Team shape, tactics and personnel

[CVByrne]

31 minutes ago, VillanousOne said:

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

Yes, but in both those times it was away to those teams, we gifted them an early lead which gets thier crowd behind them and energy for their press. We also lose the key CB early in both games. We've a new system trying to learn in these environments. What we would have planned for is keeping it tight for first 20 mins, get into the game and then see how we go. We never got to test oursevles in a game we went behind and had injuries so early

We'll see how we go over next 3 months as we've a good run of games to learn and be tested

 

[DJBOB]

It really is hard to tell what could’ve been if Newcastle and Liverpool didn’t score in the 6th and 2nd minute respectively. It’s such a different game state when that happens. 
 
To be fair, we have done this to several teams. First goal usually wins. 

[IrishVilla10]

3 minutes ago, DJBOB said:

It really is hard to tell what could’ve been if Newcastle and Liverpool didn’t score in the 6th and 2nd minute respectively. It’s such a different game state when that happens. 
 
To be fair, we have done this to several teams. First goal usually wins. 

It’s not really, allow these teams all the time in the world to ping balls over you and you’re going to get caught soon enough, against quality teams multiple times. 

[IrishVilla10]

1st pic- Liverpools centre backs pass it around, we pull back into the narrow shape, give Trent ages on the ball and he plays it over the top and salahs through on goal. Why are we doing it and why haven’t we learnt from the Newcastle game. 
2nd pic- Trent and macallister (who’s in between 3 of our players) pass the ball back and forth 4 times to each other , Salah makes a run trent plays it over and it’s the cash OG.

Again I’m calling Emery naive if he thinks we’re going to turn up to anfield, give them all the time in the world and allow one of the best passers in the world the time and space we gave trent yesterday. 
 

3rd and 4th pic- the play starts back at Allison, once they play the ball to their central defender we start running backwards again, one pass and we’re open on the counter. It’s insane to watch 

 

 

Edited September 4, 2023 by IrishVilla10

[tinker]

Only one of these pictures led to a goal, they were caught offside multiple times, if you sit deeper then the opposition will just push further up and threaten our goal with crosses, which led to 2 goals. This is the Martin O' Neil way, sit deep, defend then hit them on the break, it doesn't wash in today's game. 

Emery has a system that involves a high line, its been more successful than not, yet people still question his system, thats working when you look at the facts.

We have an all new center of defence who have a handful of games between them and have been brought into play the highline system. You don't throw it all away and start again, you let the new players learn the system and then judge it from there. 

I suppose its the nature of the interweb for everyman and his dog to see the obvious errors in something and then point it out,........1 goal led from a ball over the top and it was an own goal in the end, lucky for them. 

[DJBOB]

43 minutes ago, IrishVilla10 said:

It’s not really, allow these teams all the time in the world to ping balls over you and you’re going to get caught soon enough, against quality teams multiple times. 

I don’t take too much from 1 or 2 games. There are a lot of mitigating circumstances that Unai will have to solve. We didn’t give up the high line after we were picked apart by Leicester, Arsenal, and City last year - I doubt we will do it now. 
 
Like @CVByrne said, we have a new back line and a new forward line. The only partnership that has remained have been Luiz-Kamara and Newcastle and Liverpool have gone out of their way to mark them out from controlling the game and asking our other players to win it. 

[IrishVilla10]

5 minutes ago, tinker said:

Only one of these pictures led to a goal, they were caught offside multiple times, if you sit deeper then the opposition will just push further up and threaten our goal with crosses, which led to 2 goals. This is the Martin O' Neil way, sit deep, defend then hit them on the break, it doesn't wash in today's game. 

Emery has a system that involves a high line, its been more successful than not, yet people still question his system, thats working when you look at the facts.

We have an all new center of defence who have a handful of games between them and have been brought into play the highline system. You don't throw it all away and start again, you let the new players learn the system and then judge it from there. 

I suppose its the nature of the interweb for everyman and his dog to see the obvious errors in something and then point it out,........1 goal led from a ball over the top and it was an own goal in the end, lucky for them. 

We have the players and quality to beat the majority of the teams in the league that’s why. So Eddie Howe now klopp have exposed an issue we have in our set up. Let’s just give the best teams in the league the freedom of their own half and hope we catch them off side. Lucky for them or lucky from us, would that have been your mentality if it was 5/6-0 yesterday?  So we’re not allowed to point out obvious errors in our set up now, because Emery? 
I’ve never mentioned throwing the high line away, when it works it works well. Going to anfield or st James park and playing passively hoping we’re going to score a few well worked goals because we have players with quality on the ball I have a problem with. There’s a pressing intensity missing which the best teams have. 

[tinker]

1 minute ago, IrishVilla10 said:

We have the players and quality to beat the majority of the teams in the league that’s why. So Eddie Howe now klopp have exposed an issue we have in our set up. Let’s just give the best teams in the league the freedom of their own half and hope we catch them off side. Lucky for them or lucky from us, would that have been your mentality if it was 5/6-0 yesterday?  So we’re not allowed to point out obvious errors in our set up now, because Emery? 
I’ve never mentioned throwing the high line away, when it works it works well. Going to anfield or st James park and playing passively hoping we’re going to score a few well worked goals because we have players with quality on the ball I have a problem with. There’s a pressing intensity missing which the best teams have. 

I agree, it's not the highline,  it's a lack of pressing/closing down that's the real issue and that showed out in general play and in the first goal, which was just a massive mess up, no one near him.

[Tomaszk]

1 minute ago, avfc1982am said:

Winning duels has nothing to do with the press when your in possession. It's about pissing about with the ball too long in defence and not progressing it up the pitch quick enough.

We play well when quick and crap when slow and our opponents are given a chance to close our defenders down. Hence why most of our issues are brought about through our own dithering. 

Also...there's nothing wrong with clipping it forward for Ollie to get hold of.

He's (usually) brilliant at that. Ball arriving into him, CB pinned behind him. He holds it, lays it back to McGinn or whoever.

Now we're playing up on the halfway line instead of our 6 yard box.

Bit too much wooden thinking from the team yesterday I think.

[TRO]

On 01/09/2023 at 14:53, CVByrne said:

 

Interesting how all the players Emery has signed are progressive ball carriers. Pau, Moreno, Diaby, Zaniolo, Lenglet. Tielemans a progressive passer. Also Emery used box midfield before Pep. It's great that Emery is really the cutting edge of tactics and systems 

Yeah and all very good.....but Pep has players who can defend too.

[TRO]

Much is mentioned about Injuries and rightfully so, not criticising that, but just take a look at the league table.

No point being made, just for gleaning purposes.

These are the injuries for season 2022-23

1. Liverpool -162

2. Chelsea-124

3 Newcastle -122

4 Nottingham Forest-120

5. Bourenemouth - 116

6.Wolves -108

7.Man Utd- 106

8. Leeds - 104

9. Leicester- 103

10. Crystal Palace -97

11. Everton- 97

12. Brentford- 94

13.Southampton- 85

14. Arsenal - 79

15 Tottenham- 78

16. Fulham-70

17. Aston Villa-63

18. West Ham - 63

19. Man City- 49

20 Brighton- 44

[DJBOB]

17 minutes ago, TRO said:

Much is mentioned about Injuries and rightfully so, not criticising that, but just take a look at the league table.

No point being made, just for gleaning purposes.

These are the injuries for season 2022-23

1. Liverpool -162

2. Chelsea-124

3 Newcastle -122

4 Nottingham Forest-120

5. Bourenemouth - 116

6.Wolves -108

7.Man Utd- 106

8. Leeds - 104

9. Leicester- 103

10. Crystal Palace -97

11. Everton- 97

12. Brentford- 94

13.Southampton- 85

14. Arsenal - 79

15 Tottenham- 78

16. Fulham-70

17. Aston Villa-63

18. West Ham - 63

19. Man City- 49

20 Brighton- 44

I’m not entirely sure what the numbers are supposed to mean here?

[TRO]

4 minutes ago, DJBOB said:

I’m not entirely sure what the numbers are supposed to mean here?

how many injuries that have all had......anymore in depth analysis of those numbers, I am not sure of.

It can mean whatever you want it to mean....its just info.

I guess its better than not knowing, how many injuries other clubs have had at all.

Edited September 4, 2023 by TRO

[OutByEaster?]

@TRO it's hard to know what those figures mean without a source.

Is it days missed by players?

Games missed by players?

Number of reported injuries?

Without some sort of context it's meaningless - can you add anything or cite a source?

 

[Aston_Villan4]

2 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

@TRO it's hard to know what those figures mean without a source.

Is it days missed by players?

Games missed by players?

Number of reported injuries?

Without some sort of context it's meaningless - can you add anything or cite a source?

 

It’s total matches missed by players injured.

Quote

The 2022-23 Premier League injury table: Liverpool top, Man Utd above Arsenal…

https://www.planetfootball.com/quick-reads/premier-league-injury-table-22-23-liverpool-chelsea-arsenal-man-utd/

Edited September 4, 2023 by Aston_Villan4

[Aston_Villan4]

The Athletic also did a breakdown of injuries impacting clubs for last season:

Quote

Premier League injuries 2022-23: Chelsea lost most days, Manchester City the least

https://theathletic.com/4612629/2023/07/02/injuries-premier-league-2022-23-data/?amp=1

[OutByEaster?]

8 minutes ago, Aston_Villan4 said:

It’s total matches missed by players injured.

Ah, okay - so four games in, by my reckoning, if we're only counting Premier League games, we're already at around 22 on that scale - so on for a final score of about 200 against a score for the whole season last year of 63 (or 97 on the other source).

It's a good example I think of how much injuries are affecting us this year and how lucky we were with them last year.

 

[sne]

Diego Carlos missing 34 games for us is likely a bigger loss than Harvey Elliot missing 34 for Liverplop for example. Just like Mings and Buendia missing the season will be a bigger loss than say Ryan Sessegnon missing for Spurs.

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

That list in fairness, should be a reminder of how lucky we were with injuries last season.

Unfortunately, Football Karma gods seemed to have decided enough was enough and hammer blown us at one go this season ffs.

Edited September 4, 2023 by JAMAICAN-VILLAN

[Rightdm00]

21 hours ago, Delphinho123 said:

The high line and the defence in general are two huge issues for him. Mings was awesome at it and could recover with his pace and strength even when it failed. Torres doesn’t have that pace and a few fancy passes aside, I’m not quite sure what his defensive attributes are. He’s slow, weak and apparently not great in the air either. They are the three things I’d look for in a centre half before even considering how good they are on the ball.

Maybe I’m a dinosaur and just don’t ‘get it’ but a high line with Torres and Carlos is going to cost us big this season unless we change. 

I’m all for controlling games and building from the back but mistakes at the back are being exposed and we’ve conceded a lot of goals in the first 4 matches. 

I have full faith in Emery to fix it, as long as he isn’t stubborn. He’s been dealt a cruel hand with early injuries to Mings, Moreno and Ramsey and we’re feeling that. Torres at £36m should be able to deputise for Mings but right now, he’s miles off it. 

We just feel unbalanced at the moment. McGinn is far better on the right of midfield and it just seems to throw the team off having to play Bailey on the right or playing this 3-5-2. Again, all for a 3-5-2 formation but it feels cobbled together to mask the deficiencies we have in the back line. We’ll still be able to beat half the teams in the league regardless of system - given the quality we have - but it’s tough being battered by teams we should be more competitive against in Liverpool and Newcastle.

I’m rambling. 

All good stuff here. For me the 3-5-2 is deployed when you need to mask a deficiency in your defense.  For us, it's Pau. We have to give him time to learn the PL so this may not be the last time we see 3 at the back.