5 minutes ago, RIP Mourinho said:

Was Ferguson a weak manager who couldn't assert his authority when Les Sealey refused to go off in '91 league cup final?

That was completely different. There was no substitute keeper and only two players to pick from, of which only one could have been used. United had already used there substitution. It was the physio that was wanting Sealey to come off, Fergie was quite happy for him to be kept on.

2 minutes ago, Argo said:

Even Liverpool fans I was with for the game were praising us for how well we were playing out in the first half and after the reverse fixture said we done it better than even City ever did against them.

Of course when you apply tactics which in layman terms is don't hoof unless you are completely boxed in mistakes will happen on occasion, they even did to Pep's Barca, but I've constantly pinpointed out the times we have played out well this season to people because I honestly thought that was the aspect of Sarri tactics that would take the longest.

I'd praise Liverpool next time we beat them, too. I tend to be very magnanimous after I win.

We didn't do well, played out nicely from the back while offered no threat to their goal was not an achievement at all. How some could takk consolation from putting in a string passes together, while we lost the ability to defend and grind it out in tough situations. It's not like we haven't seen a Chelsea team put 10 passes together before Sarri took over.

All three havent won a trophy before.

It's not actually about what you have won somewhere (I never wanted Zidane here though), it's more about bringing a manager who knows this league very well, who can adapt and is willing to get the best out of the players we have which include the youth.

2 hours ago, Argo said:

Will even that work? We have in general improved a lot since the cup final and Hudson Odoi is getting a lot more games and the vultures are still out when we lose a game, even away to one of the best teams in PL history when we didn't actually play that badly.

We have the most stubborn fanbase and honestly I think only a season that could hold up on Conte's first or Jose's first spell could win them over.

The intolerance of the fanbase, and many on here, is a real problem for me, and Cardiff still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. You don't have to like him, and it's fine to think he's not the right manager for us. I still think it's way too early to tell, February was horrendous, but since then i am seeing "green shoots" and my concern is that he gets fired prematurely possibly due to fan pressure, and that it turns out to be a grave error. But that's just my view, and i don't expect others to share it. But nothing - not even the most scathing assessment of Sarri's tactics etc - justifies the level of vitriol i've seen all too often on here and elsewhere. 

I doubt CHO would have had a good game regardless of what the set up was. He looked out of place yesterday, frightened. 
Not surprising, he's young and it's anfield.

I think he played CHO just to satisfy the fans, Pedro or Willian would have been a better option as they can defend when they don't have the ball.

Fact is if we win the Europa League, certain fans who think Sarri is the reason we won't win it, will never give him credit. 
I'm excited to see how we fare next year under Sarri. I'm very disappointed by our fan base this year and hope we don't make a terrible decision by chopping him. 

Even if we win the Europa league, Sarri is still the wrong manager to take us forward! Winning the Europa league will only buy him more time till next season when we eventually make up our mind to sack him after we have been eliminated from the Champions league group stage and we are sixth on the EPL table in December.

22 minutes ago, icecoolguy22 said:

We didn't do well, played out nicely from the back while offered no threat to their goal was not an achievement at all. How some could takk consolation from putting in a string passes together, while we lost the ability to defend and grind it out in tough situations. It's not like we haven't seen a Chelsea team put 10 passes together before Sarri took over.

You're totally taking my words out of context. For a start it was only a small part of my initial post.

We use to struggle against any form of high pressing , even in our title winning sides it was a weakness (look how a ten man Paris strangled the life out of our 2015 title winning side).

It's quite funny because I remember when a clip came out of his Napoli side expertly playing out of defense this place nearly crashed due to the amount of people raving about it and wishing we could do it now we do it like clockwork it's somehow still spun into a negative.

37 minutes ago, wallosh said:

4 hours ago, bisright1 said:

I doubt CHO would have had a good game regardless of what the set up was. He looked out of place yesterday, frightened. 
Not surprising, he's young and it's anfield.

I think he played CHO just to satisfy the fans, Pedro or Willian would have been a better option as they can defend when they don't have the ball.

So much wrong with this statement.

17 minutes ago, Argo said:

You're totally taking my words out of context. For a start it was only a small part of my initial post.

We use to struggle against any form of high pressing , even in our title winning sides it was a weakness (look how a ten man Paris strangled the life out of our 2015 title winning side).

It's quite funny because I remember when a clip came out of his Napoli side expertly playing out of defense this place nearly crashed due to the amount of people raving about it and wishing we could do it now we do it like clockwork it's somehow still spun into a negative.

I've got to be honest, I love seeing teams play out from the back. For years I moaned when the ball would go back to Cech (or whoever) and we would punt it long for Ivanovic or Drogba. 

HOWEVER, watching us TRY to play out from the back is at times very painful. We do NOT look comfortable. The ball goes from Luiz, to Rudiger, to Dave, to Jorginho, back to Kepa, then to Luiz again and then we tend to end up giving it away. Not always, I'll grant you - sometimes it works but yesterday it seemed we just kept giving Liverpool the ball back time & time again. Of course I would rather we persevere with it rather than going back to route one but there needs to be a massive improvement as too many of our players just don't look comfortable receiving the ball in tight spaces.

 

So much wrong with this statement.

It's just the fact. And that's what any top manager would have done when playing away to a better team.

Playing Hazard as the false 9 muted CHO.  Without someone to aim for in the box, you take away one of the things he does well, which is crossing early and accurately.  That reduced him to dribbling or passing backward.  I would have liked to have seen CHO cover that far post better for the first goal, but he's 18.  He will make mistakes.  

Hazard as the false 9 does not work.  It didn't work the couple of times Conte did, and it hasn't worked this year when Sarri has done it.  We criticize Sarri for not changing tactics, but this tactic change doesn't work, there's history to show it doesn't work, and its no coincidence Hazard got two good scoring chances minutes after he got moved out left for Higuain. 

Edited April 15, 20197 yr by Boston Blue

8 minutes ago, wallosh said:

32 minutes ago, RIP Mourinho said:

So much wrong with this statement.

It's just the fact. And that's what any top manager would have done when playing away to a better team.

What's fact? Willian's defensive workrate is a massive myth, Pedro has been in dog sh*t recently. Sarri's team selection was spot on. Should have arguably brought on Giroud/Higuain whilst CHO was on so he had someone to aim crosses at, but starting CHO wasn't a mistake.

29 minutes ago, Nibs said:

I've got to be honest, I love seeing teams play out from the back. For years I moaned when the ball would go back to Cech (or whoever) and we would punt it long for Ivanovic or Drogba. 

HOWEVER, watching us TRY to play out from the back is at times very painful. We do NOT look comfortable. The ball goes from Luiz, to Rudiger, to Dave, to Jorginho, back to Kepa, then to Luiz again and then we tend to end up giving it away. Not always, I'll grant you - sometimes it works but yesterday it seemed we just kept giving Liverpool the ball back time & time again. Of course I would rather we persevere with it rather than going back to route one but there needs to be a massive improvement as too many of our players just don't look comfortable receiving the ball in tight spaces.

 

Yes.  We are too easy to defend against when we pay it out of the back.  The sequence patterns are predictable, and covering Jorghino is an easy way for teams to panic us in a dangerous position.  We don't move off the ball effectively or quickly enough anywhere for "Sarri Ball" to work properly.

8 minutes ago, Boston Blue said:

Yes.  We are too easy to defend against when we pay it out of the back.  The sequence patterns are predictable, and covering Jorghino is an easy way for teams to panic us in a dangerous position.  We don't move off the ball effectively or quickly enough anywhere for "Sarri Ball" to work properly.

Yes Liverpool seemed to anticipate and intercept our midfield passes, a clever tactic though Luiz's long range passes could have brought us a hattrick apart from poor finishing.

One thing that annoys me is when playing out the ball from the back we often don't find the midfield mover yet the static player resulting in ponderous side to side passes.

The second I saw Hazard as the false 9 yesterday and that was that for me.

He doesn't learn from previous mistakes, Haz is not a striker, it made us weak upfront, and we created very little.

Out.. out.   Out

I allow for the possibility that using Hazard as the False 9 could have potentially drawn out VvD and created spaces for RLS, Willian, & CHO to exploit.  But that didn't happen.  I don't know if that was Sarri's thinking, or if the players did not follow the plan. 

I do know that Hazard is less effective as the False 9.  The tactic was not sound.  I haven't seen any tactic employed by Sarri in a match this year that makes me thing we have an advantage in the dugout over Spurs, City, Liverpool, or even United at this point.  With Mourinho (mostly), Carlo, and Conte, I felt like we could match wits with most opposing managers.  

3 hours ago, Nibs said:

I've got to be honest, I love seeing teams play out from the back. For years I moaned when the ball would go back to Cech (or whoever) and we would punt it long for Ivanovic or Drogba. 

HOWEVER, watching us TRY to play out from the back is at times very painful. We do NOT look comfortable. The ball goes from Luiz, to Rudiger, to Dave, to Jorginho, back to Kepa, then to Luiz again and then we tend to end up giving it away. Not always, I'll grant you - sometimes it works but yesterday it seemed we just kept giving Liverpool the ball back time & time again. Of course I would rather we persevere with it rather than going back to route one but there needs to be a massive improvement as too many of our players just don't look comfortable receiving the ball in tight spaces.

Maybe i overemphasized a bit by saying with ease but i think your assessment is a bit harsh, i have been very impressed with a lot of our play out of trouble, something that will hopefully get more exposure if/when we stop wasting the corresponding attacks.

2 hours ago, Boston Blue said:

I allow for the possibility that using Hazard as the False 9 could have potentially drawn out VvD and created spaces for RLS, Willian, & CHO to exploit.  But that didn't happen.  I don't know if that was Sarri's thinking, or if the players did not follow the plan. 

I do know that Hazard is less effective as the False 9.  The tactic was not sound.  I haven't seen any tactic employed by Sarri in a match this year that makes me thing we have an advantage in the dugout over Spurs, City, Liverpool, or even United at this point.  With Mourinho (mostly), Carlo, and Conte, I felt like we could match wits with most opposing managers.  

I would switch Carlo for Hiddink, i felt the formers strength was more man management than tactical.

4 minutes ago, Argo said:

I would switch Carlo for Hiddink, i felt the formers strength was more man management than tactical.

I thought about that, but Hiddink was never really in a position to win any important matches.  He was an interim-steady-the-ship manager.  I think Hiddink could have done a better job integrating the youth since he never really had anything important to play for.  It was the one time we had a low risk opportunity to get the kids time to see what we had.  

8 minutes ago, Boston Blue said:

I thought about that, but Hiddink was never really in a position to win any important matches.  He was an interim-steady-the-ship manager.  I think Hiddink could have done a better job integrating the youth since he never really had anything important to play for.  It was the one time we had a low risk opportunity to get the kids time to see what we had.  

I meant the first time, he was a very clever tactican back then. Guardiola, Wenger and Benitez were all left trailing in their wake, I'm convinced we would have got revenge on United in Rome heck i would have actually even have fancied us to beat Mou's Inter the following season had Guus remained.

Edited April 15, 20197 yr by Argo

What's fact? Willian's defensive workrate is a massive myth, Pedro has been in dog sh*t recently. Sarri's team selection was spot on. Should have arguably brought on Giroud/Higuain whilst CHO was on so he had someone to aim crosses at, but starting CHO wasn't a mistake.

Alright, as much as we all love him, he was our worst player in that game.

10 hours ago, bisright1 said:

Lol. Their manager won't be playing. There isn't a secret formula for winning a cup final. Don't blame Sarri for kepa being a prick. 

So you think a manager has no bearing on a game then, Claudio was here in 03/04 along came Jose and the rest is history, managers make a huge difference to a team and a one off games, Sarri gives me no confidence what so ever, so what the hell he must translate to the players is anyone's guess, his halftime team talks can't inspire much considering some of the sh*te 2nd halfs we've had. 

10 minutes ago, chi blue said:

So you think a manager has no bearing on a game then, Claudio was here in 03/04 along came Jose and the rest is history, managers make a huge difference to a team and a one off games, Sarri gives me no confidence what so ever, so what the hell he must translate to the players is anyone's guess, his halftime team talks can't inspire much considering some of the sh*te 2nd halfs we've had. 

Exactly.  I can think of one game where his tactics might have had an influence over a game:  Our win vs City.  There are far more examples of his tactical inflexibility costing us games.

Also, which one of our players are better today than they were at the beginning of the season?  Not even CHO sine he was practically our best player in pre-season, a pre-season Sarri barely had a chance to participate in.

26 minutes ago, chi blue said:

So you think a manager has no bearing on a game then, Claudio was here in 03/04 along came Jose and the rest is history, managers make a huge difference to a team and a one off games, Sarri gives me no confidence what so ever, so what the hell he must translate to the players is anyone's guess, his halftime team talks can't inspire much considering some of the sh*te 2nd halfs we've had. 

Quite right. ....Bisright1 needs only to remember what claudio did against monaco in 2004 to see what influence they have on a game . He threw away a champions league final ....

By tinkering.....3.1 & they had 10 men.