Knee Jerk to Spurs game thread

[roonster09]

This is true, even after Matic came in, there was never a moment where we go straight 7 at the back, unless it's a set piece. The most defensive shape last night was when Matic filled in as center back making it almost like 6 at the back but it happened like once or twice.

Spoiler: matic

Yeah, even in that instance Maguire pushed up or moved wide. So there was a huge gap and Matic covered it. It looked well drilled, at least one game.

 

[Shimo]

Anyone moaning about being defensive and then complaining about Ole's management needs to have their heads examined. The performance against Spurs was not defensive. It was for the first time in a very long time where we've played as a coherent team without the ball. The entire team was connected for most of the game. Look at where Fred was for his shot on goal, look at how often Fred and McTominay were in the attacking 3rd in the middle of the park moving the ball around with both the fullbacks pushed up. It was not defensive. That was because we had 3 in the back to give them that confidence. Normally it would have been maybe 1 of those midfielders in that area while Bruno and rest of the forwards were all way higher.

All season the front 4 have been so disconnected from the midfield that we've been absolute mugs, being played through by any tom dick and sally. Abject as Spurs may be, it's not like teams like Villa, Wolves, Southampton, Everton, Atalanta are that much better but, because of our shape and attitude of thinking we'll just let our front 4 do whatever they want as they will score with their ability while neglecting the glaring issue of how easily teams were then countering us or just playing through us in general.

The knee jerk to take away from yesterday is quite simple - we do have an incredible amount of talent stacked up but, we've not been playing as a team so far. Coached/managed to actually play a team and not play just for the hopeful moment and we should be up there.

For now I actually hope we keep this formation going. We can swap out Fred/McTominay for a VDB or Pogba against a lot of teams. In fact, think against Watford, VDB should be given a chance or maybe even Atalanta. Even the forwards can be rotated as need be though think one of Cavani/Ronaldo should always be playing right now. Cavani more so as he provides that impetus for working from the front.

 

[jderbyshire]

https://bleacherreport.com/articles...nited-have-regressed-tactically-since-queiroz

There's no mention of a back 3/5 in that article.

 

[Ixion]

Suggesting Ole adapting the formation shows he's a good manager becauses he's adaptable is ridiculous. Good managers can adapt within a game, not after 7 whole fecking games.

 

[charlenefan]

Nearly 500 million to park the bus with 7 defensive players! Yaay! Are top notch attacking talents on the bench, yaay!

Ole has to do what he has to do and that is to try and save his job as he knows the board is clueless. I bet that no one would sign up for what is looking to come at the start of the season.

Chelsea are top of the league playing a back 5 and 2 (sometimes 3) DM's

 

[tomaldinho1]

That's a different argument. Ole's playing principles are not good enough and we won't win the league.

Yes, we didn't play with back 7.

The poster I had discussion with said we had 7 defenders in defensive line, that never happen except when defending set pieces.



It's not pedantic, this never happened. We have 100s of reasons to criticize Ole, so not sure why people have to make things up.

Ok, appreciate the follow up. I tried to watch back but the highlights are so short as it wasn’t a great game, I’d suspect it did happen in fleeting moments but it’s not really a stick to beat Ole with anyway. It seemed initially that you were saying we weren’t defensive.

 

[RazorOz]

Chelsea are top of the league playing a back 5 and 2 (sometimes 3) DM's

Their squad has been built to accommodate such a formation over a number of years though. Compare their wingbacks and midfield to ours and it's light and day. James and Chilwell have probably had more attacking output already than our wingbacks will over the entire season, and they've missed half the season.

 

[Stactix]

Suggesting Ole adapting the formation shows he's a good manager becauses he's adaptable is ridiculous. Good managers can adapt within a game, not after 7 whole fecking games.

Paul Scholes should not of been able to predict Utd getting smashed, the same thing that happened against Atlanta in first half happened at Liverpool. It wasn't a freak result that no one could of predicted, like Bayern's recent 5-0.

Zero excuses, should of reacted after what happened against Atlanta and LCFC. 11 goals in 3 games is shocking. 2 clean sheets in 22 fecking games.

 

[roonster09]

Ok, appreciate the follow up. I tried to watch back but the highlights are so short as it wasn’t a great game, I’d suspect it did happen in fleeting moments but it’s not really a stick to beat Ole with anyway. It seemed initially that you were saying we weren’t defensive.

IIRC the point was we did it when we went 2-0 up, I watched it again. McT dropped into defense line only 2 times. Once he did to cover Lindelof who stepped out of the line to mark a player. Other time Maguire did same, so he dropped into defense line.

Anyways like everyone knows we have 100s of reasons to criticize Ole.

 

[RazorOz]

Paul Scholes should not of been able to predict Utd getting smashed, the same thing that happened against Atlanta in first half happened at Liverpool. It wasn't a freak result that no one could of predicted, like Bayern's recent 5-0.

Zero excuses, should of reacted after what happened against Atlanta and LCFC. 11 goals in 3 games is shocking. 2 clean sheets in 22 fecking games.

Probably the most criminal thing here was fielding the exact same XI vs Liverpool that he did vs Atalanta, saying it was a good performance that deserved another go. If Scholes could see it from the performance vs Atalanta then how couldn't our management.

 

[matt10000]

Probably the most criminal thing here was fielding the exact same XI vs Liverpool that he did vs Atalanta, saying it was a good performance that deserved another go. If Scholes could see it from the performance vs Atalanta then how couldn't our management.

I don‘t think it was an actual crime but I get your point.

 

[matt10000]

Throughout Ole's tenure we've had highs of very good performances combined with extreme lows of very bad performances (our defensive stats for the season being in relegation form by the Liverpool game shows this). All with no clear style of play and no trophies to show for and it won't be any different this season.

So extremely toxic, yes. Unless you think it's normal for us to go trophyless for so long.

Regardless of whether you think Ole has been good or terrible, I don’t think you can describe him as toxic. What exactly is it about his behaviour do you think is extremely toxic?

 

[Nou_Camp99]

Their squad has been built to accommodate such a formation over a number of years though. Compare their wingbacks and midfield to ours and it's light and day. James and Chilwell have probably had more attacking output already than our wingbacks will over the entire season, and they've missed half the season.

Has it? Don't think Lampard played 352 very often did he? Think you might just have made that up there fella.

Havertz, Werner, Thiago Silva etc were all signed by Lampard and they weren't playing a back 3/5 when they arrived

 

[Winrar]

Regardless of whether you think Ole has been good or terrible, I don’t think you can describe him as toxic. What exactly is it about his behaviour do you think is extremely toxic?

Ole is not toxic as a human being and if that's what you thought I meant I'll clear the record here. But he's dragged this club down (in the sense that we have not progressed at all from when he was given the job) for long enough for me to tolerate any more of his excuses.

He has overstayed his welcome as a manager and the longer he is here the more the club will stagnate and possibly even regress.

 

[charlenefan]

Their squad has been built to accommodate such a formation over a number of years though. Compare their wingbacks and midfield to ours and it's light and day. James and Chilwell have probably had more attacking output already than our wingbacks will over the entire season, and they've missed half the season.

Has it though?

Lukaku, Werner, Havertz, Pulisic, Ziyech, CHO, Mount

Their squad hasn't been built to play so many defenders at all

 

[RazorOz]

Has it? Don't think Lampard played 352 very often did he? Think you might just have made that up there fella.

Havertz, Werner, Thiago Silva etc were all signed by Lampard and they weren't playing a back 3/5 when they arrived

Has it though?

Lukaku, Werner, Havertz, Pulisic, Ziyech, CHO, Mount

Their squad hasn't been built to play so many defenders at all

I said built to accommodate, not built to definitely play it. The players they have are far more suited to play it than the ones we have.

Most these names work fine in the formation anyway. Eg. Werner was bought to be striker, but wasn't getting enough goals, so was replaced with Lukaku in that role. Striker isn't really the relevant role in deciding if 3 at the back is a fit anyway. There's generally 2 ways of playing it, 3-5-2 or 3-4-3, your wing backs are arguably the most important players to fit in the whole formation. Next is your central midfield, as one of the perceived downsides to putting 3 at the back is you're conceding the midfield as you will be outnumbered if the opposition goes with 3 in midfield. Both of these areas Chelsea are strong, and we are weak.