Team shape, tactics and personnel

[Don_Simon]

13 minutes ago, BleedClaretAndBlue said:

This has been the most comfortable 3 game sequence as a fan to watch since MON had us beating Bolton 4-0, Blues 5-1, Derby 6-0

Those three games were joyous. These three games have been joyous. Football is brilliant!

(Until its not).

[CVByrne]

6 hours ago, Kiwivillan said:

3421(343) was how we lined up

Except it wasn't. Formations quoted are always the defensive ones. We always defend in a 4 4 2 block. Cash came in for Bailey and Konsa was RB.

In possession we had 3 2 5 but McGinn often dropped very deep to make it more a 3 3 4 at times to pull players out of position and he created two of our goals this way. Attacking shape is fluid with the front 5 but we do build up in a 3 2 as we want the angled balls from LCB Torres to the 10s or Torres carries it forward to draw players tp him and create space that way.

Torres is just an attacking creative player who has to do some defending. 

[CVByrne]

4 hours ago, TomC said:

it looks to me like we run a 3-2-5 this year. It's very Guardiola-inspired.

Emery played this way at Villareal (before Guardiola moved to a 3 2 5), Estupian went forward from LB to join attack and Foyth formed the RCB of the back 3 with Torres LCB. Parejo and Capoue were the two 6s.

It's the front 5 which Emery is adapting and tweaking especially as at Villa he has chance to work with better attacking players. 

[Monkeypuzzle]

25 minutes ago, CVByrne said:

Emery played this way at Villareal (before Guardiola moved to a 3 2 5), Estupian went forward from LB to join attack and Foyth formed the RCB of the back 3 with Torres LCB. Parejo and Capoue were the two 6s.

It's the front 5 which Emery is adapting and tweaking especially as at Villa he has chance to work with better attacking players. 

That was my first thought too. Guardiola inspired? More the other way round I think, and that's not just me saying that with claret and blue tinted glasses. Guardiola is given way too much credit in football. He's not the Messiah (insert rest of quote), and until he even manages anything other than a team already light years ahead of the rest of the league they are playing in, I can't give him the same respect I give to people like Klopp, Ferguson or Unai. Don't get me wrong, he's clearly a great manager, but he's never been given a difficult job to find success. Klopp did that at Dortmund, Ferguson at Aberdeen (and to be fair Utd were not great when he took over) and Unai has built his career by doing it at multiple clubs.

[CVByrne]

7 minutes ago, Monkeypuzzle said:

That was my first thought too. Guardiola inspired? More the other way round I think, and that's not just me saying that with claret and blue tinted glasses. Guardiola is given way too much credit in football. He's not the Messiah (insert rest of quote), and until he even manages anything other than a team already light years ahead of the rest of the league they are playing in, I can't give him the same respect I give to people like Klopp, Ferguson or Unai. Don't get me wrong, he's clearly a great manager, but he's never been given a difficult job to find success. Klopp did that at Dortmund, Ferguson at Aberdeen (and to be fair Utd were not great when he took over) and Unai has built his career by doing it at multiple clubs.

I agree, when you have the most resources available in the entirety of European football your job is a lot easier. What Klopp managed at Liverpool is a bigger achievement imo. Losing the league twice times by 1 point to City getting 97 and 92 points. That's some achievement on top of 3 CL finals winning one.

[bobzy]

7 hours ago, Keyblade said:

Cash saying that we purposely let Burnley keep the ball because we knew we could hit then on the counter. The guy is just a brilliant tactician.

Just coming to say this on here. You can look at us and say we set up in the same way (roughly) each game, but the tactics behind it vary wildly.

Let Burnley have the ball and hit them on the counter. Make use of Cash’s attacking intent rather than using him as right back. Game over, laters Burnley. 

[Jas10]

7 hours ago, Keyblade said:

Cash saying that we purposely let Burnley keep the ball because we knew we could hit then on the counter. The guy is just a brilliant tactician.

Is he? Who knew?

Nice one Matty

[Jas10]

1 hour ago, Don_Simon said:

Those three games were joyous. These three games have been joyous. Football is brilliant!

(Until its not).

[Sulberto21]

8 minutes ago, bobzy said:

Just coming to say this on here. You can look at us and say we set up in the same way (roughly) each game, but the tactics behind it vary wildly.

Let Burnley have the ball and hit them on the counter. Make use of Cash’s attacking intent rather than using him as right back. Game over, laters Burnley. 

What I noticed about Cash’s comments were how he said that “we’re used to having more possession “.

I think the one team that we should try to control possession against is City. Incredibly difficult but I’d love to see us try.

[gilbertoAVFC]

Been so so impressed by Diaby especially (and others though) in how good they've been off-the-ball, when looking for pockets of space behind the midfield.

Luiz, Torres and to a lesser extent Kamara and Carlos have looked very good at playing these vertical balls to find them as well. It is working seemlessly. I've seen countless examples of it already.

Exciting times. We have the variation to play down the wings too, so it's not going to be easy for teams to nullify this for any team. I guess the best way is just to press like maniacs on the player on the ball and the attackers with their backs to goal, which Newcastle did really well. But I don't think there's a better pressing team than Newcastle in the league and that one is out the way. Very optimistic going forward.

[DJBOB]

One thing I want to mention about the squad is a video I saw of one of Pep's assistants. It was some sort of coaching class and he talked about how even competing in multiple European competitions, you're not going to utilize the whole 25 man squad. Pep has often spoken that one of his greatest challenges was managing the playing time of the players on the bench. Obviously he has a different perspective given all of the hugely expensive signings he has to manage, but we're getting to a similar point with this Villa squad.

For City's treble last year, in all competitions, only 18 players started more than 20 matches. Rodri incredibly started 52 of them.

If you take the Aston Villa XI against Burnley and the bench minus the two youth keepers, that's realistically going to be the 17 players that will feature in all competitions. JJ and Moreno will come back to take it to 19 and you might have one or two more incoming (a right footed midfielder/attacker and a versatile defender)

[Jas10]

 

[Marka Ragnos]

Amazing ... when you watch this unstoppable liquid-like passage of play, there is such profluence or "forward-movingness,." You also see multiple ways we could have scored in the same play. Not to beat a dead horse, but it's all SO different from last year. Diaby and Ollie are obvious threats, but then Cash, McGinn, even Digne are right up there, too, and on other days, Bailey and Luiz threaten, too.

 

[villan95]

11 hours ago, CVByrne said:

Except it wasn't. Formations quoted are always the defensive ones. We always defend in a 4 4 2 block. Cash came in for Bailey and Konsa was RB.

In possession we had 3 2 5 but McGinn often dropped very deep to make it more a 3 3 4 at times to pull players out of position and he created two of our goals this way. Attacking shape is fluid with the front 5 but we do build up in a 3 2 as we want the angled balls from LCB Torres to the 10s or Torres carries it forward to draw players tp him and create space that way.

Torres is just an attacking creative player who has to do some defending. 

Yep, couple of screenshots from the highlights that show this here

[villan95]

and here (had to do 2 separate posts)

[TomC]

12 hours ago, CVByrne said:

Emery played this way at Villareal (before Guardiola moved to a 3 2 5), Estupian went forward from LB to join attack and Foyth formed the RCB of the back 3 with Torres LCB. Parejo and Capoue were the two 6s.

It's the front 5 which Emery is adapting and tweaking especially as at Villa he has chance to work with better attacking players. 

I don't watch much of La Liga so I didn't know...interesting to know that Unai was a leader there.

[DJBOB]

The box has been around for a long time - it's just highlighted with all the tactics twitters and the Pep coaching tree copying it.

Pep used it during the peak Barcelona years. Abidal at LB stay back and tuck in and form the back 3. Dani Alves would bomb on. Messi the ultimate navigator of the half space with the left side width pinned with Henry at LW and Iniesta in the other half space. Xavi and Yaya/Busquets in the double pivot. They called it a 433 but that was Pep's original 3-2 box formation.

This is where the Thierry Henry story of Pep substituting him at half time for not holding his width on the left and coming to join the play comes from. 

[TRO]

18 hours ago, DJBOB said:

The box has been around for a long time - it's just highlighted with all the tactics twitters and the Pep coaching tree copying it.

Pep used it during the peak Barcelona years. Abidal at LB stay back and tuck in and form the back 3. Dani Alves would bomb on. Messi the ultimate navigator of the half space with the left side width pinned with Henry at LW and Iniesta in the other half space. Xavi and Yaya/Busquets in the double pivot. They called it a 433 but that was Pep's original 3-2 box formation.

This is where the Thierry Henry story of Pep substituting him at half time for not holding his width on the left and coming to join the play comes from. 

Spot On.

All systems have been used before, the game as we know it, is c 130 years old....so its hardly likely anything is new.

I still think a player, dominating his position, is paramount, and when enough players do it in a game, the likelihood is a favourable outcome.

UE is the conductor, and he has them all interacting in such an organised and cohesive structure, it aids the possibilty of the above line happening.

He has galvanised us in to a well oiled machine....we just have to minimise the defensive errors, that mar all that.

 

[TRO]

On 28/08/2023 at 08:07, CVByrne said:

Except it wasn't. Formations quoted are always the defensive ones. We always defend in a 4 4 2 block. Cash came in for Bailey and Konsa was RB.

In possession we had 3 2 5 but McGinn often dropped very deep to make it more a 3 3 4 at times to pull players out of position and he created two of our goals this way. Attacking shape is fluid with the front 5 but we do build up in a 3 2 as we want the angled balls from LCB Torres to the 10s or Torres carries it forward to draw players tp him and create space that way.

Torres is just an attacking creative player who has to do some defending. 

That is great, playing the lesser teams.....when we play the better teams, with more pacy and aggressive forwards, it could be tricky.

I still like him, and glad we signed him, but I think he will need time to acclimatise in to our league.

[KentVillan]

On 28/08/2023 at 02:07, CVByrne said:

Except it wasn't. Formations quoted are always the defensive ones. We always defend in a 4 4 2 block. Cash came in for Bailey and Konsa was RB.

In possession we had 3 2 5 but McGinn often dropped very deep to make it more a 3 3 4 at times to pull players out of position and he created two of our goals this way. Attacking shape is fluid with the front 5 but we do build up in a 3 2 as we want the angled balls from LCB Torres to the 10s or Torres carries it forward to draw players tp him and create space that way.

Torres is just an attacking creative player who has to do some defending. 

I think this is a bit pedantic.

Formations are fluid, and they depend on who's playing in each spot. Cash in for Bailey, and Konsa moving over to Cash's spot is basically a back 3 with wing backs in terms of personnel, and then they take different shapes depending on where the ball is. But you're right, we often settled into a 4-4-2 shape.

With a manager like Emery, the formation is constantly shifting in line with how he's drilled the players to react to different game situations. It's impossible to just say 3-2-2-2 or 3-5-2 or 4-4-2 because it can be all of these at different points in the game.

Konsa was the one for me who really showed how much of an impact Emery has had on our players' tactical understanding.