I doubt if anyone thinks this.
Agreed, he's a frustrating footballer, excellent at some things but lacking in some basics, can't beat a man or turn on the ball.
Not particularly wanting your manager to be sacked, at present, having weighed the evidence and likely outcomes / alternatives is not remotely akin to **** membership.The cultists blamed the players for every bad result. Some even suggested that they can’t handle adversity so they downed tools to get the manager out as they can’t handle the discipline and standards he’s trying to impose… or something along those lines. You would know considering that you are the #1 ******* and the official spokesperson for this ****
It is very much a thing. Have a look at all the stan accounts on Twitter for example. Even posters on here that make every excuse under the sun for him while excessively praising “achievements” like simply not getting battered as a mark of progress.
I remember when I had my first beer.The cultists blamed the players for every bad result. Some even suggested that they can’t handle adversity so they downed tools to get the manager out as they can’t handle the discipline and standards he’s trying to impose… or something along those lines. You would know considering that you are the #1 ******* and the official spokesperson for this ****
It is very much a thing. Have a look at all the stan accounts on Twitter for example. Even posters on here that make every excuse under the sun for him while excessively praising “achievements” like simply not getting battered as a mark of progress.
Pot shots. Their best chances were a couple of headers from set pieces. Not indicative of a side carving anybody open. They were shite.
Amrabat is definitely a midfielder. A rather slow one, but still a midfielder.
No team plays the same formation in attack as defence these days, so a team's starting position is kind of moot anyway. Most big teams these days play a sort of 3-box-3 formation in possession, which pretty requires you have at least one player who plays in a sort of hybrid role if you want a back 4 to go with it. City, Liverpool and Arsenal all often start with a single nominal midfielder but have defenders they like to bring into midfield (Stones, TAA, Zinchenko). Spurs do it by having at least one FB really high up the pitch, particularly Porro, to generate the same 3-4-3 in possession.
Yeah I think that’s probably right. It is simpler to give this responsibility to midfield players instead of asking the full backs to cover and the wingers to chase back. With EtH’s preferred set up, too many players have to recognise when to adjust the shape and do it quickly and we just can’t get it right at the moment. Mainoo and, say, Bruno could be drilled to lead the switch into the more compact formation. Possibly the high press would then need to involve one of the full backs and I recall @Adnan wrote a persuasive post on the merit of that tactic.
The team pretty much played the exact same 4 3 3 that they normally do this season, with the difference that the 2 8s didn't push up as much (although Mct pushed a bit higher than Mainoo) and overall the team kept a very tight defensive shape, as can be expected away at Anfield. We didn't play a no 10 and Mainoo didn't sit next to Amarabt. He pretty much covered the same areas as Mctominay. As limited as Amrabat and Mctominay are the three worked well to support each other defensively this game.
I'm just having a laugh at the slightly contradictory stuff about ETH having finally found a midfield which also includes two non midfielders according to some.
Said no one until Jamie and Gary today
Very well put. The way we’ve been trying to play is probably the right end-game but I’m pretty convinced that we have tried to do it too quickly hoping that it would all have clicked by now. Injuries and (I think) a lack of basic quality in some areas of the squad has made it more difficult.
I'm confused about Amrabat, that's all. He is a midfielder clearly. McTominay is a mystery. He doesn't seem to have a set position but he's a useful squad player I guess. He isn't a midfielder just as he isn't an attacker or centreback, but at the same time in bits of play he's all of them.
Huh? Care to explain?
I agree with a lot of this in theory… a lot of the teams are playing this way. It is a lot of Pep plagiarism from their system of the last few years.
Yeah, usually the players all bomb forward with no thoughts of getting back into a defensive shape even when they continously give the ball away in attack. I'd like to see this adopted more when seeing out wins, just to get the players in tune with the requirements of switching to that shape.
We played our 8th different combination at cb today, not out of choice. And we got a result against the hardest side to play away from home, who were top of the league with 11 home wins out of 11 before kick off.
One way of looking at it…
Exactly!
McTominay is a shadow striker. Amrabat is definitely a DM just a painfully unathletic one
Yeah I mean if he runs it back with McTominay and Bruno yet again he should be sacked on the spot if I'm honest.
They were expecting Liverpool to win by about 7 or 8 goals.
It's only a thing to the "sack the manager ****".
I think this it the wrong way of looking at it. I do agree that playing more conservatively would have resulted in better results so far this season. That's how we played for much of last season and it certainly covers up the shortcomings in a few of our players and gives us an extra degree of cover. However I also think the ceiling for that type of football is far lower.
He's a good manager at digging out a result when he needs it, but It does make you wonder what he'd have done (and would have happened) if Bruno was available.
Even if we have a good win?
He’d simply have had a much better player in McTominay’s position.
But would he have then played more open, and played Mctominay over Mainoo or Amrabat?
Yes but nobody cares what you think because you’re a Jeep. It’s impressive you can even type with those big knobbly wheels!
