- Joined
- Aug 2, 2021
- Messages
- 402
Where does one even begin? We struggle to hold on to the ball at the best of times so no way were we going to do it successfully even against Young Boys. Is this coaching or player style/quality or both? Bruno is not good at retaining possession in tight spaces, Pogba passes but does not move, Fred is ... , presumably Donny can but that's based on faith. At the same time, it does seem that we aren't coached to move around the pitch in units, attempting to control the game wherever the ball ends up.
Rarely do we retain possession when pressed high up the pitch, even against weaker sides. The only time we have control higher up the pitch is when teams decide that they're okay with us doing our useless three-man kick-arounds near the edge of the box on either flank, knowing fully well that no one is going to make a third man run and that the ball will go backwards (Fine, Bruno and Pogba have keyed in on that difficult to execute through-ball that should yield success soon and possibly create space on the edge of the box when teams start to worry).
But maybe we don't need control, we just need to be efficient at getting the ball to the forwards and pray to the gods that one of them does something clever (In 35 minutes of 11 vs 11, it took an absolutely world class, once-in-a-season, defense-splitting, outside of the foot, no-way-is-he-going-to-try-that pass for us to create a chance against Young Boys). Well, we'd better then be willing to run our socks off and press high and as a team (admittedly, once in a while a forward applies pressure, Fred nicks the ball, and we catch teams off balance but it's just not consistent enough). Even in the low-block, when defending deep because we're a man down or because we've decided that's the best way to play City, we don't try to force errors. It's as though we're just hoping the other team loses the ball.
Many posters have said this time over: Ole and his staff set us up so that the brilliance of our forwards wins the day. Maybe at some point in the past this might have sufficed but on the evidence so far, that's no longer enough to win the league or advance far in the champions league.
Rarely do we retain possession when pressed high up the pitch, even against weaker sides. The only time we have control higher up the pitch is when teams decide that they're okay with us doing our useless three-man kick-arounds near the edge of the box on either flank, knowing fully well that no one is going to make a third man run and that the ball will go backwards (Fine, Bruno and Pogba have keyed in on that difficult to execute through-ball that should yield success soon and possibly create space on the edge of the box when teams start to worry).
But maybe we don't need control, we just need to be efficient at getting the ball to the forwards and pray to the gods that one of them does something clever (In 35 minutes of 11 vs 11, it took an absolutely world class, once-in-a-season, defense-splitting, outside of the foot, no-way-is-he-going-to-try-that pass for us to create a chance against Young Boys). Well, we'd better then be willing to run our socks off and press high and as a team (admittedly, once in a while a forward applies pressure, Fred nicks the ball, and we catch teams off balance but it's just not consistent enough). Even in the low-block, when defending deep because we're a man down or because we've decided that's the best way to play City, we don't try to force errors. It's as though we're just hoping the other team loses the ball.
Many posters have said this time over: Ole and his staff set us up so that the brilliance of our forwards wins the day. Maybe at some point in the past this might have sufficed but on the evidence so far, that's no longer enough to win the league or advance far in the champions league.