Every single team is now trying to press us VERY high up the pitch.
How to counter this? By leaving our forwards higher up on both of the wings and playing the long/medium ball over the top to release them.
Play 3 man midfield and make make them move opposition players around and drag them higher in central areas (we did that a bit already vs Southampton at the beginning of second half, once ETH recognised to pull them apart as SOT players were marking 1to1).
Exploit the gap by going long to Martial who can play back to his goal quite well (Martinez/Eriksen will be key for that).
Have two pacy wingers who can run behind.
In essence, drop Bruno and move to 433 with Casemiro holding and two 8's in Eriksen and somebody else (Fred/McTominay/van de Beek).
Use Bruno in latter stages of the game when there's more space and time.
I think he has a point tbh. We didn't press from the front or do anything "progressive" against Brighton. We played the exact same nothing shite we served up most of last season. And then Brentford was so bad tactics didn't even come into it. So where the idea this had anything to do with "progressive" football came from I have no idea. What did anyone see in these two games that was in anyway attempting to be progressive?
The most "progressive" we've looked so far was against Liverpool, where we actually pressed as a unit and had a structure in possession. We also ran out of energy midway through both halves and were playing a better team than us, but this was a type of performance and tactical approach we never saw once under Ole.
Then yesterday we didn't counter well or play a low block and hit Southampton on the break. Our defence was excellent and much better organised/more aggressive than previously, but the midfield and especially forwards not being able to hold the ball or pressure Southampton if anything was a hindrance. Our best spell of the game and when we scored was when we were able to actually string some football together higher up the pitch.
I think by "progressive" football it was meant that we wanted to build from the back, starting with De Gea and progressing through midfield. This was no longer the case against Liverpool and Southampton, as we were happy to go long and then fight for the second ball. It worked against Liverpool and it worked against Southampton until Eriksen was exhausted and we spent the last 30mins defending. Which we've gotten much better at, but still this is surely not what ETH wants.