Interesting point. I was under the impression that Chelsea Liverpool Spurs (under Poch) and City all do/did High Press in some shape or form - so the last four English Champions League finalists and last two English champions. But they all come in different flavours so it's a bit reductionist I realise. I don't claim to be an expert on other clubs' tactics so a more knowledgeable person can correct me.
Not sure about PSG and Bayern in 2020 as I didn't see the UCL Final. But I've heard that they did too?
I think there are fairly major differences to how we play now and how we plsyed in 2019, but also some continuities. Check out Kwestys articles, link above, they're really good.The point is not about expecting Ole to become a new Wenger.
It's the fact that so far in his managerial career, Ole hasn't shown a certain quality that could make him a great manager one day.
No matter from what country a manager comes from to the PL, the ones that go on to attain some sustainable level of sucess in a big club do manage to set a clear pattern of play in the squad, even if the current squad isn't quite good enough to challenge yet. The Arsenal Wenger got in 96 wasn't much different from what he had in 98 or 99 but you could see he was slightly progressing. Then from 2000 to 2004 they were really good.
When I look at Ole today, there's not a big difference to what he was doing in 2019 for example. We have signed better players, but some flaws haven't been corrected.
And again, you fail to explain any point you have and make it personal so im not sure what you are doing on this forum. I'll repeat one last time to you before you become a nobody for me, who are you to tell me or anyone else, what my opinion should be? Grow up just some bloke and become somebody.Who am I to tell you? Anyone can tell you. Because you're arguing a problem you haven't even shown exists is due to Ole's background being something that it isn't, and as if there was not in any case a lot of other people than him shaping United's fitness work.
Agreed.We don't have the players to run and press all day long.
Ronaldo isn't gonna press, Pogba isn't gonna press, Rashford isn't gonna press, Greenwood will, Bruno will press but does it ineffectively. I don't know enough about Sancho to know if he is that sort of player. Cavani will but he's a squad player now.
To be one of those elite pressing teams, you have to work extremely hard and work as a unit. We don't do that. There was plenty of occasions on Saturday where an attacker pressed but wasn't helped by a teammate. It achieves feck all.
Busquets, xavi and iniesta. 3 short players
There is no good reason for them to be carried You just have to train them to take excellent positions off the ball to close passing lanes It actually takes less physical exertion and high intensity sprinting than most people realize.Plus if you are good at not ceding it back easily you always have more than enough in the tank to do it againYou can't carry players like Ronaldo, Pogba, Martial, Matic if you want to play that style.
He bought Bruno mate. And VDB. Both are attacking midfielders. You don't buy two CAM if you want to play 442. Then he has Martial, Ronaldo, Cavani, Greenwood but he has never ever played with two starting strikers. Don't know what made you think so.If he could find the right players I'm almost certain he'd have us playing 4-4-2 again.
When people claim 'We don't have the players to run and press all day long' I laugh to my self. People fundamentally misunderstand what pressing is really all about. Case in point, Barcelona dominated for almost a decade most of Europe with a midfield three of Busquets, xavi and iniesta. 3 short players not particular fast, strong nor quick. The absolute key to their dominance was the positions they and their team mates took off the ball whenever it was lost. Compressing the pitch in the targted area where the ball was. THAT is the true key to pressing football. For their chief aim was to reduce to 2 or less the good passing options the opposition had. Once they succeeded in that objective, because they were so good on the ball they were night impossible to play against.
Even with the players we have now we can easily become very good at pressing if t twas deliberately coached into our style of football. If our players were to be coached to always take up positions that close up passing lanes when we lost the ball, plus our defence coached to strategically push up the high defensive line, with our threat in transitions we'd become an absolute night mare to play against. In fact teams with automatism in their play are the most vulnerable to this kind of pressing. Because once you understand their favored way of starting moves you can literally head them off at the pass every time.
I think people mistook the high intensity geggen pressing developed in Gerrmany, as a counter to Barca's dominant tika tika style and press, with the ONLY way pressing can effectively be carried out. Yet in truth nothing beats the model barca used. Mastery and control of space and time off the ball. United have players in my view more than good enough to execute it, What I'm not sure is if we have the coaches to implement it
I think there are fairly major differences to how we play now and how we plsyed in 2019, but also some continuities. Check out Kwestys articles, link above, they're really good.
This. Good post.First time I am hearing that someone describe Xavi, Iniesta and Busquet as not particularly Fast, Quick nor Strong because two of the triumvirate are short.
Data shows that the three players regularly in most matches during their peak cover the most distances of any player on the field.
The vision and the speed of thought of these three players coupled with their upper body strength to fend off players remains a marvel (despite their theatrics sometimes).
It wasn't just the position they take on the field, the ability to max out intense sprint over a short distance to box a player into a rushed pass is overlooked by most watchers. The three players till this day remain the epitome of technical brilliance, tactical discipline and intense work rate in my humble opinion.
He bought Bruno mate. And VDB. Both are attacking midfielders. You don't buy two CAM if you want to play 442. Then he has Martial, Ronaldo, Cavani, Greenwood but he has never ever played with two starting strikers. Don't know what made you think so.
I know we look a bit like 442 sometime recently when Bruno moving up but it's not a 442 mate. If you look at his heatmap. And you usually play 442 with traditional winger who cross not cut inside. Ole love fast attackers out wide but none is a traditional winger. Even SAF by his end here has moved from 442 to a variety of 442 433 4231.That's what I mean by if he had the players. We have a lot of square pegs in round holes. Ole loves the fast attackers out wide and two midfielders controlling the middle, hallmarks of 442, but those players don't exist anymore. He's trying to get us to play 442 tactics with a 4231 formation and players.
I know we look a bit like 442 sometime recently when Bruno moving up but it's not a 442 mate. If you look at his heatmap. And you usually play 442 with traditional winger who cross not cut inside. Ole love fast attackers out wide but none is a traditional winger. Even SAF by his end here has moved from 442 to a variety of 442 433 4231.
In my opinion, the main issue we have seen in recent games is that there are too many players with low work-rate crammed into the team. Pogba 50% of the time (He sometimes works hard but is ineffective winning the ball) Ronaldo, Sancho, Greenwood all have low defensive work rate. That means it's easy for opposition teams to play out of defence and build attacks, and why we have ended up penned in at times against the likes of Aston Villa. A workmanlike midfield like McFred can work in a winning team (See Liverpools central midfield under Klopp) if your forward line are sharing the workload, which isn't the case at United. I am Ole in (for now), and hope he can make it work, but I think this may ultimately be the hill that Ole dies on - not signing the right personnel for how he wants to play despite having quality throughout the squad.
Read what Xavi himself says of them. None of them were fast or strong. Their strength was in controlling space and time. That is the true key to things like pressing. Their entire philosophy was to deny opponents the space and the time to use the ball freely of Barca lost it. Compressing space to reduce the opponents time on the ball. Then controlling space by locking all good passing lanes.First time I am hearing that someone describe Xavi, Iniesta and Busquet as not particularly Fast, Quick nor Strong because two of the triumvirate are short.
Covering the most distance has nothing to do with being fast or quick. That has everything to do with stamina. Those fellas were Uber fit.Data shows that the three players regularly in most matches during their peak cover the most distances of any player on the field.
I'm not sure what you're arguing here. What we know about the Barca team you're talking about is that they controlled games on the ball, and off the ball. And you don't need to be fast or physically powerful to become effective at applying coordinated pressure. And Barca did that by controlling zones on the pitch whilst maintaining a strong positional sense. And you can't control designated zones/spaces without having been taught to have a strong positional game. Which is what Guardiola's strategy is, to exert control and maintain a strong positional sense all over the pitch. And in such a setup, if the back line is high (on the half way line) and the players at your disposal are well drilled to control zones and maintain a strong positional sense, then applying pressure isn't difficult.Read what Xavi himself says of them. None of them were fast or strong. Their strength was in controlling space and time. That is the true key to things like pressing. Their entire philosophy was to deny opponents the space and the time to use the ball freely of Barca lost it. Compressing space to reduce the opponents time on the ball. Then controlling space by locking all good passing lanes.
Covering the most distance has nothing to do with being fast or quick. That has everything to do with stamina. Those fellas were Uber fit.
What we know about the Barca team you're talking about is that they controlled games on the ball, and off the ball. And you don't need to be fast or physically powerful to become effective at applying coordinated pressure. And Barca did that by controlling zones on the pitch whilst maintaining a strong positional sense. And you can't control designated zones/spaces without having been taught to have a strong positional game.
Gegen pressing is basically the counter press, which basically means to counter the counter attack. And it's something the Barca team in question utilised quite often and Guardiola even spoke about it and said he was worried about his CBs to such a extent that when his team lost the ball, chaos would ensue in trying to get it back (The 6 second rule) as quickly as possible due to the vulnerabilities in the last line of defence.You have literally said the same thing I have been saying with different words.
Yet you claim this (I'm not sure what you're arguing here.)
If your coaching focus is to deny opponents time on the ball and space to play when they have it by coordinated off the ball positioning that achieves the stated objective. One can achieve very effective pressing with out exerting exhuberant effort like with gegen pressing. Pep does it to dominate the ball. Others use it to hurt teams in transitions by luring them into a trap then springing the trap.
That is why I don't buy the lazy argument having the likes of Pogba, Bruno or CR7 means we can't play that way. In my view its strictly our coaching that stops it.
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In my view you are conflating the term gegen press with how the tactic is actually employed in practice.Gegen pressing is basically the counter press, which basically means to counter the counter attack. And it's something the Barca team in question utilised quite often and Guardiola even spoke about it and said he was worried about his CBs to such a extent that when his team lost the ball, chaos would ensue in trying to get it back (The 6 second rule) as quickly as possible due to the vulnerabilities in the last line of defence.
Me not being sure about what your actual point was, isnt me making a claim but rather being unsure of what you were saying. Because from your post you seem to be insinuating that Barca didn't use the gegen press which basically means the counter press in German. And they did utilise the counter press like I've explained above. The 6 second rule at Barca and nowadays at City it seems Guardiola has tweaked it slightly by going man to man to force the oppononent to launch it long where his CBs will be waiting and expected to win the aerial ball. Klopp does it slightly different but that's for another day.
Pretty much when he was given the jobHe is just to afraid to lose. I completely agree with posters who said that. I think he has shown against City, PSG, Liverpool and others that he has good knowledge of this game, but i have felt ever since his second season he became to pragmatic and scared. I can understand that with the UK shitty press up your ass all year long, but sooner or later he has to just let that go and set these players free. Find us a Rice type of player, and we are good to go toe to toe with any team if you ask me. You just got to have to balls to go do it. Attack.
It seems you're very confused here and don't know the difference between a high press and the counter press. Of course you don't need possession when initiating the gegen press (counter press). That is a strategy which is used to counter the counter which high pressing teams use when losing possession. And luring opponents into pressing traps isn't counter pressing but rather a conventional press which can be initiated in a high or even in a low block like Mourinho has used in the past.In my view you are conflating the term gegen press with how the tactic is actually employed in practice.
You should check out what Klopp says about Gegen pressing. He uses it directly to create chances. That is the ultimate goal for his style of pressing. He doesn't even need possession to use it. He lures opponents into pressing traps to hurt them in the resulting transitions with then out of position. Infact for him the more the opponent has the ball the better his tactic works.
For Pep his goal instead is to dominate the ball and control use of it with pressing. His 6 second rule is to ensure 1) his side can't get caught of position as they position themselves to dominate the ball b) consolidate on the ball dominance.
In my view you are conflating the point at which their objectives over lap. With a Pep using the gegen press in the way a Klopp describes it.
I don't buy into the idea we don't have the players to do a high press successfully, if you're a strong enough manager you will get them to do it otherwise you put them on the bench and put someone else in who will.
That's if that's what he wants to do anymore. I think he's scrapped that idea, which is a shame, and is telling our forwards to do as little defending/pressing as possible to save energy for quick counters. When someone like Bruno presses on his own, or Cavani, that's just because that's the type of player they are and will run themselves into the ground, can't say the same for the rest of them which tells me Ole is happy with that.
It seems though that the players least effective at pressing (Bruno, Pogba, Ronaldo) are our most creative players so i don't see them being benched.I don't buy into the idea we don't have the players to do a high press successfully, if you're a strong enough manager you will get them to do it otherwise you put them on the bench and put someone else in who will.
When he was interim it was obvious that he would play that way as he hadnt got to worry about the consequences where we were in the league. Deadwood Woodward said when he took the interm role we are going to have some fun until the end of the season.Interesting thread actually. When he first started he was much more gung-ho. You could see he wanted us to play 'the United way'. He even went after more goals when we were up - something that felt completely alien at the time.
Hard to know what's happened. Is it his tactics, or are the players just less responsive to him? Either way, it's probably him.
Perhaps he's been affected by the pressure of having the job full time. Things took a wild turn almost as soon as he was properly hired. It would make sense. The original priority as temp manager was instilling a good feeling amongst the players and the fans and that was it really. There wasn't so much pressure to win.
But he doesnt want to play VDB though. I cant figure out why he bought him and not use him. A mystery.He bought Bruno mate. And VDB. Both are attacking midfielders. You don't buy two CAM if you want to play 442. Then he has Martial, Ronaldo, Cavani, Greenwood but he has never ever played with two starting strikers. Don't know what made you think so.
When he was interim it was obvious that he would play that way as he hadnt got to worry about the consequences where we were in the league. Deadwood Woodward said when he took the interm role we are going to have some fun until the end of the season.
Whn he was given a contract and therefore the responsibility of running the club was when he changed, as he was probably scared of fecking up and getting the sack.
Cover for Bruno and others. Also, Donny has been bad. Double whammy means little game timeBut he doesnt want to play VDB though. I cant figure out why he bought him and not use him. A mystery.
Imo we bought him to replace Pogba and to be a backup for Bruno, everyone was expecting Pogba to leave back then. Anyway we made a mistake signing him and the sooner he leaves the better for both sides I think.But he doesnt want to play VDB though. I cant figure out why he bought him and not use him. A mystery.
