A simple analysis on our game vs Bayern.

Our gameplan defensively as always under Maresca is man to man press.

So how do Bayern attack us, they basically asked both gnabry and Kane to drop very deep.

That is gnabry, Bayern 10 playing as ccb daring Tosin to follow him. Just few rotation and Gnabry is free and Bayern can build the ball forward.

Same thing Kane dropping very deep daring Chalobah to follow him. He didn't, which brought Caicedo.

Cross field pass to olise. Cucu need to cover the gap faster, the same with Tosin.

Where is our dm? you can see James is busy with gnabry.

I am not sure this is the best way to press Bayern but I am not sure how to handle it better.

Palmer pressing I thought was quite poor and for Neto, I kinda pity him. He is playing defensive winger and imo a healthy Chilwell will probably be better suited than him playing this role.

Edited September 20, 2025Sep 20 by Bob stark

Call a spade a spade. James is tosh at midfield and should only be used as an emergency. Nothing due to his ability, rather his lack of tactical awareness and positional sense when at midfield. Especially at a high level.

Thought we were weakest in midfield because of it. And Enzo being garbage again.

On 20/09/2025 at 21:11, Sconnie Blue said:

Call a spade a spade. James is tosh at midfield and should only be used as an emergency. Nothing due to his ability, rather his lack of tactical awareness and positional sense when at midfield. Especially at a high level.

Thought we were weakest in midfield because of it. And Enzo being garbage again.

In this situation, it really got nothing to do with James. The defensive system is man to man. James man is gnabry so he need to man mark him.

Cucu simply need to close Olise down. He didn't which pulled neto whose job is to mark laimer.

Since now fans start hating on Maresca ball, let me give you some screenshot of dinosaur ball.

We saw this many times, it is very similar to what Maresca run, one fb invert and one dm push up into 10.

But what is the different ?

That is Moi playing as 10 with Palmer as the deepest dm.

6 sec later, Moi drop Cucu play as 10.

That is Jackson dropping next to Moi.

That is Jackson playing as winger after combining with Madueke. Player move around finding space of their own combining.

As we saw 2 seasons ago, many fans here hate this.Tactic? what tactic. It is 4231 chaos. The pattern of play is not clear, our performance really depends on the player because they have lots more freedom to move around, defense wise from structural pov, it is bad.

This is the screenshot after cucur play as 10 and lose the ball, 3 v 3 at the back. Just compare this to under Maresca where moi will stay behind 100% of the time.

hmmm...

Using single frame screenshots to analyse football will always be funny to me.

6 hours ago, Bob stark said:

Since now fans start hating on Maresca ball, let me give you some screenshot of dinosaur ball.

We saw this many times, it is very similar to what Maresca run, one fb invert and one dm push up into 10.

But what is the different ?

That is Moi playing as 10 with Palmer as the deepest dm.

6 sec later, Moi drop Cucu play as 10.

That is Jackson dropping next to Moi.

That is Jackson playing as winger after combining with Madueke. Player move around finding space of their own combining.

As we saw 2 seasons ago, many fans here hate this.Tactic? what tactic. It is 4231 chaos. The pattern of play is not clear, our performance really depends on the player because they have lots more freedom to move around, defense wise from structural pov, it is bad.

This is the screenshot after cucur play as 10 and lose the ball, 3 v 3 at the back. Just compare this to under Maresca where moi will stay behind 100% of the time.

I have no idea what you are on about.

Our play for the last 5 years has been the same. Slow, stagnant, unprogressive and negative. It doesnt matter who has been manager.

The only time it changed, was towards the last few games under potter, when we were starting to move the ball quicker up the field. Albeit, it still came without results.

There are other times, including in the club world cup final, and against liverpool when we were more adventurous. But those times are few and far between.

Bob Stark clearly looking for a gig on Monday Night Football.

8 minutes ago, nonotnowjim said:

I have no idea what you are on about.

Is it possible to block entire threads?

Tactic - sh*t. Player - also sh*t. Close thread.

22 hours ago, nonotnowjim said:

I have no idea what you are on about.

Our play for the last 5 years has been the same. Slow, stagnant, unprogressive and negative. It doesnt matter who has been manager.

The only time it changed, was towards the last few games under potter, when we were starting to move the ball quicker up the field. Albeit, it still came without results.

There are other times, including in the club world cup final, and against liverpool when we were more adventurous. But those times are few and far between.

😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫

There is no such thing as just play faster. How you attack also depend on how the opp defend

Edited October 4, 2025Oct 4 by Bob stark

23 hours ago, GarnachoCheese said:

Using single frame screenshots to analyse football will always be funny to me.

Video is the best way but it take too much time. It is far easier to use screenshot. 

37 minutes ago, Bob stark said:

😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫

There is no such thing as just play faster. How you attack also depend on how the opp defend

Utter nonsense. Sorry Bob, but I suggest you go and watch Liverpool play (for example). They play in a very similar set of circumstances as us, same league, same opponents. Same tactics of others sitting back against them - and they move the ball fast. Chase down the opponents at speed to win the ball back, and then do not spend the entire game passing between virgil and konate. Instead they actually look to move the ball progressively at speed.

1 hour ago, nonotnowjim said:

Utter nonsense. Sorry Bob, but I suggest you go and watch Liverpool play (for example). They play in a very similar set of circumstances as us, same league, same opponents. Same tactics of others sitting back against them - and they move the ball fast. Chase down the opponents at speed to win the ball back, and then do not spend the entire game passing between virgil and konate. Instead they actually look to move the ball progressively at speed.

I watched pool vs Burnley. It was very slow. No different.

What I learn from this thread is that many fans believe that football is whatever your tactical setup. What the other team is doing offensively or defensively is irrelevant.

Maresca ran the same exact offense when we murdered everyone early last season vs we played snoozefest ball. Maresca ran the same exact offense when we created chances after chances in the two friendly vs when we were struggling to create anything vs palace.

This is slot talking about how team changed their approach vs pool and now they need more set pieces to score.

3 hours ago, Bob stark said:

I watched pool vs Burnley. It was very slow. No different.

There are always off days….

let’s think “in general” terms.

10 minutes ago, nonotnowjim said:

There are always off days….

let’s think “in general” terms.

sounds like you are trying to get him to get down from the window ledge😂

Theres a lot of information here and its very positive.

Edited October 7, 2025Oct 7 by OTL

On 04/10/2025 at 20:04, nonotnowjim said:

Utter nonsense. Sorry Bob, but I suggest you go and watch Liverpool play (for example). They play in a very similar set of circumstances as us, same league, same opponents. Same tactics of others sitting back against them - and they move the ball fast. Chase down the opponents at speed to win the ball back, and then do not spend the entire game passing between virgil and konate. Instead they actually look to move the ball progressively at speed.

They abandoned this in the last 10 minutes last game. Not sure they were pressing for a result, the way they played out of the back could have been any Chelsea game for the last 12 months. Similarly, for the winning goal, we were able to play around them at a canter because not one of their midfield or forwards bar Szoboszlai was interested in pressing with intention.

Even our build-up to the winner, as impressive as it looked, was entirely reactive rather than creative, reacting to Liverpool's press rather than trying to draw them out of position. As pointed out elsewhere, if Caicedo doesn't go off-script at the start of the move by playing the ball between two markers, the move fails before it even begins.

Of course, it cost Liverpool the game. The difference is it was a bad 10 minutes for them, but our default for 90 minutes every game.

Edited October 7, 2025Oct 7 by SydneyChelsea

8 hours ago, SydneyChelsea said:

They abandoned this in the last 10 minutes last game. Not sure they were pressing for a result, the way they played out of the back could have been any Chelsea game for the last 12 months. Similarly, for the winning goal, we were able to play around them at a canter because not one of their midfield or forwards bar Szoboszlai was interested in pressing with intention.

Even our build-up to the winner, as impressive as it looked, was entirely reactive rather than creative, reacting to Liverpool's press rather than trying to draw them out of position. As pointed out elsewhere, if Caicedo doesn't go off-script at the start of the move by playing the ball between two markers, the move fails before it even begins.

Of course, it cost Liverpool the game. The difference is it was a bad 10 minutes for them, but our default for 90 minutes every game.

My point wasn’t in relation to a specific game. It is a general issue.

Generally speaking…. They face the same spoiler tactics (deep sitting teams) as we do.

Generally speaking…they have lay much faster with less pissing around at the back than we do - which generally speaking, allows them to be better at breaking teams down than we are.

There are always specific instances of things going wrong, but generally speaking, we need to move the ball faster, which pulls opponents out of position, which in turn makes space for others to exploit.

There is a simple way to make our offense faster. Just let the player move around and make forward run. The offense will look much faster and you will think Maresca can't coach.

32 minutes ago, Bob stark said:

There is a simple way to make our offense faster. Just let the player move around and make forward run. The offense will look much faster and you will think Maresca can't coach.

You are someone who always sees things in Binary.

Our attack should not be a tap that is either on or off. None of us are asking the team to be reckless and storm forward in a stupid and careless manner, without consequences.

There is something called balance. And what we are asking for is exactly that.... some balance. It is really simple.

1) Stop the 500 passes between CBs every game.

2) Pass the ball progressively and faster, to help move defenders out of position.

3) Let the players play at a faster tempo. It is clear that we are better when we play faster. At times, it feels like the slow stagnant play from the back makes the players fall asleep from being so bored.

2 minutes ago, nonotnowjim said:

You are someone who always sees things in Binary.

Our attack should not be a tap that is either on or off. None of us are asking the team to be reckless and storm forward in a stupid and careless manner, without consequences.

There is something called balance. And what we are asking for is exactly that.... some balance. It is really simple.

1) Stop the 500 passes between CBs every game.

2) Pass the ball progressively and faster, to help move defenders out of position.

3) Let the players play at a faster tempo. It is clear that we are better when we play faster. At times, it feels like the slow stagnant play from the back makes the players fall asleep from being so bored.

Binary? 😂😂😂

The one who actually think binary is you. Football is not about playing slow or fast. There is no scroll or button that manager press or drag that say fast and slow.

If you want to pass forward, you want to create imbalance. You want to create space and passing lane so you can pass forward.

How do you do that? You want to move the opp by using dribbling, movement, sideway pass. The more you do this the more you can move the ball forward faster.

I am just going to use this screenshot. You can scream at your CB to pass the ball forward, they will think that you are stupid. All the passing lane is blocked.

The only thing more boring than the football we play, is this thread discussing the football we play. Zzz.