DJBOB Posted September 3, 2023 Share Posted September 3, 2023 A reminder to everyone that two games doesn’t make a pattern, especially considering the injuries in both. There was a lot of haranguing after the Leicester game on why we should abandon building from deep and similarly after the Liverpool game last year when we lost in similar fashion. Unai will figure it out - of all the concerns I have, the set piece one is my biggest concern as there are not a lot of tactics you can use to fix it. We’re a small side overall without Mings and can be easily done on corners and set pieces. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IrishVilla10 Posted September 3, 2023 Share Posted September 3, 2023 4 hours ago, Rightdm00 said: Desperately need someone to fill the energy Buendia brought in the press. Trent in the first half had all the time in the world. The big problem is when teams get the ball we pull back into shape and allow them all the time in the world Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CVByrne Posted September 3, 2023 Share Posted September 3, 2023 Conceding early totally changes games. Especially away to top sides. So it's impossible to see how we can do against the better sides when we concede so early. Just need to give it time and see how the new back line work out. Torres and Carlos essentially new to the league. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJBOB Posted September 3, 2023 Share Posted September 3, 2023 Set piece weakness - Liverpool actually attempted the routine they scored the 3rd goal with during the first corner. The first time we were able to block off the near post flick on but teams are clearly attacking the space at the back post. Look at Salah’s position at the back post. Carbon copy of the 3rd goal. Unai and MacPhee need to sort this out ASAP. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zhan_Zhuang Posted September 3, 2023 Share Posted September 3, 2023 3 minutes ago, Villa Gaffa said: I think Emery just needs to tweak our tactics against the better teams. We are still not consistently as good as these teams ! Absolutely. Emery called us weak today, I agree. Villa aren't ready to play too open and invite teams on like we did against Barcodes and Liverplop; need to be more disciplined. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomaszk Posted September 3, 2023 Share Posted September 3, 2023 People squawking about Emery's tactics... pretty sure it's not the plan to not press and just wait for the opponents to pop it over the defence. It didn't go well today but that isn't the plan. What you don't do is madly rush forward and let the team pass it round you so they are in on our defence with zero midfield to speak of. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted September 3, 2023 Share Posted September 3, 2023 1 hour ago, DJBOB said: Set piece weakness - Liverpool actually attempted the routine they scored the 3rd goal with during the first corner. The first time we were able to block off the near post flick on but teams are clearly attacking the space at the back post. Look at Salah’s position at the back post. Carbon copy of the 3rd goal. Unai and MacPhee need to sort this out ASAP. I think without Mings and to a lesser extent Carlos we dont have a good defensive presence from set pieces Mings eats that corner up Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJBOB Posted September 3, 2023 Share Posted September 3, 2023 The good thing is that Newcastle and Liverpool were both tactical quandaries that can be solved. The bad part is that I feel like we’re back to where we started when Unai joined and Chambers/Ludwig were on our left side against United. Unai must solve the question of - Can we continue a high line with a left side that hasn’t got the pace and with a midfield/ forward line without the pressing abilities of the same line last season? We found ourself in this position a lot. Low pressure high line asking them to play it out wide and Liverpool obliged a foot race that Digne and Pau would continue losing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeordieVillan Posted September 3, 2023 Share Posted September 3, 2023 7 hours ago, DJBOB said: Three takeaways 1) No pressure, high line. Enough said about it but won’t beat it to death. But contrary to what others are saying, you still can play it against top sides. The mismatch is having the personnel to do so. Buendia and JJ are huge misses here and Diaby is a skilled number 10 but by every metric, not a great presser. This is where there’s a contrast of how Unai wants to play and what personnel he has. It’s one thing to give instruction to press but another thing to have the players to do so. 2) Ineffective build up from deep - Unai wants to build from deep to draw pressure and create transition opportunities. But similar to Newcastle, our forward players lost almost every duel and made poor decisions to try and hold up the ball. Unai needs to figure this out as both Newcastle and Liverpool have covered Luiz and Kamara and then pressed our back line to try and get them to play into Watkins and Diaby to roll them and succeeded. 3) Set piece weakness - for several weeks, we have been very susceptible to the 3rd goal by Liverpool. Specifically, the near post flick on or the near post screen leaving the back post wide open. Everton and Hibs almost scored this way and Liverpool essentially scored twice this way. This needs to be addressed ASAP. This is a perfect synopsis. 4 games in, 2 wins, 2 defeats against tough away opponents. Sort the above issues and we might have a chance of doing something. I also like that you havn’t highlighted any major issues with the defence as such. For me it’s the way we are set up against the better teams, rather than weak personnel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeordieVillan Posted September 3, 2023 Share Posted September 3, 2023 Aside from organisation, our set piece issue may be that we generally have smaller players than other teams? It feels like we don’t have any height to defend these corners and free kicks. We aren’t going to be able to progress if we physically can’t compete to defend and attack on set pieces. Genuinely I think a team like West Ham will have a field day against us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mantis Posted September 3, 2023 Share Posted September 3, 2023 31 minutes ago, Tomaszk said: People squawking about Emery's tactics... pretty sure it's not the plan to not press and just wait for the opponents to pop it over the defence. It didn't go well today but that isn't the plan. What you don't do is madly rush forward and let the team pass it round you so they are in on our defence with zero midfield to speak of. It's remarkable how quickly some (and only some, a small minority) seem to turn on Emery so quickly. Paradoxically I wonder if his success with us over the past 10 months has made some fans *less* patient with him than they otherwise would be? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jas10 Posted September 3, 2023 Share Posted September 3, 2023 6 hours ago, DJBOB said: Won’t skewer Pau too much over one game. I think it was Collymore who said it takes about 7 league games to make a a good determination on the squad readiness. Similar to the growing pains Arsenal are having with their new squad, Unai needs to figure out his best XI. Cash at RM I think is symbolic over his indecision right now. Works in a pinch but Cash should not regularly be staring at RM. I agree with this… Ok, it may be tactical. But with the quality of player we have, Cash should not really be playing there - not long term anyway. We have had a lot contend with… I don’t know how many sides would not be affected by the injuries/issues we have had… We’re going to be much better off when JJ and Moreno return and our newer players are more settled and accustomed to our way/style/system… We have to be patient and calm… We finally have a manager who deserves faith and support… let’s not let ourselves down here… 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CVByrne Posted September 4, 2023 Share Posted September 4, 2023 9 hours ago, DJBOB said: The good thing is that Newcastle and Liverpool were both tactical quandaries that can be solved. The bad part is that I feel like we’re back to where we started when Unai joined and Chambers/Ludwig were on our left side against United. Unai must solve the question of - Can we continue a high line with a left side that hasn’t got the pace and with a midfield/ forward line without the pressing abilities of the same line last season? We found ourself in this position a lot. Low pressure high line asking them to play it out wide and Liverpool obliged a foot race that Digne and Pau would continue losing. I think Moreno has the pace and will be good beside Torres. Also with injuries Cash and McGinnate still out of position (based on their usual experience). So I think if this game was played in a months time we have JJ and Moreno for left side and McGinn over on right. Also we hopefully don't get a Carlos injury. We all had to accept when Mings got injured that our defence was basically new to the league now and we have to give them the time to get up to speed. We'll ship goals in some games but hopefully we are a much better team as the season progresses. End of the day a 3 0 loss at Anfield isn't a result which will impact the season especially given the circumstances early goal and losing our main defensive CB. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeordieVillan Posted September 4, 2023 Share Posted September 4, 2023 Stephen Warnock highlighted something on MOTD2 which I hadn’t noticed at the match. Trent was coming inside to the centre back position rather than into centre midfield. When he did this, Matip was going out to the right back position. It was something new that Klopp hasn’t done before. I’m not saying this excuses our lack of pressing, but maybe we were set up to contain Trent at right back and at centre mid, and in order to do this we were going to leave the centre backs with space because they posed less of a threat. Klopp making this change was what gave Trent all the space to play the balls over the top. The only concern would be that if Stephen Warnock saw this, then why did no one on our bench! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tinker Posted September 4, 2023 VT Supporter Share Posted September 4, 2023 The highline cost us one goal in this game and that was an own goal of the back of Cash. The other goals came from set pieces, the first was a lack of closing down giving them time on the ball to shoot and the second a far post header. The media are highlighting our high line as an issue and people are just repeating their observations which are basically wrong or not the major issue. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VILLAMARV Posted September 4, 2023 Share Posted September 4, 2023 18 hours ago, Captain_Townsend said: Mings is the biggest blow we have had in years Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CVByrne Posted September 4, 2023 Share Posted September 4, 2023 We lost away to Newcastle & Liverpool, teams who have incredible home records. So a point was best result really for both games. Then in both games we gifted them an early goal, our chances of getting a point drop massively then. We lose a key CB and reshuffle. On top of this, we are playing the two best high intense pressing sides in the league as we are trying to learn a new system and new build up play. On back of the gifting them early goals and the CB injuries. I think we can't read too much into those games. We've lots of games coming up and hopefully we get better in our system and structure Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillanousOne Posted September 4, 2023 Share Posted September 4, 2023 7 minutes ago, CVByrne said: We lost away to Newcastle & Liverpool, teams who have incredible home records. So a point was best result really for both games. Then in both games we gifted them an early goal, our chances of getting a point drop massively then. We lose a key CB and reshuffle. On top of this, we are playing the two best high intense pressing sides in the league as we are trying to learn a new system and new build up play. On back of the gifting them early goals and the CB injuries. I think we can't read too much into those games. We've lots of games coming up and hopefully we get better in our system and structure Regardless of injuries we have almost always been ripped apart by teams that press hard and high, yes it's mainly the best teams that do this, but we really have to get a handle on this. At the moment though the defenders (not injured) do not seem comfortable playing together Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bose Posted September 4, 2023 Share Posted September 4, 2023 39 minutes ago, CVByrne said: We lost away to Newcastle & Liverpool, teams who have incredible home records. So a point was best result really for both games. Then in both games we gifted them an early goal, our chances of getting a point drop massively then. We lose a key CB and reshuffle. On top of this, we are playing the two best high intense pressing sides in the league as we are trying to learn a new system and new build up play. On back of the gifting them early goals and the CB injuries. I think we can't read too much into those games. We've lots of games coming up and hopefully we get better in our system and structure I think most of us can accept defeat at those places. It’s the manner of defeat and hardly putting up a fight that’s the worrying bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CVByrne Posted September 4, 2023 Share Posted September 4, 2023 4 minutes ago, bose said: I think most of us can accept defeat at those places. It’s the manner of defeat and hardly putting up a fight that’s the worrying bit. The Newcastle game we gave up after the 3rd goal and conceded two more. I think that was disappointing. But against Liverpool we didn't give up, we were 2-0 down and Carlos gone off after 22 mins and made some chances ourselves we didn't take. They only got one more goal in the next 70 mins from a corner. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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