Burnley

TheYorkshireTerrier

TheYorkshireTerrier

Well-known member
Absolutely terrible today at home to Bournemouth.

2-0 down and in the 90th minute playing about with it at the back, goes to the keeper who just about keeps it in but kicks it out for a throw in.

Can we go back to pre-Pep and pack it in with every team trying to play like City.

It’s unwatchable at times, can’t believe I just wasted two hours of my life watching that after doing the same thing yesterday.
 
TheYorkshireTerrier said:
Absolutely terrible today at home to Bournemouth.

2-0 down and in the 90th minute playing about with it at the back, goes to the keeper who just about keeps it in but kicks it out for a throw in.

Can we go back to pre-Pep and pack it in with every team trying to play like City.

It’s unwatchable at times, can’t believe I just wasted two hours of my life watching that after doing the same thing yesterday.
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Agreed, look at Luton they are mixing it up and playing to their strengths, only narrowly beaten yesterday in a great game 👍.
Manc derby up next 👍
 
TheYorkshireTerrier said:
Absolutely terrible today at home to Bournemouth.

2-0 down and in the 90th minute playing about with it at the back, goes to the keeper who just about keeps it in but kicks it out for a throw in.

Can we go back to pre-Pep and pack it in with every team trying to play like City.

It’s unwatchable at times, can’t believe I just wasted two hours of my life watching that after doing the same thing yesterday.
Click to expand...
I’ve literally just been texting people saying the same thing. I think enough teams have studied it and worked out how to play against it now. The top teams are still brilliant at it but that’s because they have the best players. I even thought it during the first half of Arsenal v Spurs women. Both teams literally playing out from their own goal line and very happy to play each other into trouble rather than play a longer ball or play the ball in the air.
 
TheYorkshireTerrier said:
Absolutely terrible today at home to Bournemouth.

2-0 down and in the 90th minute playing about with it at the back, goes to the keeper who just about keeps it in but kicks it out for a throw in.

Can we go back to pre-Pep and pack it in with every team trying to play like City.

It’s unwatchable at times, can’t believe I just wasted two hours of my life watching that after doing the same thing yesterday.
Click to expand...

fair play to you for watching that stinker of a game, I found it a hard watch even as a bormuff fan. super sunday my arrse!
 
TheYorkshireTerrier said:
Absolutely terrible today at home to Bournemouth.

2-0 down and in the 90th minute playing about with it at the back, goes to the keeper who just about keeps it in but kicks it out for a throw in.

Can we go back to pre-Pep and pack it in with every team trying to play like City.

It’s unwatchable at times, can’t believe I just wasted two hours of my life watching that after doing the same thing yesterday.
Click to expand...
I find football today hard to watch. Every team tries to play the same. Its boring. I watched the Chelsea Leeds F.A Cup game from the 70's the other day. Now that was football. No fannies playing the game in those days. The days when men where men.
 
City invariably line up with a 3241.
Maybe we should try it despite the absence of the 2 midfielders who can defend 😁
 
A lot of it is pure football snobbery. I'd hate to go back to the days of Pulisball but if you haven't got the players to play the Pep brand of football, then there should be a willingness to mix it up, it's about getting the right balance.
 
Yeah, there are many similarities between us and Burnley. Both play in the same way. Both did well doing so last year. They went up and better opposition have squashed them and their way of playing. We didn't go up but lost many of our better players and have struggled to replicate it also in the league below.
 
Football tactics go in cycles these days, Conte brought 3 at the back into fashion and can see influence of Pep and De Zerbi with this baiting the press tactic we are all using.
One thing is for sure is that when you get promoted to the Premier League then you need to go more direct and take less risks.
 
Watched the last 10-15mins and as said above was surprised by the playing it around and an apparent lack of urgency
 
Thing is fans don't want direct or long ball football, as it's ugly, loads of our fans where whinging under Pulis etc and we were doing ok.

Man Utd played direct for years, when they were dominating, not really lump ball, but they tried to get it forward as fast as possible, and took some risks doing that, but it worked, as they had rapid players with technique to take advantage, and top level strikers.

If fans don't want it (lump ball), as there's something "nicer" available, then this will eventually filter down into players not wanting to play like that as kids etc. So more look to be more technical and it being less about massive big lads holding the ball up, or flicking onto a rapid little lad who was crap, but faster than anyone else.

I think the UK is just in a bit of a transition, between physical to technical, and we lagged behind Europe in the technical aspect for years. Seem to have caught up now, for the very best players, but still probably not enough good ones to go around to fill up other teams. This leaves teams a bit half way, sort of like where we are now. We almost have the players to do it when fully fit, but when we have players out it makes it much harder, but the players/ squad in other positions aren't really geared up for any other style. To me we're like a 6/10 playing out from the back side, hoping to be an 8/10, but to do it you need to go from 5/10, to 6/10 to 7/10 etc, and keep upgrading players. Last year we had the attackers/ forwards to make up for anything, this year we don't.

When teams are set up to play out from the back, but have crap players, it's hard to do anything different. The players aren't good enough to win at the style they're playing, which is probably the optimum for their team/ squad, so if they changed to a lump ball it would be even worse. All they can do is try different routes of playing out from the back, there are a few ways to do it, which are quite complex tactically, and it needs the whole team to know how to do it, to get it to work. City changed how they do it from using wide lads at the back, to now using centre backs left/ right who then come in after the other centre backs like Stones push forward through the middle etc, creating an overload.
 
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One thing I don't get about teams insisting on playing out from the back even when it isn't on is that it is obviously not good to be predictable. You can defend against predictable far easier than you can defend against unpredictable. If you know that the opposition will play out 100% of the time then you know you are free to high press. What should happen if you think about it logically is that "playing out from the back" should be the 1st option and if it isn't on then you go with the next best option. If the defending team is pressing high then that means there must be gaps further up the pitch. Getting the opposition to commit players forwards is basically the goal of playing it out from the back so if they are doing it before you've even passed to the centre back you can skip the first step and go direct to the midfield or attackers.

I'm sure the good teams do this but we definitely don't.

I watch a lot of NFL and teams used to defend against the run or the pass. In the modern game the offensive teams are playing read/pass options where instead of pre-planning to run or pass they leave the decision to see how the defense reacts and the play develops. If they are set up to defend the run they go pass, if they are setup to defend the pass they run and if neither option is great the QB keeps it and runs himself. It's much harder to defend against. We seem to be stuck in the mindset of always playing either long ball or short ball and not making the best decision for the situation. I don't know if the players are told that they have to play out from the back or whether they are given freedom to make a decision and they are choosing that. I'm not sure which one would be more concerning.

The reason we have every team playing the current way is because the top teams have been successful doing it but they were successful because they did it first. It countered the tactics that other teams were playing. Now everyone is doing it the counter is probably to do something else. Pep and managers like him are constantly evolving the way they play and the rest are just lagging behind and copying while he moves on to the next thing. Predictability is easy to defend against.
 
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