsessed with staying in the Premier League, we've got to actually contend with an extremely difficult promotion push this year, assuming we're going to go up is just painfully arrogant. 

 

Discarding players that we know are good enough to get us promoted because they had a poor year last year is just daft when we pretty obviously don't have the resources to replace everyone. 

 

Obviously if we were inside a Football Manager simulation and we could just offer Vestergaard, Faes, Winks and co out to other clubs, get their exact value as determined by the computer and then go and buy some Brazilian 18 year old with a thousand potential then I'd be right there with you.

 

I agree with you in spirit. I'm ****ing sick of the sight of Vestergaard and Faes and the thought of Winks out there giggling with his We Miss You Enzo sign when we're fighting for our lives makes me grind my teeth. 

 

I'd sack off pretty much the entire squad if it was realistic. It just isn't.

 

We're still going to need the vast majority of them and we're probably only going to see one or two very cheap new faces coming in. So you all better pretty quickly get over the big old sulk at Winks and co because they're probably going to be critical to whether or not we go back up this year, whether you like it or not. 

 

[Stadt]

24 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

And you cannot ignore the fact we've got to get out of the ****ing Championship first. 

 

Everyone's so obsessed with staying in the Premier League, we've got to actually contend with an extremely difficult promotion push this year, assuming we're going to go up is just painfully arrogant. 

 

Discarding players that we know are good enough to get us promoted because they had a poor year last year is just daft when we pretty obviously don't have the resources to replace everyone. 

 

Obviously if we were inside a Football Manager simulation and we could just offer Vestergaard, Faes, Winks and co out to other clubs, get their exact value as determined by the computer and then go and buy some Brazilian 18 year old with a thousand potential then I'd be right there with you.

 

I agree with you in spirit. I'm ****ing sick of the sight of Vestergaard and Faes and the thought of Winks out there giggling with his We Miss You Enzo sign when we're fighting for our lives makes me grind my teeth. 

 

I'd sack off pretty much the entire squad if it was realistic. It just isn't.

 

We're still going to need the vast majority of them and we're probably only going to see one or two very cheap new faces coming in. So you all better pretty quickly get over the big old sulk at Winks and co because they're probably going to be critical to whether or not we go back up this year, whether you like it or not. 

 

Winks has a year left - we need to get rid. I was always under the impression we paid £7m for him but I just checked and it was £10m ffs!!!

 

So we need to sell him for £3.34m to break even for PSR, I'm sure there'd be takers at that, Rangers, Fulham, Leeds etc. Just get rid 

[Finnegan]

5 minutes ago, Stadt said:

Winks has a year left - we need to get rid. I was always under the impression we paid £7m for him but I just checked and it was £10m ffs!!!

 

So we need to sell him for £3.34m to break even for PSR, I'm sure there'd be takers at that, Rangers, Fulham, Leeds etc. Just get rid 

 

Of all the players that people have a rage boner for after last year, I'd most keep Winks. Especially now we know it's Cifuentes. 

 

The couple of million profit we might be able to get for him is a lot less than the financial benefits of promotion. 

 

Obviously if Cifuentes has other plans for the base of the midfield then I'm more than happy to see him go. He was completely useless to our last two managers, who both wanted conventional defensive midfielders to sit in front of the defence. 

 

But if Cifuentes sees Winks the same way Enzo did then he's probably one of our most valuable assets this season and we'd seriously struggle to find anyone better on our likely budget. 

 

Vestergaard was pretty good for helping us beat the press and break lines but I don't think that's quite as essential and it isn't really a good enough substitute for actually being able to defend, I'd happily see him and Faes go IF we can adequately replace them (Nelson hopefully makes that easier) but being realistic, who is going to take them off us and pay them a wage they'd leave us for? 

 

You're the first to point out how terrible we are at moving players on. It's one thing wanting them gone, it's another entirely thinking the club will manage it. 

 

[honeybradger]

43 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

And you cannot ignore the fact we've got to get out of the ****ing Championship first. 

 

Everyone's so obsessed with staying in the Premier League, we've got to actually contend with an extremely difficult promotion push this year, assuming we're going to go up is just painfully arrogant. 

 

Discarding players that we know are good enough to get us promoted because they had a poor year last year is just daft when we pretty obviously don't have the resources to replace everyone. 

 

Obviously if we were inside a Football Manager simulation and we could just offer Vestergaard, Faes, Winks and co out to other clubs, get their exact value as determined by the computer and then go and buy some Brazilian 18 year old with a thousand potential then I'd be right there with you.

 

I agree with you in spirit. I'm ****ing sick of the sight of Vestergaard and Faes and the thought of Winks out there giggling with his We Miss You Enzo sign when we're fighting for our lives makes me grind my teeth. 

 

I'd sack off pretty much the entire squad if it was realistic. It just isn't.

 

We're still going to need the vast majority of them and we're probably only going to see one or two very cheap new faces coming in. So you all better pretty quickly get over the big old sulk at Winks and co because they're probably going to be critical to whether or not we go back up this year, whether you like it or not. 

 

So you agree that the ideal situation is to sack them off, at least we can agree on that.

 

Let's not be condescending, what i am proposing is not only acheivable in a video game, we currently have plenty of chances to reshape our squad into a young exciting team that can gain promotion AND look to establish ourselves in the PL further down the line. No 18 year old Brazilian wonderkids needed. For reference the last time we were in the championship we missed a massive opportunity playing Faes, Vestergaard and Coady ahead of Nelson and paid the price wasting another year with those 3 at the back whilst Nelson had to go on loan to gain the experience he should've had the season before with us. Hopefully we don't make that same mistake again.

 

Here's my solution: rather than giving the old tossers 'clean sheets' and letting them back into the fold like nothing ever happened we should at the very least keep these players at arms length. We should give players like Nelson, Aluko and Okoli opportunities to stake their place as first choice defenders ahead of Vestergaard, Faes, Coady (ideally with the number of centrebacks we have we can just leave vestergaard at home).

 

We're lighter in midfield so it will be harder to keep Winks out but let's at least give Page a fair chance to stake his claim as one of our first choice midfielders.

 

Persisting with these sorts of players for too long is exactly what has gotten us into this mess whilst the likes of Brentford, Brighton and Bournemouth have looked to the continent for younger players on cheaper wages with less experience and reaped the reward. Yes we might get a short term payoff playing the safe game trying to gain promotion with known quantities but in the long term we are just going to keep falling further and further behind. If youre Monga, Page, Aluko, Evans, Alves, Nelson youre going to be looking at this championship season coming up and thinking 'if we're not not breaking through here now when will we ever?' and move on elsewhere for opportunities. Personally I value these players more for our long term prospects than I do promotion.

[southfox66]

The impression I've got seeing him on the lcfc YouTube that he's appears to be too overly confident when he doesn't have an inspirating record, as a manager is only one place he seems to shone but even think in the end they sacked him too, I also felt that the interaction with the players wasn't convincing, you got the feeling from some of players it was a case of here we ago another yet as another manager with big ambitions and have too many players who can make it awkward if they get a manager they don't like or his style of play, I was thinking if Faes stays how as a new manager do you stop him being so constantly poor and telling him he's not as great as Faes thinks he is.

 

I guess we will find out in the first few games hopefully I will be proved wrong.

[Dan]

Too much is made of possession itself which is just a number and less about the speed and tempo of play. A Dyche team could have 75% of the ball if they come up against say Nathan Jones.

[FoxFossil]

Problem as I see it, with Winks as a single pivot, is that teams will target him, and he's lightweight and we end up losing possession immediately in front of our back 3 or 4. 

[Stadt]

35 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

Of all the players that people have a rage boner for after last year, I'd most keep Winks. Especially now we know it's Cifuentes. 

 

The couple of million profit we might be able to get for him is a lot less than the financial benefits of promotion. 

 

Obviously if Cifuentes has other plans for the base of the midfield then I'm more than happy to see him go. He was completely useless to our last two managers, who both wanted conventional defensive midfielders to sit in front of the defence. 

 

But if Cifuentes sees Winks the same way Enzo did then he's probably one of our most valuable assets this season and we'd seriously struggle to find anyone better on our likely budget. 

 

Vestergaard was pretty good for helping us beat the press and break lines but I don't think that's quite as essential and it isn't really a good enough substitute for actually being able to defend, I'd happily see him and Faes go IF we can adequately replace them (Nelson hopefully makes that easier) but being realistic, who is going to take them off us and pay them a wage they'd leave us for? 

 

You're the first to point out how terrible we are at moving players on. It's one thing wanting them gone, it's another entirely thinking the club will manage it. 

 

What happens if by November he's playing alright, new 3 year deal on £40k with a 50% promotion increas?. That's probably what happens if we keep him - or we lose him on a free anyway and we're almost back to square one. 

 

Skipp is a very similar player, younger and practically unsellable - he was in the championship TOTY last time he played in it and he's better defensively. I'd rather him there and get moany Winks off the books.

[dmayne7]

20 minutes ago, southfox66 said:

The impression I've got seeing him on the lcfc YouTube that he's appears to be too overly confident when he doesn't have an inspirating record, as a manager is only one place he seems to shone but even think in the end they sacked him too, I also felt that the interaction with the players wasn't convincing, you got the feeling from some of players it was a case of here we ago another yet as another manager with big ambitions and have too many players who can make it awkward if they get a manager they don't like or his style of play, I was thinking if Faes stays how as a new manager do you stop him being so constantly poor and telling him he's not as great as Faes thinks he is.

 

I guess we will find out in the first few games hopefully I will be proved wrong.

 That is all