Team shape, tactics and personnel

[CVByrne]

Gerrard is in a tricky situation. McGinn is clearly not a player who should start in our best team. We need two of Kamara / Luiz / Dendoncker with a JJ / McGinn. That's the midfield balance needed.

So JJ starting and McGinn coming on, they play the box to box midfielder with more focus on driving forward. Then we have Kamara as our 6 and then choice of Luiz for more passing and control or Dendoncker for more physicality and bite defensively. 

We tweak the full backs a bit too and the narrow 10s need to provide a bit more width at times. 

[CVByrne]

I wonder if Dendoncker might operate as a 6 who drops deep into the back line quite often so we can be 3 at the back or 2 depending on in and out of possession. Kamara then operating with Luiz as a 2 or either side of Dendoncker in 3 in possession. 

I think if we cover more of the space centrally the two CBs can get wider a bit and cover the space behind the fullbacks rather than the midfielders having to split so wide. This works well as Mings and Konsa are fast, especially Mings who is rapid 

Edited September 7, 2022 by CVByrne

[ozvillafan]

1 hour ago, MotoMkali said:

 

I'm sure this has already been posted. But it sure as hell sounds a lot like he's going to keep playing mcginn. "wait patiently for nice football" "more pragmatic"

Instead of realising nice football is what correlates to winning. And the reason we've had a soft underbelly this season is because when we score and the opponent attacks we're putting our defence and our DM into a 7 on 5 situation because McGinn and Ramsey cannot defend to an acceptable Premier league standard. 

Maybe.

Or maybe "being more pragmatic" means a midfield of Kamara, Dendonker, Luiz with one of Buendia/Coutinho/Ramsey/McGinn in the front 3 with Bailey and Watkins

[VillaHatesMe]

2 hours ago, ozvillafan said:

Maybe.

Or maybe "being more pragmatic" means a midfield of Kamara, Dendonker, Luiz with one of Buendia/Coutinho/Ramsey/McGinn in the front 3 with Bailey and Watkins

This is how I interpret it.

[romavillan]

5 hours ago, VillaHatesMe said:

This is how I interpret it.

Unless he names names there's no point in second guessing it. It's possibly just him starting to think he should play with one 10, not 2 and balance the midfield. Whether that's 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 and who starts is anyone's guess at the moment.

 

[CVByrne]

The last team with ultra attacking full backs and a back 4 have been found out. Liverpool are facing teams who know how to hurt them by exploiting the space and running at their CBs.

We are doomed if we don't change. I think the tactical flexibility of a CB/CDM hybrid player might be the answer. 3 at the back or 2 at the back is something that is just one instruction from the bench. The loss of 3 in the middle means much harder to control possession. 

 

[Made In Aston]

8 hours ago, MotoMkali said:

 

I'm sure this has already been posted. But it sure as hell sounds a lot like he's going to keep playing mcginn. "wait patiently for nice football" "more pragmatic"

Instead of realising nice football is what correlates to winning. And the reason we've had a soft underbelly this season is because when we score and the opponent attacks we're putting our defence and our DM into a 7 on 5 situation because McGinn and Ramsey cannot defend to an acceptable Premier league standard. 

That says to me he will continue to bench Coutinho and Buendia and play dendoncker in midfield.

The fact he only switches it up when his job is on the line (even though it hasn't worked for 9 months) is not a good sign as he will resort to type at the first opportunity. 

[MaVilla]

14 hours ago, CVByrne said:

I wonder if Dendoncker might operate as a 6 who drops deep into the back line quite often so we can be 3 at the back or 2 depending on in and out of possession. Kamara then operating with Luiz as a 2 or either side of Dendoncker in 3 in possession. 

I think if we cover more of the space centrally the two CBs can get wider a bit and cover the space behind the fullbacks rather than the midfielders having to split so wide. This works well as Mings and Konsa are fast, especially Mings who is rapid 

you are my spirit animal, completely agree.

Gerrard likes to kill spirit animals though, go figure.

[Delphinho123]

Liverpool struggling, whilst playing a very similar formation and style to us, is interesting. A lot are putting it down to their struggles in midfield and the ageing personnel in there. Without Thiago and Fabinho especially, they're lost. 
Now, if they're struggling and conceding lots of goals, with the world class players they have, is it any wonder we are? 

The most frustrating thing is, it's such a simple switch up. We simply have to go back to basics and make us hard to beat again. Play a 4-3-3 with only one fullback advancing depending which side the attack is on. Play Luiz and Kamara in front of the back 4, perhaps even with Dendoncker in there and Luiz the more advanced of the three. Make it so the midfielders play as midfielders and not some stupid hybrid full back role. Those 3 in the middle make us instantly harder to beat, especially when we lose the ball in transition. Play two players out wide, or even a little narrower if needs be. They need to be Bailey on the right and I'd argue Ramsey on the left due to his ball carrying ability and his work rate. If that means benching Buendia and Coutinho, then so be it. Perhaps one of those can play in the easier matches.

Gerrard has to change it, otherwise he loses his job. It may already be too late. 

 

[duke313]

2 hours ago, Made In Aston said:

That says to me he will continue to bench Coutinho and Buendia and play dendoncker in midfield.

The fact he only switches it up when his job is on the line (even though it hasn't worked for 9 months) is not a good sign as he will resort to type at the first opportunity. 

That's some big assumptions you're making there.

Maybe he has learned or been convinced by his coaching team that his system doesn't work and if he doesn't change it he will be sacked.  

[Made In Aston]

28 minutes ago, duke313 said:

That's some big assumptions you're making there.

Maybe he has learned or been convinced by his coaching team that his system doesn't work and if he doesn't change it he will be sacked.  

Its not an assumption. Gerrard stated he will abandon his style in the short term to get results and be more patient in implementing his preferred philosophy. The section where he says 'if that means us waiting a bit more patiently for the nicer football and parking the technical players' is very suggestive of going back to his usual approach. The setup against Man City will be the short term blueprint,so expect more of the same against Leicester. 

Edited September 8, 2022 by Made In Aston

[PussEKatt]

Everybody keeps mentioning the Man $ity game.

Bear in mind,last season when we played Man $ity we were the better team by far and actually deserved to win.( we would have won if Gerrard had not bought on Nakamba with 30 minutes to go and us in front )

This seasons game against Man $ity,I thought we hung on for a draw but,IMHO they were really unlucky not to get the win they deserved.So,if you compare our last 2 games against $ity,we have gone backwords.

[calcifer]

1 minute ago, PussEKatt said:

Everybody keeps mentioning the Man $ity game.

Bear in mind,last season when we played Man $ity we were the better team by far and actually deserved to win.( we would have won if Gerrard had not bought on Nakamba with 30 minutes to go and us in front )

This seasons game against Man $ity,I thought we hung on for a draw but,IMHO they were really unlucky not to get the win they deserved.So,if you compare our last 2 games against $ity,we have gone backwords.

On the last day we took the game to them and deserved to win but got nothing. This time we defended for 90% of the game and got a point. So in theory it was a better result. Ugly football but maybe that is what we have to look forward to for the next few months., if it gets us results. We could set up to counter attack at pace with Watkins and Bailey.

Flair players on the bench coming on after 60 min? Just means more game time for McGinn, who is the weak link in our team! Would rather this turkey be stuffed ready for Xmas.

[PussEKatt]

1 minute ago, calcifer said:

On the last day we took the game to them and deserved to win but got nothing. This time we defended for 90% of the game and got a point. So in theory it was a better result. Ugly football but maybe that is what we have to look forward to for the next few months., if it gets us results. We could set up to counter attack at pace with Watkins and Bailey.

Flair players on the bench coming on after 60 min? Just means more game time for McGinn, who is the weak link in our team! Would rather this turkey be stuffed ready for Xmas.

Sorry,I dont agree with what you have written.IMHO we were REALLY lucky to get a draw.I thought they were all over us like a rash and with just a little bit of luck,would.could have scored a hatfull. 

[DJBOB]

9 minutes ago, PussEKatt said:

Everybody keeps mentioning the Man $ity game.

Bear in mind,last season when we played Man $ity we were the better team by far and actually deserved to win.( we would have won if Gerrard had not bought on Nakamba with 30 minutes to go and us in front )

This seasons game against Man $ity,I thought we hung on for a draw but,IMHO they were really unlucky not to get the win they deserved.So,if you compare our last 2 games against $ity,we have gone backwords.

Oddly enough, the narrow 4321 works against City's 2-2-6 that they line up in when they have it in the final third. Because they don't have the traditional wingers with an overlapping fullback - Villa don't actually suffer from getting doubled up on the sides like Crystal Palace or even Bournemouth did against us. When you think of that City team, you have Mahrez wide right and then either Foden wide left but no natural overlap. Either midfielders on the other side could overlap but they'd have to swing around to do so and it's easier to track.

Funny little game.

[calcifer]

1 minute ago, PussEKatt said:

Sorry,I dont agree with what you have written.IMHO we were REALLY lucky to get a draw.I thought they were all over us like a rash and with just a little bit of luck,would.could have scored a hatfull. 

But we got a point more than we did on the last day, yes i agree, on another day it could have been a complete tonking, but we stole a point, also had one chalked off for 'offside' so could have left with 3 points.

I want to see us play nice football, but if playing that way is going to see us getting humped every week then maybe we need to look at changing tactics (because lets face facts Gerrard isn't going anywhere while Purslow is here, so McGinn is going to continue to stink up the place like a turd stuck in a public toilet)

 

 

[Tomaszk]

On 07/09/2022 at 08:54, CVByrne said:

Gerrard is in a tricky situation. McGinn is clearly not a player who should start in our best team. We need two of Kamara / Luiz / Dendoncker with a JJ / McGinn. That's the midfield balance needed.

So JJ starting and McGinn coming on, they play the box to box midfielder with more focus on driving forward. Then we have Kamara as our 6 and then choice of Luiz for more passing and control or Dendoncker for more physicality and bite defensively. 

We tweak the full backs a bit too and the narrow 10s need to provide a bit more width at times. 

I don't think it's tricky. He's just a wally who doesn't understand what's happening on the pitch.

[Delphinho123]

1 hour ago, Tomaszk said:

I don't think it's tricky. He's just a wally who doesn't understand what's happening on the pitch.

I wholeheartedly agree. Nothing tricky about it at all. The predicament he finds himself in is his own doing through daft team selection and tactics. It's not like he's had no transfer funds, injuries and had players sold without knowing.
He has had all the tools to be good and to succeed in this job and he's made a spectacular mess of it tbh. 

[Made In Aston]

On 07/09/2022 at 19:43, CVByrne said:

I wonder if Dendoncker might operate as a 6 who drops deep into the back line quite often so we can be 3 at the back or 2 depending on in and out of possession. Kamara then operating with Luiz as a 2 or either side of Dendoncker in 3 in possession. 

I think if we cover more of the space centrally the two CBs can get wider a bit and cover the space behind the fullbacks rather than the midfielders having to split so wide. This works well as Mings and Konsa are fast, especially Mings who is rapid 

Far too sensible.

[duke313]

15 hours ago, Made In Aston said:

Far too sensible.

Which means Gerrard won't do it 

A midfield 3 of Luiz - Donk - Kamara would be solid, and hopefully plug the holes we've had in midfield.

Ramsey is a ball-carrier, and would be perfect as one of the 10s. I'd also argue that McGinn would also be more suited in one of the 10 roles, his energy would suit a pressing game to win the ball high up the pitch.