True! I'd love to see a Caf managed team.
If we managed United it would look exactly how it looks now.
Individual Brilliance vs Pattern of play
- Thread starter meamth
- Start date
If we managed United it would look exactly how it looks now.
so much patterns of playTrue! I'd love to see a Caf managed team.
that it'd look like a Kpop dance routine.One is sustainable the other is intuitive meaning it cannot be relied upon. The problem with the OP is that a fan of the club can both support the club and acknowledge that the team lacks fundamentals to establish an identity. This has been addressed by the main media and pundits extensively.
The last 35 minutes against Newcastle is a good example of how Ole wants United to play; the pattern of play was very obvious.
You can like or dislike our pattern of play, but it’s wrong to say we don’t have a pattern and only rely on individual brilliance. Bruno is a great player, but he also benefit from the fact that our AM position is a very privileged position in our set up.
Coutinho carried Liverpool before Salah took over. In the end they had several players to rely on, and it resulted in great success.
I don’t see any problem in relying on Bruno. The problem is that we probably need two more players of his caliber if we want to win PL
You can like or dislike our pattern of play, but it’s wrong to say we don’t have a pattern and only rely on individual brilliance. Bruno is a great player, but he also benefit from the fact that our AM position is a very privileged position in our set up.
Coutinho carried Liverpool before Salah took over. In the end they had several players to rely on, and it resulted in great success.
I don’t see any problem in relying on Bruno. The problem is that we probably need two more players of his caliber if we want to win PL
It got annoying months ago.
No mate, your patterns of play would have us top of the league.
Patterns of play: fecking tedious for the most part. You can admire City’s dominance etc but it’s not exactly edge of the seat s5uff.... and they’re the best of the bunch. Obvs some pattern is necessary but the FM geniuses are obsessed with it.
Who wants to see brilliant footballers do their stuff anyway? Best, Maradonna, Eric, Kanchelskis etc ... nah
Who wants to see brilliant footballers do their stuff anyway? Best, Maradonna, Eric, Kanchelskis etc ... nah
We conceded:
10 so far and on course to concede 15 in the EPL.
11 in 19/20
12 in18/19
We've been somewhere in the middle of the table for most set piece goals conceded the past 2 seasons.
So if it's always tactical, how come we conceded less under the same coach last season?
The guy replacing the solid defender was also pretty solid (assuming we're talking Maguire & Bailly)
If we go by recent performances, De Gea most certainly is not in the top half of GKs in the EPL and Lindelof is also not in the top half of centre-backs that win aerial duels. You don't think their shitty performances (and regression) play a role in us (potentially) conceding more set piece goals than last season?
The only reason I can see for fully blaming Ole when I I see Lindelof and De Gea putting in pussy performances game after game is an "Ole out agenda".
It would be nice that you could also show patterns of those teams without bringing in players.
You can start with Liverpool and tell us why their (same) patterns show different results from last year. Same manager, same patterns, without taking into account of individual brilliance from VanDijk. For example.
I've asked this question once to all patterns people but never got any answer.
Let's end this tired debate here.
We have patterns of play, just not the patterns that some Caftards want.
I don’t blame people who talk about patterns of play. Look at our pressing for example. It’s not synchronous. One player pressing a back line with 4 unmarked individuals will never work. Either do it right or don’t do it at all to conserve energy.
When 1 player is pressing the ball player(say a CB), the other 2 must be rushing to close down channels to LB and RB. One player must cut out the easy pass to a DM.
This is just one phase of play so obviously we do others better like counters
When 1 player is pressing the ball player(say a CB), the other 2 must be rushing to close down channels to LB and RB. One player must cut out the easy pass to a DM.
This is just one phase of play so obviously we do others better like counters
Im confused? What are you asking me to do?
Explain why Liverpool don’t look as good with a injury hit squad? What a weird question. So are you saying Ole’s football will look better once he gets even more good players?
Liverpools football didn’t look to bad to be fair when they made it to a Championship League final without his big summer window spending.
Also am I a patterns guy? I don’t remember having this argument.
No one told Ole to pick those players and no one told Ole to use zonal marking. You can’t just keep excusing poor decisions because you like the manager. If it was just all on the players why even have a manager.
Patterns of play are not just for scoring.
we should be keeping the ball better in every phase of play.
we should be keeping the ball better in every phase of play.
Exactly, it's not like we just Hoof the ball route 1 style.
We actually overplay it at times by trying lots of intricate passes in and around the box. I'm sure these could be attempted "patterns of play"
Ole isn't doing a perfect job but it's better to honest about his faults than to invent them.
Sure, I’m not a fan at all of the knee jerk bumps threads get after a win or loss.Fair enough, I agree.
Also, can we all take a vow that this won’t become one of those threads that gets bumped to gloat in every time we win/lose?
I just wish some could see the progress we are making, it’s not as quick as we would all hope but after the horrible mess we’ve been in since SAF we need to recognise progress now more than ever.
See this is the crux of the problem, you can dislike a style of play but thats not the same as saying ‘we have no patterns of play’
To say the latter implies we are poorly coached and ineffective going forward, which we clearly aren’t.
Frankly from where we were to being in a position we are now and being top goal scorers in the league (not an achievement but a clear sign of progress) I think it’s a bit obtuse to be demanding champagne football. This rebuild isn’t finished yet, we should only improve further from here when we strengthen the holes in the squad.
That said, I think we are an entertaining team, we’ve scored 3 or more goals a game I think 16 times this season? I might be wrong but I think that’s the stat.
We have a load of comebacks and some last minute winners. I’ve mostly enjoyed this season after our unfit miserable start was behind us.
I don't "like" Ole, and not dropping De Gea (and Lindelof more recently) is a huge reason why.
The fact remains that Bailly's been injured for most of the season and Axel has had stinkers every time he was given a chance.
I don't see how his preference for zonal marking is relevant in set pieces. In set piece defending there's always a combination of both player and "zonal" marking (putting a dude on either post for example) and Ole is no different in this regard.
If we look at our set piece goals against more closely, most of the danger has come from balls in the six yards box. Those are the De Gea's responsibility.
We're perfectly capable of reasoning if an individual player or manager deserve blame or credit for X.
Making the argument that the manager shouldn't have played a poor performer and not taking into consideration the available options is unfair to the manager.
Ah, a compilation video combining good moves from whole season into a 5 minute clip. The ultimate argument in every football discussion.
We’re certainly not an extensively drilled side with our patterns of play and/or pressing, a la City, Liverpool, Leeds, Leipzig etc.
That’s not up for debate.
That’s not up for debate.
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What is a pattern of play?
Pep’s your best youtube go to for that due to his ridiculously strict triangle patterns.
In my experience, most of the crowd peddling the "we have no patterns of play at all" argument consists of Twitter goons that don't really understand what patterns of play are in the first place and just parrot what they read.
Regarding the latter point, however, it's not so much that we're ineffective going forward, but that we could be much better in specific circumstances. The gameplan and patterns of play are obvious (and devastating) when teams give the front four and full backs the space they need; when they don't, this team is still prone to running out of ideas and passing the ball at a snail's pace with everyone standing still in front of the defence.
That's when it's up to the coaches to drill the players on specific movements - with the ball, and without it - to move the ball quicker, drag defences around, create overloads, maybe press with more cohesion to win the ball and strike quickly - essentially, develop a reliable, repeatable way of creating high-quality chances.
It's no coincidence that Ferguson's teams were always capable of this even when the personnel wasn't world class: that 2013 team was still magnificent at getting to the byline and in behind defences even with Young and Shin-bomber Valencia on the wings. That's what you need to go from a good team to an 85-90 point title challenger.
You can't consistently win major trophies without both.
Why our wingers don't make alot of long crosses to the box anymore ? Not like Beckham because he had a special ability, but when we have forwards that are strong at heading, that pattern of play could really help.
I still don’t understand.... De Gea doesn’t do his job you literally have the future England number 1 sitting there.
A CB messes up Bailly has been there for the majority of the season as has Axel. No matter what you think of Axel he played well against PSG and wasn’t seen again since. Again that was his choice he could have given him 5 full 90 minutes to be a first choice option.
So it is on him.
If that is the game plan I’m sure our players can deliver it.
I wonder what Tuchel is doing at Chelsea given they are the same players that Lamprd had. A new system and players playing to that system has turned that team around. I’m not just seeing individual brilliance from one or two players from them since his arrival.
Our pattern of play (however that is defined) appears set vs a team like sociedad last week who had a high line and don’t press - bingo for this team to counter in acres of space and we look devastating. However when we come up against a low lying defensive block, we still look insipid and certainly without any sort of pattern apart from get the ball to Bruno or Rashford and hope they produce something out of nothing.
Our pattern of play (however that is defined) appears set vs a team like sociedad last week who had a high line and don’t press - bingo for this team to counter in acres of space and we look devastating. However when we come up against a low lying defensive block, we still look insipid and certainly without any sort of pattern apart from get the ball to Bruno or Rashford and hope they produce something out of nothing.
When I think of definitive patterns, one of the first things that comes to mind is that KDB first time whip to the back post from the inside right position, or a raking crossfield from TAA to Robertson to open the game.
I agree we don't have that 'signature move', but you can't say we have no style. We're not as committed to a system as the Liverpool, Leipzig's of the modern game, but is that only a bad thing? Being somewhat unpredictable, or having players with imagination like Bruno is beneficial as well.
What if teams set up to nullify that system you rely completely on? Having players with individual brilliance capable of winning a game out of nothing is a huge advantage, not a negative. The brand of football we have played has not been an issue this season. We are top scorers in the league. For me it's individual errors and defensive lapses that are holding us back, not more 'triangles' or defined 'patterns'.
I agree we don't have that 'signature move', but you can't say we have no style. We're not as committed to a system as the Liverpool, Leipzig's of the modern game, but is that only a bad thing? Being somewhat unpredictable, or having players with imagination like Bruno is beneficial as well.
What if teams set up to nullify that system you rely completely on? Having players with individual brilliance capable of winning a game out of nothing is a huge advantage, not a negative. The brand of football we have played has not been an issue this season. We are top scorers in the league. For me it's individual errors and defensive lapses that are holding us back, not more 'triangles' or defined 'patterns'.
Isn’t your first paragraph more in line with individual brilliance? I mean sure, they do it regularly as a pattern but they are the only players in their team capable of doing it, so down to individual brilliance?
And anyone who looks at our results, see that we have scored more goals than any other team in the league, including a side who is currently on an 18 game winning streak, then sees we have the 7th best defence, and decides it's our attacking play that's the problem, is in denial. You then watch those games, and see our players miss chance after chance and decide, yup, we need to create more opportunities, that's our problem. We struggle to put teams away for two simple reasons. 1.) We concede too many goals and 2.) We miss too many golden opportunities.
We’ve also scored 3 or more goals in 16 games is it? Can’t imagine they were all a real struggle.
Exactly. It's massively exaggerated, and lot of that perceived struggle is borne out of our propensity to concede an early first goal. We have a lot of ball in and around the opposition box (how else do you get so many penalities?), we create a lot of chances and we score a lot of goals. The reason we find ourselves in this situation is because we are very good at creating those marginal opportunities for our forward players. We isolate players and we find space extremely well. You don't achieve that without have a good plan.
His legendary Madrid team didn't play bad football. You have no credibility
Only the OleOut brigade could turn a brilliant goal by a good player into a negative about the manager.
Could imagine them watching Ronaldo score that 40 yarder vs Porto in 2009 and being disgusted that there was no pattern of play and we won 1-0 through individual brilliance, Sell Ronaldo! Sack Fergie!
Could imagine them watching Ronaldo score that 40 yarder vs Porto in 2009 and being disgusted that there was no pattern of play and we won 1-0 through individual brilliance, Sell Ronaldo! Sack Fergie!
I don't think the two terms are mutually exclusive, all good teams rely on a mixture of both.
There are a couple of things that I see from us quite often; we set pressing traps to lure teams centrally where Fred/McTominay can force a turnover in possession, then our front four exploit the spaces left. This works particularly well for Rashford who 'cheats' in his press and takes up dangerous positions ready for the stsrt of the counter.
Another thing I often see is Shaw coming inside and taking up a 'false fullback' role while Fred/Matic drop in to the left CB role, which allows him to use his ball carrying ability higher up the pitch and leave Rashford isolated against his marker more often.
We obviously do have a number of principles that we adhere to as a team, the problem is we still seem to come unstuck and run out of ideas pretty quickly the moment a team stays compact and doesn't get pulled in to possession turnovers. That hasn't changed for the entirety of Ole's reign. Games against Brighton, Palace, West Brom, Sheffield Burnley, Fulham and more have all shown this in this season alone.
There are a couple of things that I see from us quite often; we set pressing traps to lure teams centrally where Fred/McTominay can force a turnover in possession, then our front four exploit the spaces left. This works particularly well for Rashford who 'cheats' in his press and takes up dangerous positions ready for the stsrt of the counter.
Another thing I often see is Shaw coming inside and taking up a 'false fullback' role while Fred/Matic drop in to the left CB role, which allows him to use his ball carrying ability higher up the pitch and leave Rashford isolated against his marker more often.
We obviously do have a number of principles that we adhere to as a team, the problem is we still seem to come unstuck and run out of ideas pretty quickly the moment a team stays compact and doesn't get pulled in to possession turnovers. That hasn't changed for the entirety of Ole's reign. Games against Brighton, Palace, West Brom, Sheffield Burnley, Fulham and more have all shown this in this season alone.
When did ‘patterns of play’ become a common turn of phrase? I feel like I’ve only started hearing it in the last twelve months.
Our pattern of play is winning penalties for Bruno