Kind of you to remind us of that Bilbao shellshock but yeah it's the depressing truth. Some of our best teams got absolutely dismantled at the hands of organised teams. There weren't even that many occasions, it's just really hard to forget having our midfield completely neutralised. Pep later coming to England and embarrassing the league was when the league woke up and realised passion football was inferior.
Individual Brilliance vs Pattern of play
- Thread starter meamth
- Start date
City are a fantastic side and with the trophies they have won, i cant understand why anyone would be put off with their collective and individual brilliance. If TH can get to 80% of cities best play we will have some team to enjoy.
Yeah it is weird to see, we were also a much more dominant team back then so teams sat off us much more than they do now. You will still see sides doing this to City, Liverpool Bayern etc if you watch their games. Scholes was the deep lying playmaker so you'd see Rodri etc with the same sort of space at times
This is a great point you make and also why I think pundits from those eras sometimes struggle to provide good analysis. Someone like paul scholes may have had more time on the ball due to the way football was played and the dominance of the united team, as well him having such good natural ability. But when analysing another player he would tend to look at it from the view of what would scholes do in the era that scholes played. Not taking into account football is generally played faster, with more pressing, tighter defences, as is normal with the evolution of sports. This is why I think a lot of the "naturally" talented players who give a go at managing struggle, where as the thinkers or the ones able to understand players in the context of the moderm game do better in management.
Was going to make the same point. Was watching a bit of an old game a few weeks ago and it sheer amount of space they had in the middle was noticeable. And by "old" I mean from the 00's.
Did you miss Thiago hit 30 yards pass few weeks ago? or their game against us where Salah so beautifully chipped the ball over Maguire's head which resulted to Mane's goal? Theres pattern yes but Klopp gives his players more freedom compare to Pep.
When did i say we were playing like City? didnt i just say City is boring? i was just giving you examples of the individual brilliance from our players which proved that we can do those things without becoming robotic. When United were up against Bilbao we were already the team in decline, we were OUT of CL Group behind the likes of Benfica, not a good example to use and regarding Pep's Barca who can defeat them at that time? only Inter and Real, both under Mourinho, both playing extremely rigid defensive football NOT trying to outmatched them.
That's why we had more variations in term of tactic, strategy, and personel in the past. Now everyone is trying to play "Pass and Press" even when their players arent up to it. Gone are the days where Maradona, Ronaldinho, Cantona would entertain the spectators with their individual brilliance because they dont press enough or they dont pass fast enough. hey if you like robotic football good for you, to each its own.
Btw the true Godfather of the "robotic" football is LVG. His Ajax side was so ahead of its time its unbelievable. Later on the Dutchman had always problems with the great individual players in his teams. But during the 90s his Ajax was a true benchmark of a great team. On the other hand Pep's Barcelona is the biggest example of how the rigid structure of play and the great individual football talent can and should coexist in the same team. Its all about the coaching and the good man management. Pep just happened to be a student both of Cruyff's free flowing "attack, attack, attack" approach and of Van Gaal's more rigid and structural playstyle.. after all Guardiola was a captain of Barcelona during LVG's days there.
Pep struggled in the beginning. There was media outlets even questioning whether his football would work in the league. He actually had to change his style before it clicked and I believe he has suggested working in England has improved him as a manager. Frightening really.
Rivaldo was the perfect example of this. Great player, difficult personality.
I think his struggles were actually overstated. The biases I mentioned led to critics and media blowing their load prematurely. It's a very technical, detail oriented style, it was never going to be smooth from day one. The exact same thing will happen to ETH in his first season. You can't implement tiki taka in 3 months. That's without even discussing personnel upgrades. All things considered the fact that he would only need 2 years to dominate England was blazing fast.
edit: sorry, was in fact only 1 year it took. By the start of the 2nd they had already arrived and were thrashing teams left and right to start the season. Proper cricket scorelines every other week.
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His struggles were not over stated because he did have them. When you go into a pressing system, you have to know that you will lose goals and games because the players are not used to it or are not fully drilled into this play.
People talk about taking all this time however; City improved throughout the season, come April / May they started dominating teams. The last 4 results of his first season were 5-0, 2-1, 3-1 and 5-0 to City which was an indication of what was coming.
City then went onto not just adapting, they broke the 100 point barrier.
What we need to see is a upward trajectory from ETH
Soooo.....its nice to have both now, right? 
Btw, this thread is pure gold
Btw, this thread is pure gold
I think about it when I play a video game (Fifa or PES) and the space between the lines is massive and you get the ball at the half and counter and have like a 4 on 4 and the defensive line for the other team is near their 18. It feels insane, but it happened in the 90s.
You forgot one thing
Phase of play
Phase of play
I don't think our attacking play has changed much. We are more aggressive in all phases of play partly due to personnel but mostly due to a shift in tactics and mentality and that leads to lots of chances. The individual brilliance thing was always rubbish, we have had a very good counter attack for years, just a poor press to create high number of transitions
Agree on higher number of transitions now due to better press/counter press.
At the same time we are scoring more/better goals against set defenses too. For example our first away goal vs Leeds, our winner against Barca yesterday
The majority of teams in CL and Europa League play with low intensity even now. Some new players from other leagues need time to adapt PL intensity but they start in CL, Europa League games just fine.
Then a lot has to do with quality between teams too even nowadays.
Look at how much time and space Kalvin Phillips had in one game. Not that long ago. Everton may look compact as a team here, but it's not like they could cover all the space.
The reason IMO is the significant change in referee style (the rule of the game).
Receiving the ball/ running in to open space may mean getting a tough tackle coming your way. And nasty tackles are much more tolerable. The example clip is just an example. It's not one off, or uncommon. Look at Desailly in the clip. Plenty of handbag went unpunished.
I suspect that when SAF said something along the line about young Robben being not very brave, and tended to dive; SAF might mean that Robben did more close control dribbling instead of going with raw speed, stay down when he could try to continue for a shot. It's also strange that Robben seemed to get faster and did more kick and run after he left PL and the older he got (perhaps because rule change to protect him more?)
Our older fans would remember that even us, Arsenal would not be shy about kicking the shite out of each other, and plenty thing go unpunished.
The point being that defenders used to have more tools to work with. Random body check, follow through with a kick in non foul come together situation, to sore up attackers to Intimidate them, or simply hurt them so they 're not 100% fit later in the game. Tactical foul used to be tougher too. Why pull the shirt, when you can get away with a slide tackle from behind?
Nowadays especially since VAR, football is much softer, so change in tactic comes. The some concept of total football is adopted widely in form of defend as a whole team. Compacting make the pitch small out of possession. Midfielders are required to be more disciplined, more defensive minded (even via possession based football).
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We are still a work in progress.
The intense pressing we do now generates a lot of turn over, not with the intent to dominate possession, but to attack swiftly before the opponent is organized defensively again. That‘s why Barça couldn‘t handle us, they can‘t attack the way we do.
We were good in transition under Ole, but now we are much more choreographed about it. Also, Ten Hag has improved ball playing skills in training, especially one touch passing, which helps us to progress quickly after a turnover.
Our build up play and attacking play is still a work in progress. There are clear patterns there and we need to improve executing them.
Individual brilliance is what makes the difference after everything else is squared away.
We’ve scored goals where it involves 3-4 passes on the edge and inside the box, our final 3rd play has changed. Every aspect of our play has changed for the better and it’s still not the finished article.
To be fair Scholes was press resistant and had incredible ball retention. If you tried to press him he would swivel his way around you and leave you for dead.
These examples look bad because it’s a compilation of his best passes but the idea was to restrict him from beating the person defending so if he has to play he has to make a pass from 70 yards which is not as bad of a threat.
Pressing tactics have developed and is all the rage now but it wasn’t non existent before and don’t think that particular video isn’t something unique to that time either except Scholes being one of the greatest midfields of our generation
EDIT
For reference look up any long passing compilation video out there from recent times here’s one with annoying edits for Pogba
You’ll see the same things in the first few minutes. Taking a run up as well for some of the long passes with plenty of time.
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Wrong thread?
Mes thinks soTeam pressing has gotten better in the last 10-15 years, but that's not why Scholes has time on the ball here. Players in the Premier League today regularly are allowed more time on the ball, especially in their own halves, than players in my Sunday league games are, and I can tell you for certain that it's not because Sunday league teams are better at pressing!
It's because, at Sunday league level, teams know that every player has a mistake in them if they're put under pressure even when they're surrounded by easy options. On the other hand, at Premier League level the basic level of technical ability expected means that if you go haring towards a player who has a few easy passes on you're unlikely to get anything out of it except a stitch. He'll either play an easy pass, sell you a dummy and skin you, play a one-two and bypass you, or simply pop the ball over your head into the space you've just vacated. Teams pick and choose their moments to press based on who is on the ball and what they're capable of (which is why everyone we play makes a beeline for De Gea whenever he has the ball at his feet).
Which is basically what you're seeing with Scholes. Everyone knew he was incredibly difficult to get the ball off, great at one-touch pass-and-move stuff and could put the ball on a six-pence over 50 yards. Giving him space on the ball in his own half whilst crowding the defensive half was a lesser evil than trying to press him and allowing him to pop the ball into the spaces left behind. For a good example of what happened when teams tried the latter, look up a video of the cameo he had against Arsenal after his return from retirement. In the space of about 10 minutes or so he creates 3-4 clearcut chances from deep by playing round the press and popping inch-perfect balls behind their backline.