Wrong. You need a solid defence.
ESPN - Mourinho wants to sign Skriniar and Romagnoli in Jan
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Wrong. You need a solid defence.
When he had ball playing CBs at other clubs he still did not build from the back.
What did he do? Just have them hoof the ball? There are different ways to build attacks from defensive positions other than just play it short from the keeper. CB’s who can find players between lines, are comfortable under pressure and that can find wide targets are valuable. Being good on the ball is not just about making short passes, you need to be comfortable receiving the ball and have good body positioning and awareness as well. Even if you play a long ball it still needs to be accurate anyway.
€150m more like. Inter turned down €65m in the summer
Like
Maybe clinch deal in January for summer move
Pressing from the front and playing the high line is relatively new. Only since Barca in 2011 + have teams tried to copy it.
Now being able to build from the back and retain possession under pressure is as important as ever. That's something Mourinho doesn't care about / fails to understand.
It makes sense that ever since pressing became popular his teams have struggled.
You think he doesn’t undestand this? Really?
Well he chooses not to adapt and use a form of high pressing, he doesn't work on possession, so I'm not sure he realises or cares how important this is.
You have to remember he grew up coaching in the defensive years of Calcio, this will ingrained in him as the "right"way to play. Things have changed.
Grasping at straws a bit, don't you think? The only real example is Mkhi for Sanchez. Ibra was a stop gap and had a bad injury, with only a short term deal. Fred has played alongside the other two midfielders, there's nothing to suggest he's a replacement.
I'll have to disagree on this point though. Solid defense is still as important as ever in winning the league. Leicester and Chelsea won it by their defense. City have spent a fortune on defense, far more than what they spent on their attack actually, nearly equal to 300m on defense, full backs and GKs in 2 years and that moved them from 3rd to 1st under Pep, and they were the strongest defense last season conceding the least amount of goals. Between Pep's first and second season, the only thing that changed in their formation is their backrow. Their attack and midfield were more or less the same.
You can also look at Liverpool last seaaon and this season and see what changed in them. They have the same attack but less firing than last season, but they'r competing this season after adding a 75m defender and 67m GK. They weren't near challenging at all last season despite all the goals scored.
So I'll say no having a solid defense is still one of the most important aspects in winning the premier league.
Never said we should have a mickey mouse defense. I agree we need a solid defense, which is possible with the CBs we have currently, and not necessarily a world class defense. Think Smalling-Bailly is no better or no worse than City's CBs. We are leaking goals due to a lack of motivation and improper set-up. Attack more to relieve pressure on the CBs, and we won't be badly off.
City spent a fortune on defense yes, but I would say FBs are more important to attack than defense nowadays, can hardly consider them as mere defenders. Of course, they did buy Laporte and Stones in addition to Otamendi and Kompany.
Cleearly you don't watch Laporte if you think any of our batch are on his level.
Also a CB playing out comfortably with forward passes from the back is vital to attack. Neither of our cb does this often enough and City Liverpool and Chelseas do all the time.
Except players have come out and said in training they have specifically worked on passing...
I'll disagree on your evaluation on our defense but it's perspective.
The point is the importance of having strong attack has increased in recent yearts but that doesn't mean having strong defense priority has decreased. It's still as important as ever but it can't be your only strenght point, that's the key.
Anyone else noticed how all our defensive issues seemingly disappeared in the second half against Newcastle when we decided to start pressing them?
Newcastle sat back to defend the lead tbf.
Both are quality but I don't think they'd fancy signing for us, unfortunately. They're in a good league, know the culture and the language plus who wants to play for a team where the only plan b is to hoof the ball to Fellaini
Yeah but we should be imposing our attacking game on most teams anyway. This idea of soaking up the pressure and trying to hit them on the break is absolutely pointless if we can't trust our midfield and defence to stay intact.
Lukaku mentioned it at the beginning of the season, we seemed to be progressing and doing better especially in the 4-4-2 diamond.
Since then though we've stopped using that formation and the higher press. He's gone back to what he knows best.
I don't think Jose set us out to soak up pressure. They scored 2 very early goals. It just points to a shit defence which is uncharacteristic of a manager who has a history of structuring a great defence at all his previous clubs.
Can you believe this post.
Good to have you back @haram! I was wondering where you had been when things got a bit tough!
Newcastle aside, I think in general his MO is to soak up pressure and hit on the break. Also we had the second best defence last season with pretty much the same line up, I wouldn't say we're shit just that we're not playing to our strengths/getting the best out of them
Would much prefer if we were targeting De Ligt first and foremost. He looks likes the brightest talent in that position from what I have seen. If we are looking to build a new defence then I think he would be strong starting point.
Koulibaly would be the closest to a sure thing I would be looking at as well.
Like the look of Škriniar, but remain unconvinced by Romagnoli for the time being.
Koulibaly would be the closest to a sure thing I would be looking at as well.
Like the look of Škriniar, but remain unconvinced by Romagnoli for the time being.
I don't get this "Mourinho needs defenders who can play out from the back to play attacking football" schtick from Mourinho fanboys. Mourinho is not going to suddenly play a high line defence, we are not going to suddenly transform into a high pressing team.
For Mourinho's style of low block defence you don't need a ball playing CB like a Guariola or a Klopp side does as the central midfielders, wingers are quite deep when defending in a Mourinho setup, all that we need from our CB is to play a simple short pass to CMs or fullbacks or wingers, which the likes Smalling, Jones, Bailly and Lindelof are more than capable of doing.
Mourinho's problem withour current setup is lack of world class players in attack who can quickly transition from the deep defence to quick counter attacks. He had Hazard, Fabregas and Costa at Chelsea to cause serious damage in counter attack but he is struggling with the likes of Lukaku, Matic and Mata in attack, that's why he pushed for Sanchez but it hasn't worked out.
Even if Mourinho wants to play a high pressing, possession style of football, he can go ahead and play with our current squad, we managed with Smalling under LvG. Liverpool are getting by with Dejan fecking Lovren. Why can't we at least try to play that way? MY point is if Mourinho wants to play a possession based attacking game, we are more than capable of playing that way against crap teams like Brighton, Derby etc with the likes of Smalling, Jones etc.
I'm not against signing Skriniar, Romagnoli etc but even if they did arrive, Mourinho is not capable of transforming our side.
For Mourinho's style of low block defence you don't need a ball playing CB like a Guariola or a Klopp side does as the central midfielders, wingers are quite deep when defending in a Mourinho setup, all that we need from our CB is to play a simple short pass to CMs or fullbacks or wingers, which the likes Smalling, Jones, Bailly and Lindelof are more than capable of doing.
Mourinho's problem withour current setup is lack of world class players in attack who can quickly transition from the deep defence to quick counter attacks. He had Hazard, Fabregas and Costa at Chelsea to cause serious damage in counter attack but he is struggling with the likes of Lukaku, Matic and Mata in attack, that's why he pushed for Sanchez but it hasn't worked out.
Even if Mourinho wants to play a high pressing, possession style of football, he can go ahead and play with our current squad, we managed with Smalling under LvG. Liverpool are getting by with Dejan fecking Lovren. Why can't we at least try to play that way? MY point is if Mourinho wants to play a possession based attacking game, we are more than capable of playing that way against crap teams like Brighton, Derby etc with the likes of Smalling, Jones etc.
I'm not against signing Skriniar, Romagnoli etc but even if they did arrive, Mourinho is not capable of transforming our side.
^If JM was truly reformed from this low-block, slow, un-expansive, style of football and willing to throw molotovs at Ed Woodward in the form of playing McTominay at CB, why not just go for it all and play a high pressing, high line system? Just expose the entire back line. My belief is that he has no desire to do anything like that at all. You don't spend an entire season pleading for Fellani to stay if you have any intention of suddenly abandoning your tired philosophy and opting for speed and high tempo.
Winning the ball high up the field is just evidently too risky. He's a risk-averse manager who seemingly spends all his preparation on nullifying the strengths of mid table sides.
Winning the ball high up the field is just evidently too risky. He's a risk-averse manager who seemingly spends all his preparation on nullifying the strengths of mid table sides.
Problem is, a lot of people now have a pre conceived notion that Jose is a "soak up pressure and only hit on break" sort of manager. He wasn't like that in Serie A, or with Real or in 2015 with Chelsea. He did go out and out teams to bed comfortably in all those tenures for the most part.
Right now we suddenly think he just wants to soak up pressure, but I think the problem is really rooted in the way he rates the defence. Your point about the 2nd best defence in the league should be noted with what he said about us having a "phenomenal" season. Whilst he didn't have a trophy he did reach a cup final and had 18 sides behind him in the league with a points tally enough to win 3 of the last 5 PLs. And yet, he went out of his way to warn us that this was over achieving and the defence really isn't that good.
Parking whether we are for or against mourinho aside, we can all agree that the man knows how to build foundations in a starting XI and when he says the defence needs upgrades, you can bet he's probably going to be right. It's sort of showing this year as Bailey isn't the same defender he was pre surgery, Lindelof is just a bad signing and Smalling is the only competent defender but fails to show any prowess on playing out from the back.
The way the modern game has changed, we need ball playing centre backs and Jose sort of gets this now. I do think we have looked like a side soaking pressure because Jose is not comfortable with the quality of defenders he has and constraints on or two attackers to provide protection.
Of course we can point to Bailey and Lindelof being "his signings" but the.major ankle surgery was hard luck and Lindelof OK bad signing but nothing to beat him with a stick with.
The names Jose is affiliated with at CB sound like no brainers anyway and I genuinely think one or two of them will improve our side massively in results and style of play.
When did we play a 442 diamond? Genuine question. I don't remember a game except against West Ham where we've had 2 up front or no wide forwards. Against West Ham it seemed to be a 532, and that's the only exception I can remember.
It's not really the point here, but that is just not true at all.
Leicester in 15/16 had 81 points like us, every other champion had considerably more points. Before that we won the league with 80 points in 2010/11, after that you have to go back to 2000/01.
Burnley and Watford, then changed at home to Wolves back to 4-3-3.
Yes West ham was a 3-5-2.
Sorry I must have sourced that information wrongly.
They have noone in front of them to pass to through the lines, our front six movement is dire.
In the current market we would have to fork up 200m to get Škriniar and Koulibaly. The only thing I want to know is how clubs like Inter and Napoli can find such gems for only 10-15m£ while we spend 30m on Lindelöf. I seriously hope that our scouts at least recommended these players or this club is in serious trouble. Leicster also got Maguire for 17m and Barca got Umtiti for 20m but we just go in for all these players when their prices have gone through the roof. Why the feck can't we find them in the first place?
Very often I have seen easy passes on to Pogba or his midfield partner (Fellaini or Herrera or whoever isn't deep lying). Almost every time it's forgone for a safe square pass to a fellow cb who then recycles to the winger. They can easily cut out 2 players and cumulative minutes of buildup by playing out from the back but never do so.
Absolutely. The one proper bargain we got in recent times was Blind. And even he was squad player material. We rarely get great deals for players just on the cusp of making it big. Heck for how many of our signings can you say that the perceived evaluation multiplied (other than due seismic shifts in the market like the Neymar transfer) after they signed for us.
I agree that Ed should cop a lot of the blame.
Think he should have let Jose go in the Summer if he wasn't going to back him. But trying to save money.
Yep thats why Liverpool are going for their 3rd title in a row....wait
Forward passes from the CBs :
I would have used our game with Spurs, but we had 3 CBs compared to 2 each here. It would have been the best comparison due to strength of opponents. Had to pick a 2 CB game though, so :
On these screens you can see the number of forward passes from the players with checked boxes to the right of those boxes.
34 Laporte & 59 Stones
51 Lovren & 56 VVD
And then for us
36 Lindelof & 29 Smalling
Something that also needs to be considered though is that City played 15 more passes in general. So its highly likely that one of their players is going to make more passes than ours, in any position.
With Liverpool its close, they played 515 and we played 513
In this match Lindelof played more forward passes than Laporte. And Smalling 5 less for a team that played 15 less passes. Not much difference at all with Laporte in this match.
What about other positions though?
Thats how many forward passes were played by our players in this match against Burnley
So Mendy played 21 more forward passes than Shaw in these particular matches
Gomez played 12 more forward passes than Valencia in these particular matches
Fellaini, Pogba and Matic all played more forward passes than Liverpool or City in these matches other than Henderson
Lingard, Sanchez and Lukaku all played more forward passes than Liverpool or City in these matches
So its definitely the defense thats one of the reasons we play a few less forward passes than the best teams in the league. But its not just the CBs. The fullbacks are even further off the numbers of some of their positions at Liverpool and City. While Lindelof was ahead of 1 of them and Smalling isnt far behind 1 of them - which considering all the blame thats put on him about passing, is a bit surprising.
Against Newcastle both Smalling and Shaw played a lot more forward passes and so did the team in general. Both played more than Young. Bailly only played 19 mins so that explains such a low number.
Shaw played the most forward passes in the entire team, 1 more than Pogba. And Smalling played the 3rd most of our team.
Perhaps the valencia match here is the best example of us playing a 2 at the back against a fairly good team :
Smalling played plenty from CB, more than Bailly and not a huge amount less than Liverpool's or City's did when they played each other. A decent amount behind Stones and VVD, but quite close to Lovren and 14 more than Laporte.
Valencia made much more than his previous screenshot and Matic played a lot too.
Smalling has a reputation but its not fair. Its mostly a myth. While he's definitely not as good as Stones, or VVD on the ball that doesnt make him bad on the ball. City and Liverpool only have 1 player here making a lot more forward passes from CB than Smalling.
So adding 1 player who can make around the same amount as they do and putting them next to Smalling will surely help. But sometimes the fullbacks arent making as many as our rivals either.
Good point, we'd be likely looking at van Dijk money for both, our best hope of getting 2 new CB's is to get one of these, preferably Skrinniar, and then get Alderweireld on that £25M clause or hope Ajax will do a more reasonable £40M+ bonuses type of deal for de Ligt.
Skrinar and DeLigt would be nice