Team shape, tactics and personnel

[Zatman]

26 minutes ago, DJBOB said:

I don’t think it’s necessarily tied to slow build up.

For a lot of reasons I highlighted in previous posts, we are very unbalanced with certain lineups. I think it’s been exposed how reliant we were on Pau as well. 
 
That’s on Unai to figure out. 

Torres brings the ball and himself into midfield which opens more gaps. Carlos and Lenglet cant do that

[DJBOB]

3 minutes ago, Zatman said:

Torres brings the ball and himself into midfield which opens more gaps. Carlos and Lenglet cant do that

One of my pet peeves reappearing without Pau. Luiz or Kamara coming to collect the ball off the CB. Might as well trot out Hause at that point. 

[DJBOB]

The first goal against is emblematic of this Kamara/Cash rotation. 

Yes, Kamara probably could have played a better pass but Cash overlapping is running right into Bailey. Cash should be behind the play here, not running ahead into Bailey’s space. And I don’t mean to blame Cash all too much here because his instruction is to clearly be higher up than Konsa. 
  
Look at the yawning chasm between Kamara and Diego when the ball is lost.

Consider our formation against Sheffield in the same loose ball situation. Konsa is behind the ball with Bailey wide, which allows Kamara to turn forward and find Luiz. Notice too how much less space there is between Diego and Kamara. 
 
Its all tied together. 

Edited February 8 by DJBOB

[DJBOB]

And here's the weird part - Cash can play as the 3rd CB. Maybe not as good as Konsa - but servicable. Look how better the shape is with our first Everton match. Luiz and Kamara play much closer together and combine for our first goal.

[Tomaszk]

4 hours ago, DJBOB said:

The first goal against is emblematic of this Kamara/Cash rotation. 

Yes, Kamara probably could have played a better pass but Cash overlapping is running right into Bailey. Cash should be behind the play here, not running ahead into Bailey’s space. And I don’t mean to blame Cash all too much here because his instruction is to clearly be higher up than Konsa. 
  
Look at the yawning chasm between Kamara and Diego when the ball is lost.

Consider our formation against Sheffield in the same loose ball situation. Konsa is behind the ball with Bailey wide, which allows Kamara to turn forward and find Luiz. Notice too how much less space there is between Diego and Kamara. 
 
Its all tied together. 

Thought this immediately.

Where the **** is Cash going.

His brain. Jesus.

[ozvilla28]

That weake mentality has creep in last 2 home games not one of our senior players stood up and took control of the game.

[eholm]

3 hours ago, Tomaszk said:

Thought this immediately.

Where the **** is Cash going.

His brain. Jesus.

Yep. I just don’t think he’s got the footballing intelligence to play how Unai requires. He cannot adapt his natural inclination to drive forward and, as we can see, it leaves us exposed and out numbered. I can really see now why Foyth was such a good fit for an Emery team. 

[Made In Aston]

11 hours ago, StefanAVFC said:

Midfield non-existent for weeks now. Needs to change. 

Teams are either parking the bus to reduce passing options from midfield to attack or pressing high and stopping passing lanes from defence to midfield. Both tactics stop our midfield from playing their game. When they are given space you get performances like Sheffield United. Unfortunately these situations are becoming fewer and fewer, as teams have worked out how to nullify our threat.

Emery needs to come up with a plan B to deal with it asap. Otherwise it's going to be a very disappointing second half of the season.

[Captain_Townsend]

I wonder should Ramsey start on Sunday? Get him running with the ball down the left. I think it might give us a lift to see something a bit different

[gwi1890]

2 hours ago, eholm said:

Yep. I just don’t think he’s got the footballing intelligence to play how Unai requires. He cannot adapt his natural inclination to drive forward and, as we can see, it leaves us exposed and out numbered. I can really see now why Foyth was such a good fit for an Emery team. 

Konsa is the Foyth in this team. But the fact is Ashley Young got it when playing last year Cash simply doesn’t.

[eholm]

14 minutes ago, gwi1890 said:

Konsa is the Foyth in this team. But the fact is Ashley Young got it when playing last year Cash simply doesn’t.

Cash will be sold in Summer and replaced with another RB/CB hybrid…….but I’ll stop there as that’s another thread. 

[VillanousOne]

Cash, Carlos, Lenglet, Moreno is a recipe for utter disaster, not one of those players is playing well defensively or providing leadership and good positioning sense, its not just about our defence losing form, but i'd say it's the biggest issue we have right now and losing Konsa who is hands down our best defender is a huge blow.

Playing Pau for his distribution will help, but he needs someone like Mings or Konsa next to him, putting him next to one of the chuckle brothers isn't going to solve our issues.

[villa82]

I would start the next game in a 5-3-2 formation. Moreno and Bailey/Diaby on the flanks. Torres, Langlet and Carlos in central defence. McGinn, Kamara and Louiz central in the middle. Then we avoid using Cash

[Zero7]

We are just too one dimensional at the moment. Need to change things around for the United game 

[villa89]

1 hour ago, Captain_Townsend said:

I wonder should Ramsey start on Sunday? Get him running with the ball down the left. I think it might give us a lift to see something a bit different

I think he has to. Tielemens, Kamara and Luiz all want to play centrally. It's too crowded. At least Ramsey is more likely to be disciplined enough to stay wide.

[VillanousOne]

1 hour ago, villa82 said:

I would start the next game in a 5-3-2 formation. Moreno and Bailey/Diaby on the flanks. Torres, Langlet and Carlos in central defence. McGinn, Kamara and Louiz central in the middle. Then we avoid using Cash

contactless only

[andym]

12 hours ago, DJBOB said:

The first goal against is emblematic of this Kamara/Cash rotation. 

Yes, Kamara probably could have played a better pass but Cash overlapping is running right into Bailey. Cash should be behind the play here, not running ahead into Bailey’s space. And I don’t mean to blame Cash all too much here because his instruction is to clearly be higher up than Konsa. 
  
Look at the yawning chasm between Kamara and Diego when the ball is lost.

Consider our formation against Sheffield in the same loose ball situation. Konsa is behind the ball with Bailey wide, which allows Kamara to turn forward and find Luiz. Notice too how much less space there is between Diego and Kamara. 
 
Its all tied together. 

To be fair, those loose balls come from slightly different situations, Sheff Utd was a bit of head tennis with Konsa nodding forward to Bailey, who then heads to Kamara who has the option to turn and play forward. We were a bit more set in that situation.

Against Chelsea Carlos has just chased down a long ball (hence him being deeper in that image) and knocked it to Cash who was also running back, who plays it inside to Kamara. In this instance he doesn't really have the chance to turn as there is a Chelsea player incoming; he could play back to Carlos, but a few frames before your image, there is a big gap to release Cash (who was deeper than Kamara at that point) behind the Chelsea player if Kamara is quick enough, and that is why Cash starts to move forward.

I think it was the right initial call by Cash, as its the opportunity to trap 6 Chelsea players in our half and be onto their back 4 with 5 players (6 if Luiz in the middle reacts quick enough). You'd be mad not to take that, and it shouldn't have been hard to do. 

The problem is that Kamara takes an extra touch, which closes that pass down. Even then, there is still a pass on in the image in your post, but Cash needs to realise the initial pass is no longer possible and hold his run more than he does, and also pull out a bit wider to give a better angle. He does that and he's still able to receive the ball either to run it himself, or pass it straight on to Bailey and then go forward to support. Either way, there's still that opportunity to take all those Chelsea players out of the game.

However, he just keeps on the same line, Kamara plays a poor pass and its turned over. Add in some shocking tracking back (Kamara and Cash just jog) and its in the back of our net.

I don't think its 100% a systemic issue;  the whole Kamara dropping into the back 3, Cash pushing higher etc have been done successfully earlier in the season at time. But ultimately if you are going to so cheaply surrender possession and then compound that with not working to recover the ball, you aren't going to win football games. The amount of unforced errors recently have been shocking, and we keep doing some really stupid things - last night Cash was tracking a Chelsea player down the line, the Chelsea players trips and falls over. Does Cash simply take the ball and bring it away with him so we can build? No he just boots the ball back up the pitch to a Chelsea player. At the end, Diego Carlos lets the Chelsea forward bring down a goal kick on his boot unchallenged. Just maddening decision making.

 

 

[IrishVilla10]

The whole set up was a mess last night. Kamara and cash the obvious two. And to make things even more confusing at times kamara is making runs into the box looking to score, is he being told to get forward like that? 
Took me about ten minutes to work out where bailey was playing, was central at one point then out wide, but when he gets the ball out wide he’s so deep all he can do with it is dribble backwards and pass it back to the defence. Tielemans was like a supporting striker then playing central to cover kamara when he was at right back, tielemans doesn’t have the legs for that. And that also doesn’t make sense when we’re trying to play it through teams because it leaves us with two central midfielders and Ollie up top alone. Cash may as well not be on the pitch he’s either glued to kamara or stopping any momentum down the right. Moreno sits out wide half the game but receives the ball on the half way line mostly, with no support ahead of him, he’s dangerous attacking the box but he’s not dangerous 45 yards out with two Chelsea players ahead of him. Every game since Everton apart from Sheffield ollies been contesting long balls, that’s surely evidence that the midfield is either short of numbers or being tactically nullified. From the first 5 minutes last night we resorted back to it, giving Chelsea the ball. And the worrying thing similar to Newcastle is in the space of ten seconds we go from controlling the ball at the back to being dangerously countered. 

Edited February 8 by IrishVilla10

[DJBOB]

18 minutes ago, andym said:

To be fair, those loose balls come from slightly different situations, Sheff Utd was a bit of head tennis with Konsa nodding forward to Bailey, who then heads to Kamara who has the option to turn and play forward. We were a bit more set in that situation.

Against Chelsea Carlos has just chased down a long ball (hence him being deeper in that image) and knocked it to Cash who was also running back, who plays it inside to Kamara. In this instance he doesn't really have the chance to turn as there is a Chelsea player incoming; he could play back to Carlos, but a few frames before your image, there is a big gap to release Cash (who was deeper than Kamara at that point) behind the Chelsea player if Kamara is quick enough, and that is why Cash starts to move forward.

I think it was the right initial call by Cash, as its the opportunity to trap 6 Chelsea players in our half and be onto their back 4 with 5 players (6 if Luiz in the middle reacts quick enough). You'd be mad not to take that, and it shouldn't have been hard to do. 

The problem is that Kamara takes an extra touch, which closes that pass down. Even then, there is still a pass on in the image in your post, but Cash needs to realise the initial pass is no longer possible and hold his run more than he does, and also pull out a bit wider to give a better angle. He does that and he's still able to receive the ball either to run it himself, or pass it straight on to Bailey and then go forward to support. Either way, there's still that opportunity to take all those Chelsea players out of the game.

However, he just keeps on the same line, Kamara plays a poor pass and its turned over. Add in some shocking tracking back (Kamara and Cash just jog) and its in the back of our net.

I don't think its 100% a systemic issue;  the whole Kamara dropping into the back 3, Cash pushing higher etc have been done successfully earlier in the season at time. But ultimately if you are going to so cheaply surrender possession and then compound that with not working to recover the ball, you aren't going to win football games. The amount of unforced errors recently have been shocking, and we keep doing some really stupid things - last night Cash was tracking a Chelsea player down the line, the Chelsea players trips and falls over. Does Cash simply take the ball and bring it away with him so we can build? No he just boots the ball back up the pitch to a Chelsea player. At the end, Diego Carlos lets the Chelsea forward bring down a goal kick on his boot unchallenged. Just maddening decision making.

 

 

 

Yeah the sequence is different than Sheffield, but the instruction remains the same that Cash is definitely more forward than Konsa in the same position.

The resulting change is a net negative.

• Kamara does not use one of his best abilities (carrying the ball forward to break the lines) because he doesn't want to venture forward too much to make sure he covers for Cash.
• As a result of Cash overlapping, Bailey plays slightly infield when he has been at his best as more of a natural winger hugging the sideline this year without an overlap - and in many cases, because he holds the width - there's often an underlap position which is where Watkins was finding joy against Sheffield and Newcastle 2H.
• Without McGinn filling in at CM, then it's up to Tielemans to play both second striker in the first and second phase, but when Cash goes forward, he has to drop back into the CM area that Kamara would usually be in - but that's not what he's doing - TIelemans is playing closer to the box to provide support.
• Then, this in turn drags Luiz all the way over as the lone CM covering between the defending line and the attacking line.
• And then the final nail in the coffin - McGinn and Moreno are all the way forward which means any resulting loss of possession on the left hand side is easy to exploit given Lenglet's weaknesses

This whole change is not too dissimilar to the Gerrard system. Two attacking fullbacks. Forwards playing in the channels. Number 8's in the fullback position and one CM covering the back line. No wonder it was just as disastrous as many matches under Gerrard.

[andym]

23 minutes ago, DJBOB said:

Yeah the sequence is different than Sheffield, but the instruction remains the same that Cash is definitely more forward than Konsa in the same position.

The resulting change is a net negative.

• Kamara does not use one of his best abilities (carrying the ball forward to break the lines) because he doesn't want to venture forward too much to make sure he covers for Cash.
• As a result of Cash overlapping, Bailey plays slightly infield when he has been at his best as more of a natural winger hugging the sideline this year without an overlap - and in many cases, because he holds the width - there's often an underlap position which is where Watkins was finding joy against Sheffield and Newcastle 2H.
• Without McGinn filling in at CM, then it's up to Tielemans to play both second striker in the first and second phase, but when Cash goes forward, he has to drop back into the CM area that Kamara would usually be in - but that's not what he's doing - TIelemans is playing closer to the box to provide support.
• Then, this in turn drags Luiz all the way over as the lone CM covering between the defending line and the attacking line.
• And then the final nail in the coffin - McGinn and Moreno are all the way forward which means any resulting loss of possession on the left hand side is easy to exploit given Lenglet's weaknesses

This whole change is not too dissimilar to the Gerrard system. Two attacking fullbacks. Forwards playing in the channels. Number 8's in the fullback position and one CM covering the back line. No wonder it was just as disastrous as many matches under Gerrard.

I wouldn't say its a new thing in terms of the relationship between RB and Kamara though; Kamara has dropped into the back 3 with Cash pushing forward much more so than Konsa previously this season, and we were fine... 

However, in those instances, admittedly we did generally have different personnel elsewhere e.g. Diaby and Zaniolo in as 10's either side of Watkins, McGinn would tuck into the middle with Luiz etc, keeping it strong in the centre of the pitch. 

Its like we're in a bit of a halfway house with Cash in the side recently, a build up set up on our right side that has worked before, but doesn't mesh with who's currently further forwards, with the issues as you've identified. 

I still think for the first goal conceded last night though that was more of very poor execution in a situation where we should have been the ones taking advantage. I'd have been annoyed if Konsa was playing and hadn't looked for that overlap, because it was on.