Yeah sure he did
Ahh right, so you’re deliberately being dense. That makes more sense.Yeah sure he did
Even IF he did, it's still 11v11 and somebody should be covering. No doubt City had 2 centre backs sat on the half way line, where was our extra man?
You can try and blame Antony all you want but it was a shoddy team effort. They wanted it more and ran harder, we were lazy and failed to track.
I think the poster is referring to a sequence in the 28th/29th minute where City have possession and Rashford allows Ake to dribble the ball forward unchallenged due to not making much of a effort to stop him. In that situation Antony is walking back and is looking behind him because his man Cancelo isn't active in the sequence and he again does his job but Rashford allows Ake to create a overload with Grealish and Bernardo Silva.Yeah sure he did
Even IF he did, it's still 11v11 and somebody should be covering. No doubt City had 2 centre backs sat on the half way line, where was our extra man?
You can try and blame Antony all you want but it was a shoddy team effort. They wanted it more and ran harder, we were lazy and failed to track.
Admittedly, just from watching (I rarely go into deep analysis of matches on my own time) the match, I agree with you. Whether it was Dalot who didn't quite follow "pressing" instructions or not, or Antony getting it wrong and not tracking back/or pressing invertedly, there was a clear issue on their side with Dalot often facing an overload and up against 2 City players, which was impossible to mark. I think at least a couple of their goals came bcause of it (if not more!). I remember that new LB (Gomez?) also getting an assist in a similar situation.
Without context (need to see the sequence of play) it's hard to really say who's right or wrong. If he was purely lazy and didn't follow then fair enough.
I agree, but our problem in the game was that our wounds were self inflicted. And apart from the first goal where fingers can be pointed towards Antony when he decided to push out centrally whilst defending deep, his off the ball work was on point. But like I've mentioned earlier, you can't compensate for certain players showing a unwillingness to close the opposition down and Rashford and Dalot were either unwilling to fully commit or in Dalot's case forgot his duties off the ball. And Dalot gave away three good opportunities to City which they missed.
But his point stands. Being a shambles last season doesn't make us a shambles this season. Just look at Arsenal. I don't think there are clearly four better teams than us in this league, its all par for the course.
We will have to agree to disagree. In my opinion there are 5 better, and using the last season barometer where we finished 6th shows that.
I’m referring to the entire bleeding first half, it was right in front of me it was so blatant. There’s no microanalysis other than they had 3 men on that wing about 8 times in the first half alone against 2 of ours.
Which three City players?
You’re taking the naming of City players far too literally. It was largely Bernardo pulling McTominay across and it was largely Cancelo moving forward.
I'm sure he's the only person in the caf that didn't expect us to finish top 4 the beginning of last season after signing Sancho, Ronaldo and Varane.
I think you need to re read the conversation and see my point. You clearly have no idea what I'm talking about.
With exception of the first goal, Antony's work off the ball from a tactical pov was fine and wasn't the cause of the dysfunction on the right hand side. And the sequence you described in your earlier post where you pinned blame on Antony was wrong and it was actually Rashford allowing Ake to dribble up field unchallenged, whilst the walking Antony was looking over his shoulder at Cancelo who was behind him.
I DID NOT DESCRIBE A SINGLE SEQUENCE IT WAS THE ENTIRE FIRST HALF
relax mate.
I think you’re right in that he’d also consider it a failure, but it’s always going to be hard when it’s 4 spots for four.
The Arsenal thing is a big part of my point. This season (so far) hasn’t happened in a vacuum for them. They’ve made constant incremental progress, both in terms of overhauling the squad personnel and the playing style. It’s what I kept pointing to in the Arteta thread. It’s took him plenty of time but the direction was always clear. Klopp and Pep have been here for years.
The first goal literally came from that side. So your big brain knowledge has out done you, here. I can’t list them because I was at the game and have the square root of zero interest in watching any of it back. Why on earth would I put myself through that?
I've said several times he was at fault for the first goal. But apart from that I don't see where he made any mistakes off the ball from a tactical perspective.
You created an argument that I never made by naming a single situation I have zero recollection of, I just told you that you were wrong because I wasn’t talking about that. At which point you repeatedly told me this one occasion that I never mentioned that Rashford was to blame.
I don't think it's that straight forward to be honest. I think he was idealistic, but in a different way to modern managers. Modern managers tend to have ideals right down the tactical level of games. This might include things like how many players you have in the back line, whether you play single or double pivot, inside or outside wingers, always pressing high, etc. That wasn't what SAF was about.
If there's three attackers on two players, then it's important to attempt to understand who allowed the numerical superiority to occur. And apart from the first goal where we were defending deep and Antony decided to press centrally, and it cost us a goal, his off the ball work was good from a tactical pov and you shouldn't blame him for the ill discipline of others.
Go here and click on the players shirts. You'll see a heat map. This shows that Antony spent more time in his own half than any other attacking player on either team. Now you may be able to remember some incidents where our right side was exposed but the inference that Antony was lazy or didn't track back enough over the course of the game (or even for half of the game) is obviously wrong.
Actually agree with you. he was a part of it. Biggest problem is without knowing what our attackers were instructed to do it's hard to comb our chances and be certain what was mistake and design. Like the way Sancho and Rashford played it's hard to deduce a true high press was part of the plan. We clearly wanted someone there to spring counters but they'd just stay stationed in the mid block zone while the defense got overwhelmed for long periods. One guy would make an error then pass on the confusion, the 5th goal, the halaand side netting were instances they (antony) were there but not really there.
I am assuming you are talking about the City game here. If that's the case, we were never defending from the front. There can be multiple metrics to prove that but the eye test was clear. As soon as City defenders got the ball, we retreated. So much so, that Ake basically ran through our midfield multiple times while Rasford stood there like a moron.
You're correct because the press from the front wasn't backed up and the last line had to retreat. I've been saying that for the last few days.
I haven't seen the match again (and don't intend to) but I just cannot remember us pressing at all barring a few instances. Most of the times, we kept retreating as soon as we lost the ball. However I am sure there were some moments where we tried to press their defense with their GK them calmly passing it to their midfield or the wide full backs where there was no pressure from us.
You're correct our closing down was abysmal and that was due to the gap between the forwards and Dalot/McTominay on the right side being too large which meant we couldn't be vertically compact.
Would also throw a midfielder in as well
Spot on. We all probably agree Antony is one of few on the team with potential, which he also showed with his brilliant goal, but we can’t be totally blended by that. Antony have to improve his defensive work and in that regard off course needs a lot of coaching.
What has ETH done with regards to the process to deserve backing?. What we are witnessing on the field is the exact shit served up over the past 5 years.
How many times do we need to do the same thing before we learn? I say we should have faith in him for a season, and give him a chance to implement his coaching methods into the team.
Trying to coach a bunch of players that seem to be un coachable. ETH Ajax team would be like 3 up now. Our current teams better then there’s was surely??
