The Casemiro/Mount/Bruno midfield

[AjaxCunian]

What do you mean here? I was under the impression Gravenberch and Berghuis both pushed high up, leaving Alvarez isolated just like Mount and Bruno with Casemiro

Don't think Gravenberch pushed anywhere near as high up as they did, in or out of possession.

Gravenberch was involved in buildup play. All our midfielders push up for some strange reason, it is really baffling. Our cb's are so isolated.

Also Gravenberch is no Caicedo but far more disciplined defensively than Mount and Bruno. They are better pressers though.

 

[James35]

There is no real logic. Mount isn’t better than Bruno with creativity or as a goal scorer, so was hoping he could do the box to box role… he can’t. Neither can Bruno by the way, so having Mount as cover for Bruno is great but we need a midfielder to sit next to Casemiro who can progress the ball and show steel and positioning to stop teams walking through us with ease.

Until then we will struggle in most games regardless of opposition.

 

[jamesjimmybyrondean]

Don't think Gravenberch pushed anywhere near as high up as they did, in or out of possession.

Gravenberch was involved in buildup play. All our midfielders push up for some strange reason, it is really baffling. Our cb's are so isolated.

Also Gravenberch is no Caicedo but far more disciplined defensively than Mount and Bruno. They are better pressers though.

That explains it. Thanks

 

[Ronaldinho's snakebite]

We have to be in for a technical midfield player in the next few weeks. Neville was joking saying we need Caicedo and Lavia but they’re not what we need either. Pep knows exactly what he’s doing going for Kovacic, players like that are so underrated. I’d kill for him and he’s not exactly Iniesta. Why do you think Chelsea won the CL with such an average attack.

Nonsense. While kova is a good player, he was a bench player when they won the ucl. Their starting midfield was jorginho and kante.
I also disagree that we don't need players like Caicedo and Lavia. If we are going to play double 8s, especially mount and bruno, We absolutely need players like that. Man City have rodri, arsenal had Partey last season, and now Rice. Case legs are gone imo. We need their energy in the middle of the park.

 

[Andersons Dietician]

I don’t think many players could successfully play that role that Casemiro is being expected to play now. Casemiro in his prime, ironically, probably could have. Maybe the likes of Caicedo now, but it’s a tough role.

I doubt any DM through out the whole of history could do what Cas is being tasked with doing, never mind him in his prime. There is no DM that will fix that issue.

Something wasn’t getting done last night tactically somewhere in the team, which is why he was exposed so much. I think I heard as well we gave the ball away 81 times last night which didn’t help. However I refuse to believe that ETH would play that way. I’m sure the idea was Shaw steps in and helps him there which he did for like 4 minutes of the first half.

 

[Doracle]

Quite apart from the fact we are playing 2 number 10s in front of one holding midfielder and expecting it to work, I’m not even that clear what Casemiro’s role is meant to involve. I’d have thought his role in that structure would be 100% holding but even he seemed to often be going forwards and caught out of position.

The main concern I thought yesterday was that there was no obvious structure at all to the midfield. It wasn’t just that they all had bad games. It was that they seemed to have no real idea what they were meant to be doing.

 

[Borys]

I can see it working brilliantly against shit opposition.

(Since we're not likely to face much of that in the league, we might have a problem.)

Even if we were likely to face a lot of shit teams, it still doesn't justify going for Mount. Winning those games is not really an issue for us. Not compared to games against serious teams away from home.

 

[hobbers]

It’s a very very poor man’s attempt at doing what City did last couple of seasons. Except they did it with world class Rodri sitting behind world class De Bruyne and Gundogan. With Stones stepping into midfield with him.

When Cancelo or De Bruyne have the ball Gundogans runs become absolutely lethal.

Instead we have AWB and Antony. And mount doesn’t even make good runs, he just sits in front of the back four contributing the square root of feck all.

 

[Offside]

Nonsense. While kova is a good player, he was a bench player when they won the ucl. Their starting midfield was jorginho and kante.
I also disagree that we don't need players like Caicedo and Lavia. If we are going to play double 8s, especially mount and bruno, We absolutely need players like that. Man City have rodri, arsenal had Partey last season, and now Rice. Case legs are gone imo. We need their energy in the middle of the park.

Jorjiniho and Rodri couldn’t be better examples of what I was saying.

 

[Rolaholic]

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Really left him out on an island

 

[shabadu84]

Think a big missing piece was the lack of sweeping from Onana. He stayed in his box for the most part, surprisingly. If he's pushing forward as we know he can, then the rest of the team moves forward too and there are much smaller gaps. Obviously there were other positional issues but I think Onana pushing forward is a necessity to make the two #8s work. The defenders still need to learn how to play with Onana like that, so different from what they were used to with DDG. Hope to see much better discipline from everyone or it won't work.

 

[E-mal]

Lens did it multiple times where they were running at Casemiro and defense. So to me yesterday was a continuation of what we saw against Real and Lens.

Hopefully I'm wrong and you guys are right.

You are right man, forget these guys that keep analysing blindly.
Mount and Bruno will never work, none of them are good in possession or defensively aware. In addition Mount offers nothing going forward.
To be honest mate, Mount gives me Cleverley's vibe. I don't see any real quality apart from running around and similar to Mount, Cleverley had a decent season until that injury.
Additionally, Casemiro's legs are gone. It was evidence towards the tail end of last season.

 

[RyRy11]

The biggest issue is relying on Case to play behind two 10's. Having a man past his prime and slowing down isolated in that midfield is suicidal. It looks as though we were trying to fill that gap next to Case by pushing Shaw into the midfield to create a box in possession, the trouble with that is that he looked completely out of his depth there. That mixed with our forward 5 players all losing the ball as often as we did compounded our issues. Everything that could go wrong did and its worrying that the issues weren't remedied mid game. I'm hoping that the players understood that they were outplayed at every level and can sharpen up in time because if we play like that against Spurs it will be a mauling.

 

[klayton88]

That pitch invader was faster than Casemiro

 

[jeff_goldblum]

While i agree, not many in the world can, if any.

I'd say there are plenty of players out there who, despite being worse players all-round, are a lot better suited to the role Casemiro was being asked to play yesterday than he is.

One of the reasons Casemiro was such a difference for us last year was that he brought a lot of quality on the ball as well as being solid defensively as part of a double-pivot. In this system that's not as much of a bonus as we're already playing two creative midfielders. At the same time, if we're going to persist with having two creative midfielders pushing up high and one sitting, it's important our defensive midfielder can cover ground and can't easily be bypassed, and Casemiro isn't a great fit for that.

 

[noodlehair]

Nonsense. While kova is a good player, he was a bench player when they won the ucl. Their starting midfield was jorginho and kante.
I also disagree that we don't need players like Caicedo and Lavia. If we are going to play double 8s, especially mount and bruno, We absolutely need players like that. Man City have rodri, arsenal had Partey last season, and now Rice. Case legs are gone imo. We need their energy in the middle of the park.

City play Rodri, but they also play De Bruyne, and Gundogan (who they replaced with Kovacic). That's three midfield contributors, not one. On top of that they'll sometimes pick another withdrawn player in one of the front positions, and often go with a back 3 so one of the centrebacks can step up....and they have much better players than us. They would not play Rodri on his own and stick the equivalent to Mount and Fernandes ahead of him, because if they did nearly every team would counter punch them with relative ease.

Last season we had Eriksen next to Casemiro and it worked well because we had good qualities in the middle third and no one overloaded with work or ground to cover. Both could play on the turn and pick direct passes to the forwards. Both had positional discipline which enabled Fernandes to play more advanced. Both are more likely to go forwards than sideways which automatically forces opponents back or stretches them. What we needed imo if thats his Ten Hag wants to play, was another midfielder to come in with similar or comparable qualities who allowed us control in midfield, because Fred/Mctominay although they plug gaps and have engines, don't bring our forwards into the game, and Casemiro/Eriksen is not a midfield we can play 50+ times a season or that will work in every scenario.

What we've got instead is Mason Mount, who is more like Fernandes in that he's someone who makes it MORE important you have midfield cover in the team to account for him, not less.

Playing Fernandes and Mount is just completely unworkable for me unless one of them is in the front 3, and in certain games arguably both would need to be in the fromt 3.

You definitely don't have both in midfield unless you want every opponent to break on you with complete ease, and have no effective link between midfield and attack due to most of the midfield constantly being stood in attack.

Ten Hag has lost me completely with this and the only real way out of it I see is if we simply don't see it again after last night, but given he spent £50m on Mount and thought that probably the most ineffective/tactically disastrous debut I've ever seen was a "good performance", somehow I think that's unlikely, unfortunately

 

[AFC NimbleThumb]

Light. Weight.

 

[Reiver]

I think I can see what EtH wants but even if you swapped out Casemiro for prime Makelele I still don't think it would work.

 

[criticalanalysis]

Think a big missing piece was the lack of sweeping from Onana. He stayed in his box for the most part, surprisingly. If he's pushing forward as we know he can, then the rest of the team moves forward too and there are much smaller gaps. Obviously there were other positional issues but I think Onana pushing forward is a necessity to make the two #8s work. The defenders still need to learn how to play with Onana like that, so different from what they were used to with DDG. Hope to see much better discipline from everyone or it won't work.

Onana did have a lower line than I expected but I don't think it would have made much of a difference. Sweeping works when balls are played behind the defence. Our issue was the non existent midfield where Wolves were running/dribbling from deep and then opening up the spaces. From memory, I don't remember a lot of balls that were sweep-able and it would have a really high risk situation if Onana was in those areas.

Onana can only push high if we are dominating the ball, pushing them back and not getting cut open. I think he played it fairly conservatively but totally understandably and it 'worked'.

 

[SadlerMUFC]

I see absolutely nothing wrong with the set up in theory. Pep has played with Rodri, DeBruyne and B Silva several times. Isn't this in theory the same as Cassemiro, Mount and Bruno? But I get it. We are one game into the season and they didn't play great so heaven for bid we give them time to gel. Gotta love TheCaf...

 

[Dominos]

I see absolutely nothing wrong with the set up in theory. Pep has played with Rodri, DeBruyne and B Silva several times. Isn't this in theory the same as Cassemiro, Mount and Bruno? But I get it. We are one game into the season and they didn't play great so heaven for bid we give them time to gel. Gotta love TheCaf...

I mentioned this in the Mount thread before we signed him. I remember when Pep first started playing De Bruyne and David Silva in midfield together way back, a lot of people thought it would be too attacking and imbalanced but they made it work.

However there's a couple of issues with the comparison, firstly, we're trying to recreate a system with vastly inferior players. So there's that, Bruno-Mount is just nowhere near the level of De Bruyne-Silva.

Secondly, City don't needlessly give the ball away 50 times a game to allow the opposition to hit them on the counter. If we assume City's midfield has been defensively vulnerable at points, the frequency at which teams get a chance to actually exploit that is minimal because they don't turnover possession at an alarming rate like we do. Our ball retention needs to become that of an elite side, and we're miles off technically.

It also doesn't help that Casemiro's legs look to be ageing.

It should be said Pep has recognised importance of bringing more solidity to his midfield at times in his career, I remember in a lot of tough games he used to bring in Keita at Barca and put Iniesta out on the wing. So even Busquets-Xavi-Iniesta wasn't infallible. Del Bosque used to have both Alonso and Busquets in there for Spain.

 

[thomas porter]

The balance was way off and both Bruno and Mount need to drop deeper to get on the ball or present inside channel passing options when the ball goes to the fullbacks.

Overall I'm not sold on this new 433 structure but if eth sticks with it which seems likely we'll need much better movement from everyone in forward positions, much greater support for Casemiro, and ideally replace awb with Pavard to have another progressive passer in the backline.

Time will tell but ideally we can get Amrabat over the line in case this expirement fails and we need to revert back to the 4231.

 

[sourdough satellite]

I see absolutely nothing wrong with the set up in theory. Pep has played with Rodri, DeBruyne and B Silva several times. Isn't this in theory the same as Cassemiro, Mount and Bruno? But I get it. We are one game into the season and they didn't play great so heaven for bid we give them time to gel. Gotta love TheCaf...

In theory, yes. In actuality City's midfield 3 is better than ours, and on top of that Stones now pushes up regularly to play beside Rodri to make sure they're not caught out when other teams try to hit them on the counter.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

On the balance, shouldn’t we give it more time to gel? Yes on paper it looks too attack oriented but I remember seeing Shaw tuck into midfield on Monday so we would be working on something to make it come together.

Also we are after another DM and that’s probably due to the bigger issue - that in addition to / due to not having a backup, Casemiero has looked cumbersome since the last third of last season.

 

[leeroyTX]

I think it's a matter of time. They haven't had many minutes together and it's going to take some training, video sessions, and game time to figure it out. I think we'll see some changes as soon as this weekend. Once Mount understands his role better, I think we'll see either him or Bruno sitting a little deeper than against Wolves. There were game last season where Bruno played in that role and I honestly thought it was some of the best he's played.

 

[ayushreddevil9]

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Really left him out on an island

Dont understand how professional coaches and managers even allow these things to happen. As if we are relinquishing midfield control on purpose.

 

[Adnan]

It's the Casemiro, Mount, Bruno and Shaw midfield. Possibly Wan Bissaka and Dalot aswell. This midfield can only be functional if the fullbacks play their part in midfield or we replicate what happened at City last season where Stones pushed up into midfield. I said a while ago that a player like Jurrien Timber should be bought if we want to see this midfield function. Unfortunately we couldn't buy him because the stars didn't align and he's ended up at Arsenal where it seems he was going to provide the inverted fullback option before he sadly suffered a bad injury. We need Luke Shaw to step up to the plate and possibly Diogo Dalot aswell. But we also should sign someone like a Amrabat to give us a alternative option in midfield where the double pivot is a real possibility.

Man City last season utilised four CBs in a 4141 shape starting from deep. The two wide CBs were Akanji & Ake with Stones and Dias playing orthodox roles at the heart of the defense with Rodri just ahead of them in a 4-1 build up structure. But as they play their way out of the first third of the pitch, Stones steps forward and forms a two with Rodri in midfield and the wide CBs (Akanji & Ake) come narrow to form a compact 3 man defense alongside Dias. So City have gone from a 4141 shape in deeper build up to a 3241 shape higher up the pitch. And in defensive transition, Stones would retreat back into defense and form a 4 man defense with Akanji and Ake as the wide CBs.

So the question should be about how the fullbacks and possibly the CB can help a midfield become a box shape, which in-turn will provide the balance for the likes of Bruno and Mount. Because at other teams who utilise a similar setup, they do have the players at either fullback or CB to come into midfield to provide balance centrally and also have the capability in possession.

 

[OmarUnited4ever]

My issue during the game was it seemed we lacked something basic, as in, basic as movements & coordination, for example, it seemed that Mount was so high up and crowded Rashford & Garnacho, while Antony & Bruno got in each others way sometimes, and Bruno himself was all over the pitch, and also during buildup from the back, it was not clear who was supposed to go up next to Cas and occupy the center to pull more oppo players in, sometimes it was Licha and sometimes it was Shaw, also at times, it was obvious there were no enough movements when Onana had the ball.

The midfield did look lightweight, but it seemed it was much more than a midfield issue and more to structural/tactical issue.

 

[Strelok]

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Really left him out on an island

Case must be fumming after last match

Doesn't help that he seems a player who starts his season a bit slow and would require a while to be in top form.

But this will eventually work imo. Once Case got his form back and Mount/Bruno get used to the new system. To me it seems like the idea is one would stay back a bit while the other ventures forward but they haven't worked out that yet.

 

[Isotope]

It's the Casemiro, Mount, Bruno and Shaw midfield. Possibly Wan Bissaka and Dalot aswell. This midfield can only be functional if the fullbacks play their part in midfield or we replicate what happened at City last season where Stones pushed up into midfield. I said a while ago that a player like Jurrien Timber should be bought if we want to see this midfield function. Unfortunately we couldn't buy him because the stars didn't align and he's ended up at Arsenal where it seems he was going to provide the inverted fullback option before he sadly suffered a bad injury. We need Luke Shaw to step up to the plate and possibly Diogo Dalot aswell. But we also should sign someone like a Amrabat to give us a alternative option in midfield where the double pivot is a real possibility.

Man City last season utilised four CBs in a 4141 shape starting from deep. The two wide CBs were Akanji & Ake with Stones and Dias playing orthodox roles at the heart of the defense with Rodri just ahead of them in a 4-1 build up structure. But as they play their way out of the first third of the pitch, Stones steps forward and forms a two with Rodri in midfield and the wide CBs (Akanji & Ake) come narrow to form a compact 3 man defense alongside Dias. So City have gone from a 4141 shape in deeper build up to a 3241 shape higher up the pitch. And in defensive transition, Stones would retreat back into defense and form a 4 man defense with Akanji and Ake as the wide CBs.

So the question should be about how the fullbacks and possibly the CB can help a midfield become a box shape, which in-turn will provide the balance for the likes of Bruno and Mount. Because at other teams who utilise a similar setup, they do have the players at either fullback or CB to come into midfield to provide balance centrally and also have the capability in possession.

We didn't go 3-2-4-1 when attacking, as AWB seems like always high wide on the pitch.

 

[astracrazy]

Did he not win 5 champions leagues in a 433 with two 8's?

You think as a team we are on that level? Or even he is still at that level?

 

[podurban2]

Case must be fumming after last match

Doesn't help that he seems a player who starts his season a bit slow and would require a while to be in top form.

But this will eventually work imo. Once Case got his form back and Mount/Bruno get used to the new system. To me it seems like the idea is one would stay back a bit while the other ventures forward but they haven't worked out that yet.

Problem is, Bruno has never showed he can position himself well playing further back. Sure, he will track back and work hard but that's not going to be enough against good teams. He is an attacking midfielder, and will not suddenly turn into a recycling, ball-possession focused player. I see nothing in Mount to suggest he is either. We should have bought Tonali.

 

[Adnan]

We didn't go 3-2-4-1 when attacking, as AWB seems like always high wide on the pitch.

Exactly and the question should be why we faltered in that regard and how we could improve going forward. Shaw was coming in-field to create the box and Wolves were leaving AWB unmarked and used him to trigger the press. So it wasn't just a case of Casemiro, Mount and Bruno in midfield but also Shaw as the inverted fullback coming into midfield and AWB forming a back 3 with Varane and Martinez which is connected to the issues in midfield. But as things transpired, there was confusion among some players as to who was responsible for occupying the space alongside Casemiro, which caused instability in defensive transition for us and hence played into the opponent's hands. That then meant Martinez himself tried plugging the hole and it nearly cost us dear with a red card.

 

[Trigg]

Probably have to wait for more than 1 game before we go full caf crazy. It’ll change and evolve over the course of the season.

 

[yamo123x]

This trio clearly didnt work against wolves and certainly wont work away from home against Spurs. We need to reinforce this midfield.

Adding Eriksen to the mix also doesnt help because of his lack of mobility/physicality.

Mount should play as a no 10 or a wide forward and sad to say MCTOMINAY has to come in to play with Casemiro, as we have no one else now Fred has gone.

 

[Strelok]

Problem is, Bruno has never showed he can position himself well playing further back. Sure, he will track back and work hard but that's not going to be enough against good teams. He is an attacking midfielder, and will not suddenly turn into a recycling, ball-possession focused player. I see nothing in Mount to suggest he is either. We should have bought Tonali.

Bruno did show in the past he could play well as a central midfielder. Like against Spurs last year for example. He was our brain that day the match was so good I had to watch it twice. But yeah agree we should have bought Tonali instead. However let's trust ETH on this and give it some more time I think.

 

[podurban2]

Bruno did show in the past he could play well as a central midfielder. Like against Spurs last year for example. He was our brain that day the match was so good I had to watch it twice. But yeah agree we should have bought Tonali instead. However let's trust ETH on this and give it some more time I think.

I said against good teams

I agree, I just have a hard time seeing it work out as we wish it did. And even more frustrating when a rival team with no more pull than us make a much more logical purchase.

 

[Strelok]

I said against good teams

I agree, I just have a hard time seeing it work out as we wish it did. And even more frustrating when a rival team with no more pull than us make a much more logical purchase.

Oh yeah fair enough then

 

[Cassidy]

I think Mount is a good player and I also think we have use for him in our squad.

Having said that, him being the first man in, for 55m was a poor decision given our squad make up.

Priority should have been a 6/8 highbrid which we seem to be chasing now. To me we got our priorities wrong

 

[Infra-red]

After Monday's performance, I'd expect McTominay to come in along side Casemiro for the Spurs game, with one of Bruno or Mount shunted wide or dropped. EtH won't want us being that open away at Spurs (even if they are the only top 9 team that failed to beat us when we played away last season).