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The pressing game

ringo

ringo

Tim Sherwood
It doesn't seem that long ago that anything other than 4-4-2 was exotic and continental. Then we had a bit of 4-3-3 and the diamond (i may have missed a few). Now 4-2-3-1 (or a formation with even more people further up the pitch) combined with high pressing is fast becoming the dominant strategy/tactic.

[is it even possible to play 4-4-2 any more?]

But football moves on, as do managers if they fail to adapt. So what do people think will emerge as the antidote to the high press for 90 minutes. Might it be a target man, long ball game, for example. What kind of football do we expect the next evolution of football strategy and tactics to bring to Spurs?
 
Leicester last season and Athletico Madrid have shown a different tactical approach to combat it: 4-4-2, not too worried about possession, just be very hard to break down and attack with direct and pacey counters.

If a team doesn't rely on lots of possession to attack and plays direct football, then pressing doesn't disrupt their style of play so much, and infact, it plays to their strengths (leaving space for quick, direct counter attacks).
 
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They say that Heguain deal with juvi is the antidote, playing with traditional striker with more direct play is the only way to coup.Let's wait and see.
 
All the systems can work if they bring out the strengths in the players you have. They have to be able to play the system and be for enough to do so whilst knowing their jobs

Personally one of my favourites is 3-5-2 which actually would suit us now and is in effect what we play in attack. But clearly 4-23-1 suits us perfectly now
 
Bedfordspurs said:
All the systems can work if they bring out the strengths in the players you have. They have to be able to play the system and be for enough to do so whilst knowing their jobs

Personally one of my favourites is 3-5-2 which actually would suit us now and is in effect what we play in attack. But clearly 4-23-1 suits us perfectly now
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That formation would make the midfield a tad crowded perhaps?
 
Bedfordspurs said:
All the systems can work if they bring out the strengths in the players you have. They have to be able to play the system and be for enough to do so whilst knowing their jobs

Personally one of my favourites is 3-5-2 which actually would suit us now and is in effect what we play in attack. But clearly 4-23-1 suits us perfectly now
Click to expand...

I think that formations are as much about exploiting space on the pitch as fitting the players at your disposal.
 
milo said:
I think that formations are as much about exploiting space on the pitch as fitting the players at your disposal.
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I think you are right. And where you find that space is often determined by the fashionable formation of the time. Right now, with all the high pressing, there is a lot of potentially exploitable space in the defensive half of the pitch of the attacking team. The challenge is to retain possession long enough and get enough time on the ball, while being pressed, to exploit that space and/or to beat the offside trap when you are going long.

I thought the obvious antidote to the press was the Leicester long ball on the counter approach. But there are usually only a few players who are capable of playing that ball over the top under pressure, and even fewer that have the pace to consistently outrun defenders. Drop a defender(s) off a little bit and press key midfield players harder and sooner, and you can negate the counter quite effectively. Although I did think Italy countered the press very effectively in the Euros. They worked the ball up the lines from defender to forward in just a few passes -very impressive.
 
Interesting thread, in a GG era of player-specific-thread dominance!

I second the view that playing more direct / long balls to some sort of target man (strong and/or fast) seems the logical counter.

I've also often thought that the opposite might work too - bring more attacking players deep, to outnumber the pressing attackers, and play short quick passes around them before advancing up the pitch together into space. Downsides might be a) it's risky to play short passes deep in your own half, b) it won't work if the opposition pushes more defending players up to press your retreating attacking players, and c) it might be tiring to have your attacking players moving up and down the pitch so much.
 
It feels to me that the full backs in a 4231 have to do too much work... we expect them to be furthest forward AND furthest back... it isn't very feasible unless you have incredible types of player.

Therefore I was very interested when Pep started at City, he got his full backs to tuck into midfield and let the midfield go forwards... makes much more sense, less distance to travel... but I haven't heard much about it since game 1, did he stick with it? Could be very hard or very easy to counter, not sure... interesting though.
 
Klopp's bit on MNF was illustrative in this regard - the essential point he made was that his players orient themselves to get into blind-side positions when on the ball, and move into half-spaces to gain numerical advantages against isolated opponents (on the press) when off it. The guiding principle was that the press was the best playmaker (getting the ball high up with team-mates in blind-side positions ready to go for goal beats an approach from deeper with more intricate approach play). The formation doesn't matter as much in that regard, since the team is situationally-oriented, not tactically-oriented.

I suppose, given those tenets, opponents wishing to stop that approach from working would limit situations in which they a) had players behind them in blind-side positions, and b) where opponents out-numbered team-mates when in defensive situations. Such conditions seem (to me) to only be solvable by playing a low, narrow block of two lines of four\five to begin with, to leave no spaces and always position players close to their team-mates to provide support. It doesn't necessitate *only* playing long balls from deep - it could also necessitate moving up very slowly, always making sure that the two lines are compact and controlled, ready to snap in an instant back into a narrow low block if the risks of the press seem like too much. Short passing, emphasizing slow, measured approach play, or long balls from deep. Either could work. Certain tactics are preferable for one or another (3-4-2-1 for the former, and 4-4-1-1 for the latter), but really, the key is negating the press from half-spaces and the ability of opponents to move into blind-side positions behind the defensive line.
 
Bedfordspurs said:
All the systems can work if they bring out the strengths in the players you have. They have to be able to play the system and be for enough to do so whilst knowing their jobs

Personally one of my favourites is 3-5-2 which actually would suit us now and is in effect what we play in attack. But clearly 4-23-1 suits us perfectly now
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For me we look more 4-3-3/4-1-2-3 than 4-2-3-1 these days.

Gutter Boy said:
The best counter for a high press is to park the bus, have minimal possession, get the possession side to over-commit and then sucker punch them on the break or from a set piece. i.e Mourinho ball
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One possibility. But it's somewhat limiting unless you have a very good flexible group of players that can transition from that to dominating other games when opponents sit back.

elltrev said:
Interesting thread, in a GG era of player-specific-thread dominance!

I second the view that playing more direct / long balls to some sort of target man (strong and/or fast) seems the logical counter.

I've also often thought that the opposite might work too - bring more attacking players deep, to outnumber the pressing attackers, and play short quick passes around them before advancing up the pitch together into space. Downsides might be a) it's risky to play short passes deep in your own half, b) it won't work if the opposition pushes more defending players up to press your retreating attacking players, and c) it might be tiring to have your attacking players moving up and down the pitch so much.
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Agreed. A strong target man is an option, but you need to use it right. And if done right the high press will lead to a lot of under pressure long balls to that target man, very difficult to work with for the attackers.

Playing through the pressure is where it gets more interesting. Obviously you need good ball playing centre backs, probably also a goalie whose comfortable on the ball, but you also need a lot from your central/deep midfielders. I think we've seen some key games this season where teams have pressed very effectively against teams with nothing resembling a deep playmaker in midfield. Liverpool against us and Liverpool against Chelsea. City against United in the first half and ourselves against City today. The duos of Dier-Wanyama, Kante-Matic, Fellaini-Pogba and Fernando-Fernandino provided those 4 line-ups with very little in terms of accepting risk on the ball to play through pressure. As a result those 4 games saw teams more or less pressed into submission for periods of those games.

United changed it by bringing on Herrera in the game vs. City iirc. Other changes too, but that was a key one for me. City tried to change it today by bringing on Gundogan, but he's far from match fitness and not really settled in the league or at the club. Very happy that we didn't go for the Wanyama-Dier pairing from the start today. And our pressing was a lot more effective than City's. In part (imo) because our midfield was more capable of playing through pressure.
 
Today for me we played 4-1-3-2 with the two being anyone who is up with son and the 1 being victor the beast

It was a tactic that worked well as the players in attack just worked and worked and worked

We seem to be evolving a lot now and it's great to see as it gives us a versatility I certainly wasn't expecting and it shows Pochs great awareness
 
Bedfordspurs said:
Today for me we played 4-1-3-2 with the two being anyone who is up with son and the 1 being victor the beast

It was a tactic that worked well as the players in attack just worked and worked and worked

We seem to be evolving a lot now and it's great to see as it gives us a versatility I certainly wasn't expecting and it shows Pochs great awareness
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My thoughts as well, Poch seem to have the players now to enable him to set us up in relation to who we are playing. Sign of a top manager who thinks about what the opposistion are good/bad at and sets his teams up to deal with it.
 
I think that may be the best I have seen us press for a long time. Of course it does help when you know the keeper will always play it short, but we really had them on the back foot from the off and ultimately they ended up kicking it long anyway. Bravo wouldn't fill you with confidence but the manager's instructions are obviously to play it out from the back no matter what. It's overriding common sense on occasion.

Another plus is that we (and Celtic to an extent) have shown other teams the best way to approach their matches with City. High press and go right at them. You might not always win but it looks the best tactic to use against them as of now.
 
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