Nordic Ghost Yeti (Scandi Carroll) | Haaland at City

[Chipper]

I am not sure how you utilise him better tbh. Tight defending stops him and any dribbling into the box. So unless they get better players at playing in tight spaces, or better at distance shooting then I'm not sure what they should do.

They lack pace to play like RM for example.

Radical, but maybe they need to play "worse"? Worse in the eyes of Pep that is, and change up their style if they can. Go more counter-attacking instead of posession based.

They dominate the ball, most passes in the league and have the highest posession percentage. They have the highest field tilt so dominate territory. They have the highest buildup percentage which is the proportion of passes made by a team outside the opponent's third, a lot going on around the halfway line.

A big part of it is teams deciding they're going to sit deep on them of course, low block etc restrict the space, give up the ball. Another large portion of it is also because it's what they want. They like that control, all Pep teams do. Right now we're seeing that there's no space to exlpoit and there's that lack of genius to get through it all.

Try to play faster and sacrifice some posession? Invite opponents on to them a bit more and and attempt to hit them on the break more often? They might not bite, and then you end up with stale 0-0s. In theory it invites more pressure on to their own defence too which isn't doing well now either but got to try something. Can't see Pep ever going for that though can you? It's alien to him.

On their defence they lose the ball less often deep in their own half than any other team. They've conceded fewer shots than any other team too. The problem is that when they do concede a chance it's usually of a high quality. The highest percentage of shots faced that end up on target is against them, and the highest xG per shot is also against them. They're so vulnerable on the counter when they lose it in the middle third because everyone is so high up.

If they just got it forward quicker maybe it solves both issues to an extent? Their own defence would be sitting deeper/they'd have more players back the times they lose it, and their forwards including Haaland would have more space.

I don't know, I'm no tactician and it probably shows. Try to do what oppoents are currently doing to them a bit more often. Don't have to go full on Ole-ball but there's degrees to everything. What do modern coaches call certain situations, false transitions or false counters? Work on ways of constructing them? Right nowwhat they're doing itsn't working at all.

 

[Squeaky_Bum_Time]

He is not like Lukaku or Inzaghi. Anyway neither him or Mbappé are having a good few months which means people are writing obituaries for their career and all sorts of hot takes on their abilities when in all likelihood it’s just a blip over a 10-15 year period of excellence.

I said the Lukaku comparison is weird, but why not Inzaghi? That’s hardly a bad thing, Inzaghi was a great poacher and scored a lot of goals. I think in today’s game he’d score more. Maybe Haaland will end up having a way better career, but the type of player he is is not dissimilar to Inzaghi from what I’ve seen.

 

[JB08]

I said the Lukaku comparison is weird, but why not Inzaghi? That’s hardly a bad thing, Inzaghi was a great poacher and scored a lot of goals. I think in today’s game he’d score more. Maybe Haaland will end up having a way better career, but the type of player he is is not dissimilar to Inzaghi from what I’ve seen.

Haaland relies on his physicality - raw speed and strength - way more than Inzaghi ever did.

They are both goal scorers quite limited in other areas, sure, but how they score the majority of their goals is completely unalike.

 

[Hammondo]

Radical, but maybe they need to play "worse"? Worse in the eyes of Pep that is, and change up their style if they can. Go more counter-attacking instead of posession based.

They dominate the ball, most passes in the league and have the highest posession percentage. They have the highest field tilt so dominate territory. They have the highest buildup percentage which is the proportion of passes made by a team outside the opponent's third, a lot going on around the halfway line.

A big part of it is teams deciding they're going to sit deep on them of course, low block etc restrict the space, give up the ball. Another large portion of it is also because it's what they want. They like that control, all Pep teams do. Right now we're seeing that there's no space to exlpoit and there's that lack of genius to get through it all.

Try to play faster and sacrifice some posession? Invite opponents on to them a bit more and and attempt to hit them on the break more often? They might not bite, and then you end up with stale 0-0s. In theory it invites more pressure on to their own defence too which isn't doing well now either but got to try something. Can't see Pep ever going for that though can you? It's alien to him.

On their defence they lose the ball less often deep in their own half than any other team. They've conceded fewer shots than any other team too. The problem is that when they do concede a chance it's usually of a high quality. The highest percentage of shots faced that end up on target is against them, and the highest xG per shot is also against them. They're so vulnerable on the counter when they lose it in the middle third because everyone is so high up.

If they just got it forward quicker maybe it solves both issues to an extent? Their own defence would be sitting deeper/they'd have more players back the times they lose it, and their forwards including Haaland would have more space.

I don't know, I'm no tactician and it probably shows. Try to do what oppoents are currently doing to them a bit more often. Don't have to go full on Ole-ball but there's degrees to everything. What do modern coaches call certain situations, false transitions or false counters? Work on ways of constructing them? Right nowwhat they're doing itsn't working at all.

I don't think they have enough speed to do this. They certainly don't have the midfielders to cover that much ground.

 

[Squeaky_Bum_Time]

Haaland relies on his physicality - raw speed and strength - way more than Inzaghi ever did.

They are both goal scorers quite limited in other areas, sure, but how they score the majority of their goals is completely unalike.

Oh ok yes that’s totally fair. I’m thinking broad categories of strikers but yeah they go about it very differently.

 

[bgoodall]

Really curious if he will win the golden boot or not. He looked a shoe in for it but now looks lost.