How do City and Liverpool press so well?

norm87cro

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City aint that good to be honest. We successfuly beat them 2 1 earlier this season in a game we should have scored more through the counter
 

Klopper76

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Klopp and Guardiola have had many years at different clubs to work on and perfect their pressing. With us our midfield is specifically there to win back the ball and move it on for another attack.

I do think other teams press as much as either City or Liverpool do though, albeit not as effectively. Burnley pressed high against us recently and Arsenal forced two mistakes which led to goals via a high press. It's a part of the game now.
 

romufc

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It is because if Ole went and pressed, there will be mistakes, the fans would go ape shit.

Some fans do not have the patience in Ole. Klopp and Pep started to press when they came in, their teams were making mistakes at the back, sloppy mistakes and they stuck by it, the fans stuck by the manager and the team.

Then a year to 18 months later, the managers got players in who can play their system.

Manutd have fans that say.. Ole can't coach, look at the start of the season. Well, go look how well Pep and Klopp did with the squad they inherited. You need better players in this method, that is why Norwich are down. Their players are not good enough to play that way.

This is the reason Ole opted for a counter attacking option earlier in the season, he knew the team then couldnt play the football and press so had to adapt. As soon as he has his players back, he goes back to the press style play.
 

Acrobat7

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I used Pep as a counter argument but I genuinely thought Hasenhüttl was German to be honest - my bad on that!
No worries mate. Hasenhüttl is from Southern Bavaria anyways. :D
Pressing is a big thing in the Bundesliga though, so it comes as no surprise that the coaches adapt it to other leagues as well.
 

bond19821982

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Pogba and Matic have a problem with teammates passing them the ball when they are covered by 2 or 3 players, which should generally mean that someone else is totally open. The problem for United is that certain players in the team panic when they are pressed, De Gea, AWB and Lindelof are the main culprit but we blame the players receiving terrible passes. If you take the game against Southampton the ball was supposed to go to the outside of AWB but De Gea for some reason passed it to the player that has an opponent sprinting at him.
AWB is so scared of the ball and no wonder they targetted our right side. DDG and AWB are our weakest links in terms of being pressed*
 

el3mel

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They have coaches who know to teach pressing.

Just because a coach tells his players to press, it doesn't mean they will press well.
 

RedStarUnited

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Years of training and perfecting it done by their coaches. Before becoming Barca coach, Pep took time to go visit Bielsa in Argentina so he can understand some if his principles better. When Bielsa Bilbao came to OT, I had never seen a team press us like that.

I think one of the keys is setting up traps that allow the other team to think a pass is on when it isnt.
 

romufc

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Years of training and perfecting it done by their coaches. Before becoming Barca coach, Pep took time to go visit Bielsa in Argentina so he can understand some if his principles better. When Bielsa Bilbao came to OT, I had never seen a team press us like that.

I think one of the keys is setting up traps that allow the other team to think a pass is on when it isnt.
Pressing takes alot of work on the training ground. Alot of energy used.

The Bilbao team was amazing at it. It just goes to show sometimes, you can get away with not having that much quality if you can press well. If attackers can win the ball back outside the opponents box, you will create scoring chances.

The bolded part is exactly what it is. The manager identifies the weakest link in the opponents team, lays a trap to cut options out except that player, once the ball goes to him, they hunt.

Or even areas of the pitch, we saw that Southampton let us pass into AWB then press him.
 

Adam-Utd

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Years of training and perfecting it done by their coaches. Before becoming Barca coach, Pep took time to go visit Bielsa in Argentina so he can understand some if his principles better. When Bielsa Bilbao came to OT, I had never seen a team press us like that.

I think one of the keys is setting up traps that allow the other team to think a pass is on when it isnt.
That is exactly what it's designed for. It's pretty similar to sheep dog / sheep, you want to shepherd the team into an area that is very small and has no space to play in. They're then forced to either hoof the ball or risk losing it closer to their goal.

The issue is if you do it poorly then you'll end up with a massive gap between your midfield and defence and end up being a lot more vulnerable.

This is why I feel fred is very important to the team against pressing teams. His ability to control the ball, turn in a very tight circle and accelerate away is the perfect way to beat it.
 

Cheimoon

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Coaching and teamwork have been mentioned a lot now, but I think having the right players could be mentioned more. For example, pressing starts from the front, so you need to have attackers who are willing to put in a strong defensive effort, throughout the entirety of the game. A lot of the practicalities and mechanisms can be trained, but if a player is fundamentally not attuned to the idea (because of their personality, or mentality, or having become too used to having to use their focus and energy differently), it will be hard to get them to go with the program. That's a big risk, cause when the press fails, suddenly you have a lot of players who surged forward to press and have now been bypassed by the ball. So you can't have players that switch off sometimes during games, or can't always be bothered.

(Of course, tailored recruitment is required by any system. For example, if Ole is not aiming to build a pressing team, he won't be looking for related characteristics in players.)
 

He'sRaldo

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Compactness. We're not compact or organized in our pressing.

And also, with a more optimal formation.
 
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Gio

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Because they can defend on the halfway line for the majority of the match. While the work on the training ground is important, the most critical factor is the compactness that starts from the position of the defensive line.
 

Skills

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Because believe it or not pressing isn't just running around a lot.
 

ivaldo

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We are definitely getting better at the press, suffocating Spurs, Sheffield Utd, Brighton and Villa second half exceptionally well.

Tiredness set in against Southampton who are the third best pressing team in the league but the organised press led by Bruno and Martial has been there to see. Still, more work needs to be done as a team and by Ole to reach the levels of efficiency that Southampton, Liverpool and City show.
Statistically, Southampton are the best pressing side in the league, better than both City and Liverpool.
 

Skills

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Because they can defend on the halfway line for the majority of the match. While the work on the training ground is important, the most critical factor is the compactness that starts from the position of the defensive line.
This is also right. For pressing to be effective, you need to compress the pitch itself. Your players have less ground to cover to press the ball, the opposition have less space to find.
 

Sad Chris

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I‘m not a huge fan of their extreme pressing despite the success it seemingly brings. I feel like they are really limited if it doesn‘t work. Looking at us when we were in form, our four wins in a row, I feel like we press very well but also are not as predictable as City and Liverpool. We have enough individual quality to use the best of both worlds.

So, I don‘t want us to copy their pressing style all the way. The manager that finds a good balance between pressing and surprising, creating unforeseeable situations, and manages to switch back and forth as required, is going to have an edge over the pure pressing teams. I expect that to be the next step up.
 

BigDunc9

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They are built for it.

Liverpool's full-backs are built like long-distance runners. I bet Wan-Bisakka and Luke Shaw weigh twice what Robertson and Trent do! That's not because Wan-Bisakka and Shaw are overweight, they just have much more muscle mass and bulk.

There are exceptions, but on a whole Liverpool's and City's sides look leaner and more like endurance athletes. They run more and they sprint more.
Good point. It makes you think that this could be a big reason why Mourinho struggles these days. He always builds his teams with these bulky players but now these new breed of top managers prefer players on the lighter side to run all day. I have seen it raised on here that his teams always look tired these past few seasons.
 

paraguayo

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Pressing teams attackers have shorter legs and defenders longer, I watched a whole conference on it
 

WolfInSharp'sClothing

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Good point. It makes you think that this could be a big reason why Mourinho struggles these days. He always builds his teams with these bulky players but now these new breed of top managers prefer players on the lighter side to run all day. I have seen it raised on here that his teams always look tired these past few seasons.
You can see the adaption Ronaldo has made since his Juve move too. He must have shed 20% of his muscle mass. He is king of adapting his game to succeed and being leaner is a key adaption in modern, pressing football.
 

Blackwidow

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Timing, orchestration, positioning, moving patterns, there are a lot of factors to successful pressing game a coach has to consider. If you got someone who is competent in that regard, it doesn't take long to implement. If you don't it'll never happen.
Look at us, a completely dysfunctional shiteshow relying on sheer individual quality under Kovac, to transform into a crazy pressing machine within weeks under Flick.
So it's the managerial qualities that matter most in the end. And that of course raises the question whether your current manager isn't a bit too leightweight in that regard...
Flick's main aspect in this was to put Alaba, Kimmich and Müller centrally - it is their voices you mainly hear on the pitch - and they mainly do the organizing. But sure - he has to work that out in training. Lewy, Thiago and Boateng know what to do, too - but they aren' t as bossy and vocal. Zeit magazine has a very long article of everything that was shouted during the last BVB-Bayern match.

They even counted it:

Would be interesting to see something like this from other teams - and coaches. City... Pool...
I doubt that Pep or Klopp beat Flick's six...
 

Galactic

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Flick's main aspect in this was to put Alaba, Kimmich and Müller centrally - it is their voices you mainly hear on the pitch - and they mainly do the organizing. But sure - he has to work that out in training. Lewy, Thiago and Boateng know what to do, too - but they aren' t as bossy and vocal. Zeit magazine has a very long article of everything that was shouted during the last BVB-Bayern match.

They even counted it:

Would be interesting to see something like this from other teams - and coaches. City... Pool...
I doubt that Pep or Klopp beat Flick's six...
Translation please
 

treble_winner

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Many people miss the fact that City and Liverpool are highly structured in attack. Their players are given a very specific instruction and they are only allowed to pop up in a designated position on the field. (A player once said he was scolded by Guardiola for leaving his position despite scoring a goal.) This does not only minimize the unpredictable factors in offence, but more importantly it facilitates the defensive transition when they lose the ball because everyone is already in position. We, however, give plenty of freedom to our attackers. There are so many swaps/overloadings that some of our players are out of position after the attack. This creates a hole in our pressing and oppositions can easily manipulate this weakness to break our press.
I remember Van Gaal did something similar to Herrera despite he scored a goal because he was not in the right position. As you could guess, Van Gaal was slaughtered on here for "trying to turn our flare players into robots". Wonder why Pep could get away with such things...
 

Blackwidow

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Translation please
I tried to explain what the article the graph is about tells. A German newspaper made a protocol about everything that was shouted in the BVB - Bayern match and the graph shows how often the players were acting. The protocol has about 8 or 9 magazine pages - online it can only be read behind a paywall.

Radio Müller is the busiest. In my eyes this graph and the protocol tell a lot about how this team functions and somehow the success recipe of Flick and why that is successful. He put the players that know what to do and can lead the team centrally - all of them already in the team since atleast 2015. They give the commands or help ("Zeit" - time - is often called when no opponent is near the player), push others and cheer them. Main recipients are Davies, Pavard, Coman and Gnabry, sometimes Goretzka, very seldom Lewy and Boateng. The last two know what to do - they just aren't as outspoken.

Flick does not need to act very often - he only shouted 6 times.

Again to the post I quoted... Flick could implement the pressing so fast as he put the players on the central axis that were already there during the years with Heynckes and Guardiola. That made things easier. In the first weeks the problems always started when he played with different players in this axis - from the start or as substitutes. An unorganized pressing or low pressure when you play that high line is dangerous...

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I would like to see studies about the communication of other teams, too. That topic was often mentioned in the press conferences in Germany in the recent weeks - often the lack of communication and that this is an element for success, too.
 

Web of Bissaka

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I tried to explain what the article the graph is about tells. A German newspaper made a protocol about everything that was shouted in the BVB - Bayern match and the graph shows how often the players were acting. The protocol has about 8 or 9 magazine pages - online it can only be read behind a paywall.

Radio Müller is the busiest. In my eyes this graph and the protocol tell a lot about how this team functions and somehow the success recipe of Flick and why that is successful. He put the players that know what to do and can lead the team centrally - all of them already in the team since atleast 2015. They give the commands or help ("Zeit" - time - is often called when no opponent is near the player), push others and cheer them. Main recipients are Davies, Pavard, Coman and Gnabry, sometimes Goretzka, very seldom Lewy and Boateng. The last two know what to do - they just aren't as outspoken.

Flick does not need to act very often - he only shouted 6 times.

Again to the post I quoted... Flick could implement the pressing so fast as he put the players on the central axis that were already there during the years with Heynckes and Guardiola. That made things easier. In the first weeks the problems always started when he played with different players in this axis - from the start or as substitutes. An unorganized pressing or low pressure when you play that high line is dangerous...

----------
I would like to see studies about the communication of other teams, too. That topic was often mentioned in the press conferences in Germany in the recent weeks - often the lack of communication and that this is an element for success, too.
Ah thanks, more clearer. I have no idea what your previous post is. Cheers. Good posts.

Having players good with organisation skills, and good communication are also crucial.

United
Bruno communicated a lot, but only with attacks, not bad with organizing attacks too. Martial will talked sometimes but only with certain players. Rashford, James and the others are generally quiet. Pogba is also good in organizing attacks and very communicative, but nowadays he's playing deeper thus frequency of him doing this are lowered.

The back and midfield have serious problems with communication and organization. Matic, AWB, McT and Shaw are generally quiet but Matic does point things around sometimes. Lindelof will shout at times but rare, and seemingly quiet ever since Mag came in. Maguire shouted now and then a damn lot but not that good in organizing. Pogba communicates a lot, but not good at organizing. Same with Fred I believe. Romero is very good at organizing defenses and walls during set-pieces. De Gea tried but really awful.
 

1966

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Dunno if it's already been said (probably has) but roids.

I'm only being partially facetious. You'd have to be bonkers to think that there isn't some amount of doping going on in high-level football. Far less valuable sports, like cycling, are full of it. And the testing and enforcement in elite football seems half-assed at best. I imagine it's a lot like tennis where it's basically an unwritten rule or open secret that everyone is getting the best chemical assistance they can access.

I'm not singling out City and Pool with the accusation though. I'm sure everyone's taking the best "supplements" they can get their hands on. Maybe those two just have the best "medical" staff.
 

RoyH1

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Dunno if it's already been said (probably has) but roids.

I'm only being partially facetious. You'd have to be bonkers to think that there isn't some amount of doping going on in high-level football. Far less valuable sports, like cycling, are full of it. And the testing and enforcement in elite football seems half-assed at best. I imagine it's a lot like tennis where it's basically an unwritten rule or open secret that everyone is getting the best chemical assistance they can access.

I'm not singling out City and Pool with the accusation though. I'm sure everyone's taking the best "supplements" they can get their hands on. Maybe those two just have the best "medical" staff.
Agree. Anyone who thinks that there aren’t PED’s in top class football is being naive. The sprints when pressing some of these footballers do after 85 minutes cannot be explained by top level training and nutrition alone.
I wonder how much FIFA’s and UEFA’s drug testing regime differs from the IOC?
 

André Dominguez

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Pep and Klopp basically picked Arrigo Sacchi principles and add their own signature to it. Sacchi was so ahead of his time that FIFA had to change the offside rule because of it.
 

hmchan

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I remember Van Gaal did something similar to Herrera despite he scored a goal because he was not in the right position. As you could guess, Van Gaal was slaughtered on here for "trying to turn our flare players into robots". Wonder why Pep could get away with such things...
It's all about result at the end of the day and this always happens in football. When we enjoyed success under Fergie, crossing was beautiful to watch; when we put in 81 crosses against Fulham, Moyes was a clueless manager. When Ranieri won the league with Leicester, counter attacking was efficient and exciting; when we sat deep and played on the counter under Mourinho, it was negative and toxic to watch.