Bit of both but I would say but if you’re going to attack and press a lot you do become susceptible to counter attacks and you need to have players in place or at least knowing where they have to be if the opponent breaks.

Guardiola is obsessed with stopping them and created a system that can easily stop counters after his first season here. You remember City were getting carved open in their first season. Klopp has practically grown up learning about counter attacks in the Bundesliga as well. 

12 hours ago, JM7 said:

Question for you - How much do you think our leaky defence is down to defensive organisation rather than individual mistakes/personnel? 

My view would be that it is down to the defence being disorganised. Undoubtedly having Kante and Rudiger would help massively but we should still be able to keep a clean sheet. 

Pre season and the first two games I said systematic but since then there's been a fair bit of improvement I feel and the only reason we're still conceding so many goals is because Kepa (hopefully not for long) has unleashed his inner Claudio Bravo.

City and Liverpool were sort of shambles when Pep and Klopp first started. They needed new personnel and more than anything time and belief for the system. Look at those two clubs now. Two or the best football teams in the world.

They sacrificed the results (something Jose would never do) to create something bigger and better.

Frank is miles behind the two but No one can say he can't be as succesful in a couple of years. The young Core of players we have is nothing short of impressing. Remember few years back when Tottenham had all the young talent. I think we have double the amount in numbers and in potential.

We need to buy some players for key areas but the system needs to be instilled for the entire club, from boys to men.

19 hours ago, JM7 said:

Question for you - How much do you think our leaky defence is down to defensive organisation rather than individual mistakes/personnel? 

I’d like to throw the dreaded zonal marking at set pieces in to the ring please! I was hoping Lampard would go back to man for man marking because the seemed to prefer that when he was playing. 

Got out coached tonight look like he didn't know how to change the game in our favour.

Made a brave sub taking Zouma off which I agreeded with then we conceded but that's just coincidence.

 

Hope he learns and adjust moving forward

Despite the sh*t result. 

I just want to say that this is the most excited I've been about this team for years. I don't think I've been so enthusastic in a long time, I love watching these young players come through, I know it's frustrating to see us concede so many goals but so far I've been enjoying this run. Very early days but this is the opposite of what I expected. 

Yeah we lost, so what? It happens, Champions League no Champions League it's not the end of the world, we can still gain something this season. 

Not sure if anyone else is feeling it, but I just get this buzz from watching us lately, like a real excitement because I love watching the way we play. 

He needs to get better at half time... that is clear.

By my quick count it is 11-4 in our opponents favor after half, today's substitutions were poor imo.  

It worked away to Wolves, but I can’t say I am a huge fan of the back three. I think Lampard is using it to fix our fullback issue (especially with Emerson out) as Alonso is a liability in a back four and Azpi likewise so far this season.

But we looked flat-footed against Valencia, our pressing fell apart and we were too easy to contain for Valencia.

Hope we take on Liverpool in the same way we did for the Supercup-final.

6 hours ago, Wearyourblue said:

today's substitutions were poor imo.  

Mount's injury exposed the fact that we have lots of injuries and limited bench options as a result ...

Last night's bench : Caballero, Guehi (had to use U-23 player as we had no other fit defenders), Barkley (only midfielder), Pedro, Pulisic, Giroud, Batshuayi.

Options to replace Mount were Barkley, Pedro or Pulisic. I think he wanted to keep his midfielder sub in reserve for later in the match, so it came down to a choice between Pedro and Pulisic, and Frank went with experience. He could have gone for 2 up top, but probably a bit early in the game for that, although might have been a better option in hindsight. Lamps clearly doesn't fancy Pulisic at the moment - not sure why.

Giroud for Zouma was a bold move to switch to 4-4-2 from 3-5-2, and unfortunately it didn't come off as they scored almost immediately.

Barkley for Kovacic was probably a necessary change due to the amount of work that Kovacic had put in ... he was probably knackered.

Anymore injuries and he’ll have to start using the U9s. 

44 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

Giroud for Zouma was a bold move to switch to 4-4-2 from 3-5-2, and unfortunately it didn't come off as they scored almost immediately.

It was still the same formation. Azpi became one of the CB and Pedro took his position as the wingback.

21 minutes ago, Sindre said:

It was still the same formation. Azpi became one of the CB and Pedro took his position as the wingback.

Correct all that changed was instead of 2 behind the striker we went two upfront and Willian playing in behind.

25 minutes ago, Sindre said:

It was still the same formation. Azpi became one of the CB and Pedro took his position as the wingback.

Oh I hadn't noticed that on the coverage ... neither of them were anywhere near their right area for their goal then ...

9 hours ago, Brutos said:

Got out coached tonight look like he didn't know how to change the game in our favour.

Made a brave sub taking Zouma off which I agreeded with then we conceded but that's just coincidence.

 

Hope he learns and adjust moving forward

Not even close to get outcoached.

2 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

Oh I hadn't noticed that on the coverage ... neither of them were anywhere near their right area for their goal then ...

I also didn't notice that and thought we went 4-4-2 with Dave and Alonso at full back. Whatever happened the LB position wasn't covered for the goal.

I've generally been impressed by Frank since he took over, sets the teams up well and gives a good press interview.

The only place I feel he needs to improve is with his substitutions, they seem to cost us points.

 

16 minutes ago, Strider6003 said:

I've generally been impressed by Frank since he took over, sets the teams up well and gives a good press interview.

The only place I feel he needs to improve is with his substitutions, they seem to cost us points.

 

That could be due to the options he currently has at his disposal though. If for example it was Mount on for RLC or CHO on for Willian etc. it could (and its only a could) be more effective, and so on. 

6 minutes ago, Bonzodog29 said:

That could be due to the options he currently has at his disposal though. If for example it was Mount on for RLC or CHO on for Willian etc. it could (and its only a could) be more effective, and so on. 

Agree if he was replacing like for like, he didn't yesterday.

I concede our injury list makes things harder.

28 minutes ago, Strider6003 said:

I've generally been impressed by Frank since he took over, sets the teams up well and gives a good press interview.

The only place I feel he needs to improve is with his substitutions, they seem to cost us points.

 

I think Pulisic would have done better than Pedro there. But that's about it. This was the very best Valencia, while we are still missing our best midfielder Kante, our best defender Rudiger, our best left back Emerson. Still we had more possession, more shots, corners whatever...and missed a penalty.

So I can only agree with you there, Frankie is doing great with the kids and injuries, even when we lose the score doesn't reflect the gameplay of the team, that is something that Sarri couldn't say, maybe not even Conte.

Our injuries are bad at the moment, I think by around November the team will start to click even better.

At the start of the season I thought we would finish around 6th and have a rollercoaster of performances, so I think we’re on track really.

This season is important to our immediate future, especially with how our academy players view their chances of ever breaking into the 1st team.

I think it’s just a case of keeping the faith and enjoying our academy players progress this season, then we can tweak the squad with a couple of signings and hopefully be competitive again from next season.

 

Franki needs to make some adjustments for the home games. We've played 3 significantly weaker opponents on paper and we packed only 2 points. Away we should have beaten United, we destroyed the good sides of Norwich and Wolves and could have beat the dippers. We played lots of different formations and rotate a lot of players, except for our midfield. Kovacic is the obvious answer at the moment for that kind of games. 

3 hours ago, Sindre said:

It worked away to Wolves, but I can’t say I am a huge fan of the back three. I think Lampard is using it to fix our fullback issue (especially with Emerson out) as Alonso is a liability in a back four and Azpi likewise so far this season.

But we looked flat-footed against Valencia, our pressing fell apart and we were too easy to contain for Valencia.

Hope we take on Liverpool in the same way we did for the Supercup-final.

 

I think he's also using it to fix our CB issue. Christensen and Zouma just don't convince me.

4 minutes ago, Davey Baby said:

 

I think he's also using it to fix our CB issue. Christensen and Zouma just don't convince me.

Yes that too. But Tomori have played really well since he got his chance and my hope is that he and Rudiger can form a good partnership when Rudiger is fully fit. If he is already i'd like to see them together for Liverpool.

20 minutes ago, Strider6003 said:

I've generally been impressed by Frank since he took over, sets the teams up well and gives a good press interview.

The only place I feel he needs to improve is with his substitutions, they seem to cost us points.

 

I think Frank presents well in all circumstances and imagine this continues in team talks. The player interviews I've seen back this up. He will be sick about last night and a couple of other results as well.

He's still learning about his players  but is having changes forced on him by the new injuries to Kante, Pedro, Rudi and Mason. He also has to contend with the transfer ban. Any manager would struggle with this let alone a rookie manager at a new club. The board need to have patience as do the fans but I see good signs with the young players and the future could be very bright.

Last night was a bit of a concern because there were times when we looked like we had run out of ideas of how to break them down. This started when Mason went off and Pedro just didn't cut it at all. Why Frank didn't bring Pulisic on is a bit of a mystery, maybe he is saving him for Liverpool, but while the guy is young he has played against continental teams and maybe could have brought a bit more then Pedro did. In hindsight, anybody could have.  Maybe Frank doesn't rate him at the moment, who knows, he may have a knock.

What I'm not seeing is a set pattern of play emerging. Its too early to criticize at all and this is just an observation but at some point we need to develop a shape that the team can recognise and work within. At the moment we are trying a back three and it worked a treat against Wolves. The pundits before that game said Frank had matched the Wolves set up. Whether this is true or Frank was trying something new is conjecture but its more likely he matched them. In a preseason interview Frank had said he wanted the players to be able to change systems and adapt to new shapes. From the outside it looks like we are not nailing down a set pattern of play and still experimenting. We tried the 3 at the back again last night. We tried to change that just before they scored and it didn't pay off. I wouldn't necessarily blame that on the change in personnel or formation but it brings into question how well we adapt to changes. I can see the quick passing game is what Frank has brought to the play and think he is still experimenting under very difficult circumstances. I would rather he continues to experiment for a while longer than settle for a more pragmatic style to stop conceding. We need to find the best roles for our new players and we can only do this by playing them and experimenting with different shapes/systems. The injuries even effect how we do this and Mason's injury could be a serious setback to what we have achieved with him so far. If he is out for 5-6 weeks I really don't want to rely on Pedro as he isn't a long term prospect. I would want to see CHO in there and hope he is ready. Maybe start Pedro against Liverpool and give CHO half an hour.

Last nights defeat hasn't changed how I feel about the direction the team is going in and I'm still excited about some of the play and the potential shown by our young guns. If we can get a settled back bone with Rudi, Kante and Tammy we can start to build on that but we are suffering with crucial injuries and have to keep working hard. Frank knows all about hard work and is the right man to have at the helm.

COYB.

He's learning on the job with the subs. In the Champions ship, he'd won the game playing 2 strikers, but CL is a completely different level. Look back at the other couple of home games where he made 'bizarre' changes, he hasn't quite figured it out, and just go by instinct. It's the reality, we just need to be patient and accept the price to pay along the way with the young manager and team.