We've played: Wolves, Spurs and Forest in our opening games and watched all three sides power through us with sheer physicality with a level of frequency that you can't and shouldn't brush over. It's clearly a problem for us that our own tactical set ups exposes and highlights for the league at large, ironically.
In this system, it is essential that each player wins, or solidly contests their 1-on-1's - any time a team breaks rank, whichever player is nearest the ball is supposed to race to the opponent and either win his contest outright, or be enough of a physical force to contain the opponent until the calvary arrives. We're patently awful at this. Utterly dire to the point it's fair game to ask what goes on in training for us to be so bad on an either or scale.
City are a very easy example of what is supposed to happen when an opponent breaks rank and is free of the press; players like Walker, Ake, Rhodri all prove to be physical obstacles in their own right. Winning physical contests against such players is incredibly difficult in its own right and you can see the self-doubt so many opponents have when trying to discern where the most prudent space to attack is or who the weak link to target might be.
Physical contests are supposed to go: man or ball, never both [through]. You power through and physical overwhelm, or, if incapable of that, tactical foul. Whichever option chosen, the ball will rarely breach tactical lines with an opponent attached to it. We're sieve like in how we allow opponents to attack the space (big ups for Boss; gone but not forgotten), being physically incapable of overpowering, outpacing or clashing shoulder to shoulder in that devious manner that refs struggle to card.
Condensing the above into examples of our own in times gone by:
A Stam sends you to your maker.
A Rio makes you avoid his area of the pitch entirely.
A Vidic cannot wait to physically engage.
A Brown is coming through, and one of you might be out the game afterwards.
An Evra swarms.
A Heinze is putting his body on the line.
A Giggs is most likely not only faster than you, he's also going to win the ball cleanly in a few seconds if you don't release it.
A Valencia, you go as far in-field as possible against.
The gist is clear; in their own way, the vast majority of our successful teams were physically oppressive and intimidating, which in turn caused doubt and hesitation, the kind of hesitation seen in other teams now and most definitely not in ours.
Varane used to be up there in terms of raw physical presence with that aura reserved for a Rio or pre-injury Van Dijk. These days, not so much. Kyle Walker has pretty much forged a reputation as a terminator in terms of what's coming if a player breaches the line on his side of the pitch. It's a well earned reputation that has earned his team so much more respect and time to form defensive shape.
I don't know who you back in our team when it comes to raw, athletic contests? AWB is great 1on1, but we see how meek he can be in tussles themselves - he doesn't contest the man; he's just extremely adept at tackling. Like him or loathe him, McTominay is probably the only player I can think of that I'd think supposed 50/50 tussles can go either way with. His issue is positioning and reading of the game as opposed to how well he'll do when directly engaging with an opponent. Shaw is the only other one in the squad, for my money.
Athletic prowess isn't the be all and end all of anything, but it is always the most hallowed combination: athletic players who are also technically adept simply make life easier for their team. Equally so, a lack of raw athleticism demands an extremely high level of technical excellence to compensate - "turbo midgets" were often cited as the counter measure to athleticism, but what is often oversighted is that said turbo midgets are often top percentile in terms of agility and short-burst acceleration (speed over the first 20m of a sprint), which means they can stick to players and make life really difficult in terms of playing through them and not incurring at least a systematic tactical foul. For myself, this is an often overlooked aspect when a midfield or attack is considered physically weak and/or lightweight. You get enough of these types together, and you have the consummate unit for the high press. It's very odd to get rid of our best high presser, if that is how we wish to play.
Anyway, enough of my rambling. Thread is simple: are we the least physically and athletically unimpressive squad in the league? If you say no, please state whom you believe is meeker. Athleticism is definitely not in short supply in this league - we determine who is rubbish in it by their technical ability and efficiency; it's a rare case indeed for any side to be said to not be up to par physically. Another way to phrase this is: taking our exact tactical set up and replacing our players with those of the others in the league, who would be as easily breached and susceptible as ours?
In this system, it is essential that each player wins, or solidly contests their 1-on-1's - any time a team breaks rank, whichever player is nearest the ball is supposed to race to the opponent and either win his contest outright, or be enough of a physical force to contain the opponent until the calvary arrives. We're patently awful at this. Utterly dire to the point it's fair game to ask what goes on in training for us to be so bad on an either or scale.
City are a very easy example of what is supposed to happen when an opponent breaks rank and is free of the press; players like Walker, Ake, Rhodri all prove to be physical obstacles in their own right. Winning physical contests against such players is incredibly difficult in its own right and you can see the self-doubt so many opponents have when trying to discern where the most prudent space to attack is or who the weak link to target might be.
Physical contests are supposed to go: man or ball, never both [through]. You power through and physical overwhelm, or, if incapable of that, tactical foul. Whichever option chosen, the ball will rarely breach tactical lines with an opponent attached to it. We're sieve like in how we allow opponents to attack the space (big ups for Boss; gone but not forgotten), being physically incapable of overpowering, outpacing or clashing shoulder to shoulder in that devious manner that refs struggle to card.
Condensing the above into examples of our own in times gone by:
A Stam sends you to your maker.
A Rio makes you avoid his area of the pitch entirely.
A Vidic cannot wait to physically engage.
A Brown is coming through, and one of you might be out the game afterwards.
An Evra swarms.
A Heinze is putting his body on the line.
A Giggs is most likely not only faster than you, he's also going to win the ball cleanly in a few seconds if you don't release it.
A Valencia, you go as far in-field as possible against.
The gist is clear; in their own way, the vast majority of our successful teams were physically oppressive and intimidating, which in turn caused doubt and hesitation, the kind of hesitation seen in other teams now and most definitely not in ours.
Varane used to be up there in terms of raw physical presence with that aura reserved for a Rio or pre-injury Van Dijk. These days, not so much. Kyle Walker has pretty much forged a reputation as a terminator in terms of what's coming if a player breaches the line on his side of the pitch. It's a well earned reputation that has earned his team so much more respect and time to form defensive shape.
I don't know who you back in our team when it comes to raw, athletic contests? AWB is great 1on1, but we see how meek he can be in tussles themselves - he doesn't contest the man; he's just extremely adept at tackling. Like him or loathe him, McTominay is probably the only player I can think of that I'd think supposed 50/50 tussles can go either way with. His issue is positioning and reading of the game as opposed to how well he'll do when directly engaging with an opponent. Shaw is the only other one in the squad, for my money.
Athletic prowess isn't the be all and end all of anything, but it is always the most hallowed combination: athletic players who are also technically adept simply make life easier for their team. Equally so, a lack of raw athleticism demands an extremely high level of technical excellence to compensate - "turbo midgets" were often cited as the counter measure to athleticism, but what is often oversighted is that said turbo midgets are often top percentile in terms of agility and short-burst acceleration (speed over the first 20m of a sprint), which means they can stick to players and make life really difficult in terms of playing through them and not incurring at least a systematic tactical foul. For myself, this is an often overlooked aspect when a midfield or attack is considered physically weak and/or lightweight. You get enough of these types together, and you have the consummate unit for the high press. It's very odd to get rid of our best high presser, if that is how we wish to play.
Anyway, enough of my rambling. Thread is simple: are we the least physically and athletically unimpressive squad in the league? If you say no, please state whom you believe is meeker. Athleticism is definitely not in short supply in this league - we determine who is rubbish in it by their technical ability and efficiency; it's a rare case indeed for any side to be said to not be up to par physically. Another way to phrase this is: taking our exact tactical set up and replacing our players with those of the others in the league, who would be as easily breached and susceptible as ours?
Ffs. 