Our defensive frailties have been the only setback so far, the zonal marking has to go.

Looking a lot more solid with Kante back! Though our defence is missing Rudiger. We look better with the 3-4-3, but an not opposed to mixing it up and keeping the opposition guessing, but think Rudiger and Tomori need to be our first choice as soon as he's back, azpi can do a good job in a 3-4-3  but with a 4 at the back its gotta be james for me, likewise with Alonso and Emerson. We're not far from having the defence sorted, with that i think 3rd is very achievable!

54 minutes ago, Jackbuchanan said:

Our defensive frailties have been the only setback so far, the zonal marking has to go.

I don't really think zonal is the problem, change to man to man and we still have a small side with a keeper unwilling to come out and catch. Statistically zonal actually concedes less goals/chances than man to man so if the trend continues here our set piece woes will only get worse.

Unless we add more height to the team (which I don't want to do if it's to the detriment to the quality of football we play) then the best course of action we can take is the Pep prevention rather than cute method, City's concede a lot of big chances from set pieces but Pep minimises that by making sure they don't concede too many in the first place, that's the best way to guard against our set piece weakness.

16 minutes ago, Argo said:

I don't really think zonal is the problem, change to man to man and we still have a small side with a keeper unwilling to come out and catch. Statistically zonal actually concedes less goals/chances than man to man so if the trend continues here our set piece woes will only get worse.

 

The way we are defending corners is very much the problem at the moment. On Wednesday, Tammy, Zouma and Alonso were playing, and Tomori is very good in the air.

 

BT did an analysis on it which was very illuminating. For their corner, Lille's players had an awful lot of space to run into to attack the ball, and we had nobody in that space. Instead we had our defenders in a line, protecting the goal. The ball comes in, our defenders are focusing on the ball, with no idea where Lille's men are. They attack the ball with a running jump. Invariably there's one winner. Firminho scored exactly the same way, and he's not that tall, nor is he a great header. Our system is flawed.

 

The consensus amongst Joe Cole, Rio and Hoddle was we had to ditch the zonal marking, or start doing it differently, by putting men in the space. They used the example of Liverpool. They put Van Dijk in that space between their line of defenders and the opposition's attackers, to put his nut on it or just impede anybody running toward goal. We could have used Zouma in the same way, occupying the space that at present we are leaving empty. When the corner was taken, there wasn't a Chelsea player within 4 yards of a Lille player. They can't get a free run on it. That's asking for trouble.

 

When you watch Lille's goal from above you can see how easy it was for them. You have to be able to defend set pieces in the Prem, or you will lose a lot of points. Obviously the more you keep the ball the less corners you will concede, but even if we kept the ball like Man City, right now teams only need one corner against us, as we saw with Brighton last weekend. Their first corner well into the second half and what happened? They hit the bar. We cannot make it so easy to attack the ball.

The analysis starts around 5min30sec............

 

 

Also I seem to remember reading Derby conceded more goals from set pieces last season than any other side in the Championship, so it can't all be about height.

1 hour ago, Argo said:

I don't really think zonal is the problem, change to man to man and we still have a small side with a keeper unwilling to come out and catch. Statistically zonal actually concedes less goals/chances than man to man so if the trend continues here our set piece woes will only get worse.

Unless we add more height to the team (which I don't want to do if it's to the detriment to the quality of football we play) then the best course of action we can take is the Pep prevention rather than cute method, City's concede a lot of big chances from set pieces but Pep minimises that by making sure they don't concede too many in the first place, that's the best way to guard against our set piece weakness.

When we have our aerial dominant defender Rudiger back in the defence, you won't hear people mention zonal marking again.

58 minutes ago, Davey Baby said:

 

BT did an analysis on it which was very illuminating. For their corner, Lille's players had an awful lot of space to run into to attack the ball, and we had nobody in that space. Instead we had our defenders in a line, protecting the goal. The ball comes in, our defenders are focusing on the ball, with no idea where Lille's men are. They attack the ball with a running jump. Invariably there's one winner. Firminho scored exactly the same way, and he's not that tall, nor is he a great header. Our system is flawed.

It's not flawed, we just don't implement it correctly. Rudi will sort it out.

1 hour ago, coco said:

It's not flawed, we just don't implement it correctly. Rudi will sort it out.

 

I have no doubt Rudiger will improve things, but we were zonal under Sarri, and we were pretty bad.

 

If you look at the video, you see their main man is standing about 10 yards from goal before the corner is taken, right in the middle of the penalty box, and there's no-one anywhere near him, he has 4 or 5 yards of space to go and attack the ball. This is their main scorer and their biggest aerial threat. Why isn't somebody in the space, so that he can't get a free run? You don't have to man mark him you just have to occupy that space. You just have to let him know if he wants to attack the ball he's going to have to work to do so, he's going to have to get around you. I don't understand it at all. It just looks way too easy.

 

I understand most teams go zonal and there must be a reason, and stats indicate it's preferable according to Argo, but I've never seen a team so vulnerable at set pieces, and that isn't all about personnel or lack of height. Some of that has to be in the way we're setting up.

 

Edit: If you're saying Rudiger will take control at set pieces and help us set up better, I've no doubt that's true to a certain extent, but we can't afford to be so vulnerable just because of the absence of one player.

Edited October 4, 20196 yr by Davey Baby

18 hours ago, Davey Baby said:

 

Edit: If you're saying Rudiger will take control at set pieces and help us set up better, I've no doubt that's true to a certain extent, but we can't afford to be so vulnerable just because of the absence of one player.

Yes it's a worry, Rudi's an organiser, great in the air, and he installs confidence to the defence around him. Zouma only ticks 1 of those boxes, Christensen also. 

We are now odds on to finish top 4 and there's a real chance we could be ahead of City 1/4 way through the season.

Top 6 would be good, top 4 would definately exceed expectations.

1 hour ago, DP2 said:

We are now odds on to finish top 4 and there's a real chance we could be ahead of City 1/4 way through the season.

Top 6 would be good, top 4 would definately exceed expectations.

Top 4 would make Frank the best ever English rookie PL manager. I'm trying to temper my optimism but it gets harder and harder. I'm not even going to mention a finishing position because I'm enjoying the ride so much.

 

If we get top 4 that would be an outstanding achievement with the circumstances we are under this season. Transfer ban, start of a transition period and lots of young players in the squad. Arsenal and Spurs have spent alot of money, improved there squads and have world class strikers, Poch has been at Spurs a long time and Emery his second season now. Not being negative but we really shouldn't be beating those 2 teams to a top 4 place so if we do then what a job Lampard has pulled off.

I know how important champions league football is to clubs but I had no expectation to finish in the top 4 anyway. I'm enjoying this season, playing some good football and the youngsters are a joy to watch.

I can’t recall which thread it was in, but I wish I could find the posts where I went back and forth with a bloke who claimed top 4 was not possible after our draw with Leicester.  We are certainly looking like a top 4 side and should only get better as the season goes on and we get our full squad back.

It won't be a complete tragedy if we don't get top four (infact the Europa would be a perfect platform for Gilmour, Maatsen, Cumming and Tino to break through) but looking at how fundamentally f**ked United and Spurs look we should be finishing in those places now.

The only serious threats to our chances are looking to be complacency and Leicester keeping what they're doing up. 

Edited October 7, 20196 yr by Argo

Rudiger and RLC coming back into the team to bring an extra bit of power could really set us up in the 2nd half of the season if we can stay around the top 4 until Xmas.

They will add strength of course but the potential balance RLC could bring to the midfield 3 is what I’m really hopeful for.

Would mean Mount plays wider than he would probably prefer but he can do that.

Finishing in the top 6 is still the goal. If it takes 2, 3, 4 or more years to challenge for a title so be it. This team looks like it’s got that and more and the journey will be as good/better than the destination, wherever we end up.

I still think top 4 is in our own hands, unless we fail to sort out our defensive frailties. Start racking up those clean sheets and we'll be fighting for the 2nd to 3rd spots. Fail and it'll be a fight for the Europa League spots.

We'll be a lot better next year compared to how we are now, but I feel we are still quite a bit behind the likes of City and Liverpool. To be fair though, neither of them look as they looked last year so maybe the gap won't be as large as it has been for the past couple years.

Lets see how the youth players perform by the end of the season, and if we are to make any good signings in the transfer market once we're allowed to

i think our real season will start post the next international phase.. We play City, Arsenal and Spurs in this phase.. having made one point against pool, utd and Leicester... while we have had a good start for a team to develop and cement our position we need to breed a positive arrogance in our play.. which will mean we always go in expecting to win games we have won..which requires time and a good sequence of results.. so the next two games, Watford(A) and Palace(H) both winnable IMO are very important for us to keep the momentum going..

How far we go this season will depend on 3 away games against City, Spurs and Arsenal.. If we can get 4 points of these 3 - and 13 of the other 6.. it will mean we sit at 37 points at half way stage.. which my opinion should set us up for a top 4 finish going by previous year point totals

-- Spurs - 71

-- Pool - 75

-- Pool - 76

-- City - 66

This season we will probably finish between 3-6 as said earlier. For me Pool, City and Leicester are better than us right now and Tottenham, Utd and Arsenal just below us as the table clearly shows.

We are still looking for that balance between attacking and defending and I think we will have some downs on our way as well as these highs we are on now.

We have RLC, Rudiger and Kante still to get back to our permanent so much to look forward to as well.

I think only City and Liverpool are better than us, we are level with Leicester. Rogers has got Leicester playing well.

Tottenham showed signs of life yesterday and expect them to have an influence on the title race by taking points off at least one of the top 4.

I wish I could find the posts of the bloke who claimed we had no chance at top 4 after 2 games.  Don’t recall which thread it was in, but I’d have real curiosity as to what he thought now.

My counterpoint was how can you write off our top 4 chances after only 2 games?  I’m glad to have been proven correct, at this point I’d be very surprised if we don’t finish top 4.

3 hours ago, mwblue10 said:

I wish I could find the posts of the bloke who claimed we had no chance at top 4 after 2 games.  Don’t recall which thread it was in, but I’d have real curiosity as to what he thought now.

My counterpoint was how can you write off our top 4 chances after only 2 games?  I’m glad to have been proven correct, at this point I’d be very surprised if we don’t finish top 4.

Deleted.

Edited November 3, 20196 yr by strider6004
Misread text

 

On 07/10/2019 at 04:08, DP2 said:

We are now odds on to finish top 4 and there's a real chance we could be ahead of City 1/4 way through the season.

Top 6 would be good, top 4 would definately exceed expectations.

It's way too early in the season to draw conclusions but we're definitely in the driving seat. Hopefully we don't f**k it up. Last season Man U almost hauled back a huge deficit only to f**k it up at the end.  We have to keep focussed and hope our rivals continue being sh*t. We also need to improve our form against our rivals for Top 4 and the other top teams. So far we've lost against every top team we've faced bar Leicester which we drew at home. If we lose against our rivals they can easily claw their way back into contention. 

My thoughts are we will still finish 4th, have a feeling City might implode a little allowing Leicester to reach 2nd. 

I get the feeling Frank knows how to keep the team motivated, the limiting factors for me are inexperience and injuries. 

My expectations have increased from the start of the season. I agree with “Jangz’s” post the games against  city, arsenal and spurs will show where we are really at. Several teams below us could go on a run  at some point but  I can only see Leicester or at a stretch Liverpool slipping up.