I'll tell you what I'm seeing:
- defences still holding lines as high as possible (e.g. half way line) and playing for offside in most instances
- all centre mids on the press at the same time, without one of them holding
- a set of players not equipped to play a high press because they can't retain possession well enough. It comes straight back at them.
- full-backs still doing most of their work on the inside rather than the outside
- the wide forwards spending barely any time defending on the inside, tucking in narrow to make us compact
What I also see is a lot of jogging, not running from the players. They are trying to play a way that demands high intensity at medium intensity. There is no differentiator anymore, implying that the players aren't fully engaged in their manager tactics.
Brentford, you are talking about a game that was 7 weeks ago at the end of the injury/fatigue cycle. It was 2 weeks later (Utd) when we had the first time we finally had quite a stacked squad. That was perhaps the only game that I saw that I started to see something that would give me hope of a new gear, albeit against a poor side. There has been absolutely no consistency since. That is my biggest question mark on these tactics. In my mind Ange should find consistency first (e.g. Poch) and then refine as appropriate.
Perhaps you can tell me what refinements you're seeing from Ange in this period. Are there genuinely enough and are they genuinely big enough deltas to prove what I said in my earlier post? Unfortunately, a few tweaks and outlier games like Brentford don't wash with me. Brentford for me was more akin to City cup second half. It can happen, but never regularly under Ange over 20 months in charge.
I think it is more likely Ange would like to go back to his Day 1 tactical system. He doesn't want to come the other direction at all. He still thinks his system is the best one, and some fans are good with that. As I said above, I'm not one.
