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Roberto De Zerbi *OFFICIAL*

Baleforce said:
I think it’s very much the latter.

You’d expect teams to target an obvious weakness sooner rather than later.
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But that's the system, if you target Spurs it opens you for what RDZ really wants to do.

His new way of playing is an acknowledgment that a lot of teams won't go for it, but we still fundamentally are setup to punish teams that play on front foot.
 
Raziel said:
System manager with some flexibility, possession but attractive to watch, players bought in, well done

Has anybody noticed he seems far less volatile than his reputation? still calls out reporters (the bit against comparing Fernandes to Modric was brilliant) but seems comfortable here?
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I think we seem to forget that Pochettino fell out with a lot of players. Didn’t he not pick Alderwirled for a long period when he was fit over a contract dispute? Townsend had the bust of with a coach and was gone. Bentaleb was a similar story. Walker be fell out with. Adeybeyor, Kaboul, Lennon were with the reserves or loaned out in the first season.

He didn’t fall out with these as I understand but Fazio, Chiriches, Stambouli, Capoue, Paulinho, Soldado were £100M worth of players which is more like £200M now and we shipped them all out.
 
Raziel said:
But that's the system, if you target Spurs it opens you for what RDZ really wants to do.

His new way of playing is an acknowledgment that a lot of teams won't go for it, but we still fundamentally are setup to punish teams that play on front foot.
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I think we will struggle against anyone who can consistently put crosses into our box and have players who are better in the air than our two Belgians.

Or even teams that just bang it long to a target man and feed off him.
 
Baleforce said:
I think we will struggle against anyone who can consistently put crosses into our box and have players who are better in the air than our two Belgians.

Or even teams that just bang it long to a target man and feed off him.
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Serious question, how would that work? are you assuming the opposition will have significant possession or win the midfield battle? the way we press a target man would need to be elite level to just not lose the 2nd ball all the time. Any team that puts their wingers forward risks having Kudus/Tel/Savio 1:1 against their FB or worse, free to run into space.

To be clear, I don't think we are some elite team, but the system covers a lot of the obvious flaws of the two CB's, add a CF that is clinical and has some pace and I do think we would be a different proposition.
 
robp135 said:
I think we seem to forget that Pochettino fell out with a lot of players. Didn’t he not pick Alderwirled for a long period when he was fit over a contract dispute? Townsend had the bust of with a coach and was gone. Bentaleb was a similar story. Walker be fell out with. Adeybeyor, Kaboul, Lennon were with the reserves or loaned out in the first season.

He didn’t fall out with these as I understand but Fazio, Chiriches, Stambouli, Capoue, Paulinho, Soldado were £100M worth of players which is more like £200M now and we shipped them all out.
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All essential to the building of the culture that the remaining players were bought into. And I’d argue Toby was when it really started to go downhill. We seemed to want to hold on to him rather than trust Poch, and it was very telling that he signed a new contract not long after Jose was appointed.
 
Raziel said:
Serious question, how would that work? are you assuming the opposition will have significant possession or win the midfield battle? the way we press a target man would need to be elite level to just not lose the 2nd ball all the time. Any team that puts their wingers forward risks having Kudus/Tel/Savio 1:1 against their FB or worse, free to run into space.

To be clear, I don't think we are some elite team, but the system covers a lot of the obvious flaws of the two CB's, add a CF that is clinical and has some pace and I do think we would be a different proposition.
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Exactly. Whole point of having a system is that players have clear strengths and weaknesses which the system accentuates and protects against. Having VDV tasked with executing a low block for the majority of the game was a massive waste of his strengths for most of last season.
 
Raziel said:
Serious question, how would that work? are you assuming the opposition will have significant possession or win the midfield battle? the way we press a target man would need to be elite level to just not lose the 2nd ball all the time. Any team that puts their wingers forward risks having Kudus/Tel/Savio 1:1 against their FB or worse, free to run into space.

To be clear, I don't think we are some elite team, but the system covers a lot of the obvious flaws of the two CB's, add a CF that is clinical and has some pace and I do think we would be a different proposition.
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Time will tell.

Yes they would need to win the MF battle, but not have significant possession, the plan would be to win the ball back deep after frustrating our attack and causing a turn over, then going long to a giant target man to hold the ball up and feed 2/3 attackers playing off him (or win FK's), then shoot on sight as close to the edge of our box as possible, I'd want to be getting a shot away within 7/8 seconds of every turn over, it would not be pretty, but I think it would be overwhelming, and have a cumulative drain on us.

Any corners or FK's would be crosses targeting the 6 yard box for attacking on the run.

It would be a blitz, and I think we would fold like a cheap suit.
 
Baleforce said:
Time will tell.

Yes they would need to win the MF battle, but not have significant possession, the plan would be to win the ball back deep after frustrating our attack and causing a turn over, then going long to a giant target man to hold the ball up and feed 2/3 attackers playing off him (or win FK's), then shoot on sight as close to the edge of our box as possible, I'd want to be getting a shot away within 7/8 seconds of every turn over, it would not be pretty, but I think it would be overwhelming, and have a cumulative drain on us.

Any corners or FK's would be crosses targeting the 6 yard box for attacking on the run.

It would be a blitz, and I think we would fold like a cheap suit.
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Be interesting to see

Traditionally we haven't liked being pressured but the technical level of the team is very different to the past, both in terms of press resistance and ability to play through a press. Our fitness also seems quite high now (IIRC we have outrun the opposition most/all of last 6 games)

And the issue for the opposition remains, RDZ wants the opposing side to come out. Truly my biggest concern with your scenario is our CF, they may pressure us (and maybe even score), we will break repeatedly through them and Solanke/whoever will not take the chances, hence the January priority has to be a Richi replacement
 
Raziel said:
Be interesting to see

Traditionally we haven't liked being pressured but the technical level of the team is very different to the past, both in terms of press resistance and ability to play through a press. Our fitness also seems quite high now (IIRC we have outrun the opposition most/all of last 6 games)

And the issue for the opposition remains, RDZ wants the opposing side to come out. Truly my biggest concern with your scenario is our CF, they may pressure us (and maybe even score), we will break repeatedly through them and Solanke/whoever will not take the chances, hence the January priority has to be a Richi replacement
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We are ok on the ground, but I think we are weak against an air force, Arsenal, Liverpool, long ball, industrial, physical, that's where we will suffer imo.

I'm not that concerned offensively myself, last few games we have outscored our xG, we score enough goals to win football matches, it's the clean sheets we need to make sure of, thats where PL points come from.
 
Baleforce said:
We are ok on the ground, but I think we are weak against an air force, Arsenal, Liverpool, long ball, industrial, physical, that's where we will suffer imo.

I'm not that concerned offensively myself, last few games we have outscored our xG, we score enough goals to win football matches, it's the clean sheets we need to make sure of, thats where PL points come from.
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For sake of conversation

Liverpool, Arsenal, City, are not relevant to us right now, we need to have a system that takes care of the bottom 12 teams in the league. Then add to squad, go again (and yes, I agree some physicality and aerial prowess would help. I agree with the weakness statment).
 
Raziel said:
For sake of conversation

Liverpool, Arsenal, City, are not relevant to us right now, we need to have a system that takes care of the bottom 12 teams in the league. Then add to squad, go again (and yes, I agree some physicality and aerial prowess would help. I agree with the weakness statment).
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my overall point was, it's not all flowers and sausages, the original question asked was "how are we defending" in our recent good performances, we haven't really had to
 
Baleforce said:
my overall point was, it's not all flowers and sausages, the original question asked was "how are we defending" in our recent good performances, we haven't really had to
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We have had to defend plenty, the difference is we aren't having to defend high pressure situations at various times. And that in the main is because the system is working....
 
harr1984 said:
We have had to defend plenty, the difference is we aren't having to defend high pressure situations at various times. And that in the main is because the system is working....
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I think the system is working against what we have seen, but it won’t work against a team that commits to aerial bombardment.
 
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