Team shape, tactics and personnel

[Bazmonkey]

57 minutes ago, VillaChris said:

What metric though?

I certainly agree most of them are not consistant enough to seriously challenge for top 6 anytime soon.

I wanted to finish 8th a few weeks back. Are we saying that's impossible now given a team that finishes 8th usually has a long winless run in the season? Even 10th would be acceptable in my book given it's been a very disrupted season for many reasons.7

Don't think anything below 12th is acceptable at all imo as certainly teams with poorer squads will be finishing above us then.

I think the metric is the stats as a whole.

Shots on goal...goals conceded....pass completion....possession....a lot of stats I would say put us in the bottom 6.

Will we win games...yes....Will we lose games...yes....thats a mid table team.

hearing its Smith's fault....its Gerrards fault...it was a bad appointment and hearing how great our players are is a bit blinkered by some.....some have shown good parts at times but most are rare

[VillaChris]

46 minutes ago, Bazmonkey said:

I think the metric is the stats as a whole.

Shots on goal...goals conceded....pass completion....possession....a lot of stats I would say put us in the bottom 6.

Will we win games...yes....Will we lose games...yes....thats a mid table team.

hearing its Smith's fault....its Gerrards fault...it was a bad appointment and hearing how great our players are is a bit blinkered by some.....some have shown good parts at times but most are rare

It's been a disrupted season for sure.

I would argue though we've made it harder for ourselves though refusing to sign a decent DM at any stage in last 12 months and having no clue how to get Ings and Watkins effective in same 11.

Get those things right and weak parts in other areas don't matter so much.

Also missed the creativity of Bailey and Traore for 95% of the season aswell. Bailey of course still very unproven of course but Bert had good spells of form last season that won us points and has that unpredictable element all squads need.

You don't need to be amazing to finish top 10. Brighton are 10th and they've probably won fewer matches than us since September.

To finish bottom 6 simply isn't good enough and we really need to get out of this mentality of just shrugging our shoulders and spending another 100m +. If that takes another managerial change so be it, plenty of teams who always finish above us do that.

[MaVilla]

So, we beat Brighton.

I didnt mention it before the game, but....i honestly wondered if we would win, or at least get a draw today (versus Brighton away).

The reason in my head, which is an opinion i am developing about the team, is we get better results when we have 35-45% possession, we are forced to naturally sit deeper, defend as a unit, and hit teams more on the break, or in a more.....less intricate way etc, so we have less time to think and mess around on the ball.

Im not surprised we won against Brighton, as thats exactly what happened pretty much, as in we had less possession (34%).

I think our recent problems might actually be, that Gerrard is trying to play a possession style, and against Newcastle, Watford, and pretty much any other team we have more possession against, quite a few of the players are just like fishes out of water, they are slow on the ball, take too long, cant find the passes, and lack ideas in the final third when we are in dominance possession wise, this style also means we are constantly further up the pitch, meaning we are open to being sucker punched as many of our players just arent good enough for a possession based team, meaning we are then losing it and getting hit in the channels on the break more often that an possession team should etc.

In a nutshell, if Gerrard wants to play possession football, we need 3-5 new players who are capable of actually doing it.

Edited February 26, 2022 by MaVilla

[TomC]

8 minutes ago, MaVilla said:

Im not surprised we won against Brighton, as thats exactly what happened pretty much, as in we had less possession (34%).

Yes...we seem to be a better counterattacking team at the moment.

 

 

[CVByrne]

So two things from Saturday. Firstly was the full backs not being all out attack and that helped our number 8s who could get forward themselves. Seems like there is a one go one cover type idea and either of the full backs or 8s can do that. Good tweak as we were getting caught out and a bit predictable. It's hard to know how this set up would have worked however against Watford as we dominated possession in that game. We are vulnerable in transition and this is made worse when we have our full backs so high up the pitch our 8s need to be the cover. 

The other change was playing two 9s. Now I think the reason to this was deliberately a tactical one. We were being gifted the ball out wide and blocked in midfield by lots of bodies. Newcastle and Watford did this and we were getting nothing from crosses into the box. By playing the two 9s Coutinho had more freedom in midfield, could be supported by the 8s as the full backs were asked to not get forward as much and crucially one 9 can work the channels while one remains in the box. This meant we could drag defences out of position and be more threatening from those wide spaces via a full back, a no8 and a 9 drifting wide. Coutinho was also getting forward into the box a lot, he was our furthest player forward by avg position.

It was a good tactical change, especially against a 3 man defence and a team who dominates possession like Brighton. I also like how we have tried to get our goal scorers on the pitch in a system where they can get into the box, Watkins, Ings, Coutinho & JJ. I like how now we're a bit unpredictable, I don't know how we'll set up against Southampton.

[sne]

I imagine Buendia will be back alongside Coutinho next game if fully fit.

But I hope we continue to be a bit smarter in how we deploy our full backs and that we keep our midfield a bit tighter. If we do the 4-3-2-1 can work.

Edited March 1, 2022 by sne

[sparrow1988]

Here's a good summary thread of how a few little tweaks to how we set up resulted in a much better performance.

 

 

[Made In Aston]

On 01/03/2022 at 13:48, sparrow1988 said:

Here's a good summary thread of how a few little tweaks to how we set up resulted in a much better performance.

 

 

It's good to see the tactical change as I was unsure whether Gerrard was fixated on the wing back system. Also it makes it harder for teams to predict and prepare for us if they don't know which tactics we are going to employ. 

[TRO]

On 26/02/2022 at 17:28, MaVilla said:

So, we beat Brighton.

I didnt mention it before the game, but....i honestly wondered if we would win, or at least get a draw today (versus Brighton away).

The reason in my head, which is an opinion i am developing about the team, is we get better results when we have 35-45% possession, we are forced to naturally sit deeper, defend as a unit, and hit teams more on the break, or in a more.....less intricate way etc, so we have less time to think and mess around on the ball.

Im not surprised we won against Brighton, as thats exactly what happened pretty much, as in we had less possession (34%).

I think our recent problems might actually be, that Gerrard is trying to play a possession style, and against Newcastle, Watford, and pretty much any other team we have more possession against, quite a few of the players are just like fishes out of water, they are slow on the ball, take too long, cant find the passes, and lack ideas in the final third when we are in dominance possession wise, this style also means we are constantly further up the pitch, meaning we are open to being sucker punched as many of our players just arent good enough for a possession based team, meaning we are then losing it and getting hit in the channels on the break more often that an possession team should etc.

In a nutshell, if Gerrard wants to play possession football, we need 3-5 new players who are capable of actually doing it.

Bang on the button.

SG wants to play a with more of a possession base, than what we have, but we don't have the personnel to do it......if we lose the ball easily,as we do, the tendency is to build up slowly or just stay deep....The better teams attack more quickly, because they have confidence in whats behind them, to recover the ball if they lose it.

It still comes back to midfield, where we lack control, that covers more than one fault.

We are essentially a counter attacking team, hence as much success away from home as at home 15 points each.

We rely on the opposition doing most of the work...and us just capitalising on "Moments"

[TRO]

We haven't got an effective player in midfield who can dictate play, create the tempo, stay on the ball and delivery killing passes....

John McGinn and Jacob Ramsey are best running with the ball.......They are not play dictators.

I think our front men, struggle with this, and creates an imbalance to the team

We will watch tomorrow how JWP does exactly this, ably assisted by the muscle of Romeu.

until, we fix the balance of our midfield, the debate about Ollie and Danny will rage on.

[TRO]

On 26/02/2022 at 15:15, VillaChris said:

It's been a disrupted season for sure.

I would argue though we've made it harder for ourselves though refusing to sign a decent DM at any stage in last 12 months and having no clue how to get Ings and Watkins effective in same 11.

Get those things right and weak parts in other areas don't matter so much.

Also missed the creativity of Bailey and Traore for 95% of the season aswell. Bailey of course still very unproven of course but Bert had good spells of form last season that won us points and has that unpredictable element all squads need.

You don't need to be amazing to finish top 10. Brighton are 10th and they've probably won fewer matches than us since September.

To finish bottom 6 simply isn't good enough and we really need to get out of this mentality of just shrugging our shoulders and spending another 100m +. If that takes another managerial change so be it, plenty of teams who always finish above us do that.

I agree with this emboldened bit totally....but we don't need a manager change, either.

What we are missing, isn't big money signings.......its effective signings....Players who can add a real difference to keeping the ball and winning it back....it doesn't necessarily mean big money, but it does require, prudent talent spotting....as a quick example...would we have signed Jordan Henderson?, maybe we did with Gareth Barry, but since then..........what?....Holding midfielders. CDM's call them what you will has been our achilles heel of recruitment, IMO

We have enough creative talent, played in a cohesive unit to beat most teams....It always seems to be, our go to, type player, the answer to everything.

Take away our goals and study our play, for what it is, and it's not that impressive..........We allow the opposition to go from defence to attack, far too easily....and fail to control games.

We actually score some very good technically driven goals.....very few scrappy goals or physically driven goals.....goals that are the result of pressing and physical endeavour are few and far between. e.g we would not have come back like Leeds and Wolves did to secure points.....we do still have that soft underbelly and it derives from Midfield.

I fervently believe, that getting a few issues sorted, will transform other things in the team, we think are wrong.

I honestly believe, Ings and Watkins are better, than they are giving us......due to other parts of the team, being imbalanced and subsequently weak.

Edited March 4, 2022 by TRO

[TRO]

On 01/03/2022 at 08:22, CVByrne said:

So two things from Saturday. Firstly was the full backs not being all out attack and that helped our number 8s who could get forward themselves. Seems like there is a one go one cover type idea and either of the full backs or 8s can do that. Good tweak as we were getting caught out and a bit predictable. It's hard to know how this set up would have worked however against Watford as we dominated possession in that game. We are vulnerable in transition and this is made worse when we have our full backs so high up the pitch our 8s need to be the cover. 

The other change was playing two 9s. Now I think the reason to this was deliberately a tactical one. We were being gifted the ball out wide and blocked in midfield by lots of bodies. Newcastle and Watford did this and we were getting nothing from crosses into the box. By playing the two 9s Coutinho had more freedom in midfield, could be supported by the 8s as the full backs were asked to not get forward as much and crucially one 9 can work the channels while one remains in the box. This meant we could drag defences out of position and be more threatening from those wide spaces via a full back, a no8 and a 9 drifting wide. Coutinho was also getting forward into the box a lot, he was our furthest player forward by avg position.

It was a good tactical change, especially against a 3 man defence and a team who dominates possession like Brighton. I also like how we have tried to get our goal scorers on the pitch in a system where they can get into the box, Watkins, Ings, Coutinho & JJ. I like how now we're a bit unpredictable, I don't know how we'll set up against Southampton.

[Grumpy_Lion]

On 26/02/2022 at 17:28, MaVilla said:

So, we beat Brighton.

I didnt mention it before the game, but....i honestly wondered if we would win, or at least get a draw today (versus Brighton away).

The reason in my head, which is an opinion i am developing about the team, is we get better results when we have 35-45% possession, we are forced to naturally sit deeper, defend as a unit, and hit teams more on the break, or in a more.....less intricate way etc, so we have less time to think and mess around on the ball.

Im not surprised we won against Brighton, as thats exactly what happened pretty much, as in we had less possession (34%).

I think our recent problems might actually be, that Gerrard is trying to play a possession style, and against Newcastle, Watford, and pretty much any other team we have more possession against, quite a few of the players are just like fishes out of water, they are slow on the ball, take too long, cant find the passes, and lack ideas in the final third when we are in dominance possession wise, this style also means we are constantly further up the pitch, meaning we are open to being sucker punched as many of our players just arent good enough for a possession based team, meaning we are then losing it and getting hit in the channels on the break more often that an possession team should etc.

In a nutshell, if Gerrard wants to play possession football, we need 3-5 new players who are capable of actually doing it.

This is pretty spot on. Going forward we ideally want to be playing a more possession based style but as you said, right now we just don't have the players. 

Under SG we've gotten much better results when we soak up pressure and counter. Deciding to drop buendia for the Brighton game was actually quite interesting, SG clearly decided we needed less of the ball and a quicker attack going forward. So essentially Buendia being too good at holding the ball forced SG to drop him out the side. I can't remember the last time a player was dropped for being too good at something  , it's a nice problem to have. 

[TRO]

1 minute ago, TRO said:

On 01/03/2022 at 08:22, CVByrne said:

So two things from Saturday. Firstly was the full backs not being all out attack and that helped our number 8s who could get forward themselves. Seems like there is a one go one cover type idea and either of the full backs or 8s can do that. Good tweak as we were getting caught out and a bit predictable. It's hard to know how this set up would have worked however against Watford as we dominated possession in that game. We are vulnerable in transition and this is made worse when we have our full backs so high up the pitch our 8s need to be the cover. 

The other change was playing two 9s. Now I think the reason to this was deliberately a tactical one. We were being gifted the ball out wide and blocked in midfield by lots of bodies. Newcastle and Watford did this and we were getting nothing from crosses into the box. By playing the two 9s Coutinho had more freedom in midfield, could be supported by the 8s as the full backs were asked to not get forward as much and crucially one 9 can work the channels while one remains in the box. This meant we could drag defences out of position and be more threatening from those wide spaces via a full back, a no8 and a 9 drifting wide. Coutinho was also getting forward into the box a lot, he was our furthest player forward by avg position.

It was a good tactical change, especially against a 3 man defence and a team who dominates possession like Brighton. I also like how we have tried to get our goal scorers on the pitch in a system where they can get into the box, Watkins, Ings, Coutinho & JJ. I like how now we're a bit unpredictable, I don't know how we'll set up against Southampton.

Expand  

I think this prompts the question, if the team is imbalanced in respect of players attributes, can systems compensate all the time...some times maybe.

I am not convinced systems can compensate in every game, for a lack of specialist attributes from players.

[PaulC]

Theres a lot of talk about systems but if each and every player doesnt put in 100% effort for 90 minutes like they did at Brighton then it all breaks down. It will be interesting to see if they can follow that up tomorrow. 

[OutByEaster?]

Since the Leeds game you can see the tweaks that have happened in terms of tightening us up, positionally, in terms of shape and in terms of the way we set about games - and it's worked, we've looked solid in three games and conceded twice in those three games - I like that in a number of ways, because it's good for the team and gives us a better chance of staying in games long enough so that some of our special players can win them, but I really like that it says that the coaching team and manager are capable of seeing things and changing them - this is their system and clearly it's absolutely the way they want us to play, but they're not blind to needing to change the way they implement it - that bodes well for the future.

We're defensively sound right now and we compete in games - that's going to give us a chance.

[TRO]

30 minutes ago, PaulC said:

Theres a lot of talk about systems but if each and every player doesnt put in 100% effort for 90 minutes like they did at Brighton then it all breaks down. It will be interesting to see if they can follow that up tomorrow. 

I concur......bang on.

[TRO]

26 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

Since the Leeds game you can see the tweaks that have happened in terms of tightening us up, positionally, in terms of shape and in terms of the way we set about games - and it's worked, we've looked solid in three games and conceded twice in those three games - I like that in a number of ways, because it's good for the team and gives us a better chance of staying in games long enough so that some of our special players can win them, but I really like that it says that the coaching team and manager are capable of seeing things and changing them - this is their system and clearly it's absolutely the way they want us to play, but they're not blind to needing to change the way they implement it - that bodes well for the future.

We're defensively sound right now and we compete in games - that's going to give us a chance.

I believe we was better against Brighton, but we have a way to go before I can say we are defensively sound.

The full backs look better, without snow on their noses and the 2 midfielders can bomb on, because thats what they do best, but tracking back is still a doubt for me.

Systems for me, are born out of having the right players to play them, otherwise compromises have to be made that ordinarily might not be forced on you.

I am not sure, SG wants to play the way we are at the moment, that only when he has a large proportion of the players he wants, will we see, what he really wants to do.

I could be wrong, but that is my suspicion....as an example.....I think he wants us to be more possession based,  to offer us more control........but he can't at the moment.

[Keener window-cleaner]

I think the management team has been slightly naive in thinking that the formation they used with Rangers in the Scottish league could be applied to us in the Premier League. When we attack we become too vulnerable in defence with only one isolated central midfielder, it perhaps worked in Scottland, but is too risky in the PL. I'm also not convinced by playing with two no 10, instead of having two players on each flank. We become too dependant on Digne and Cash, we are used to playing with proper wingers or wide forwards and have players best suited for that.

I trust in particular Gary McAllister a lot, I think the way we played in the latter part of Houllier and when McAllister was caretaker manager was perhaps the best football we have played for the last 20 years. I'm sure they will learn and adjust, we have seen that already with tweaks during the end of the games and now trying to play with two center forwards and one no 10.

I think the way forward for us is tweeking more towards a 4-2-3-1 and bringing along some of the good patterns in our build up play that we have seen so far. 

Edited March 5, 2022 by Keener window-cleaner

[sne]

Nice place to be to be able to put on Buendia, Sanson and Bailey from the bench. As well as some other very solid players.

Squad is top half quality now.