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Mauricio Pochettino - Sacked

Finney Is Back said:
It always intrigues me how people get so obsessed with formations. In reality there isn't too much difference in many of them. For instance our standard 4-2-3-1 last season is hardly any different to the sudden flavour of the month 3-4-2-1. Rose and Walker play as wide midfielders as opposed to full backs, Toby and Jan fan out to play wider than a usual centre back pairing, Dier drops in between them playing a role similar to the old 'libero' type role. Eriksen would typically play narrow to make a central midfield 2 with Dembele and Lamela would join Ali in the pockets of space in central areas in the last third of the pitch.
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Tend to agree, but you know that folks get all excited about formations and stats. In reality football is a simple game but thanks to the persistence of blogs and abacus games it seems that some fans need to put things into boxes.
 
Finney Is Back said:
It always intrigues me how people get so obsessed with formations. In reality there isn't too much difference in many of them. For instance our standard 4-2-3-1 last season is hardly any different to the sudden flavour of the month 3-4-2-1. Rose and Walker play as wide midfielders as opposed to full backs, Toby and Jan fan out to play wider than a usual centre back pairing, Dier drops in between them playing a role similar to the old 'libero' type role. Eriksen would typically play narrow to make a central midfield 2 with Dembele and Lamela would join Ali in the pockets of space in central areas in the last third of the pitch.
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Not really. Our approach against Arsenal was radically different - the 3-man backline was similar to Dier dropping between the two CBs, yes (in fact, it was basically the same thing), but then we *still* had Wanyama ahead of the three, and Dembele driving from deeper in the second half. That's a man less in the attack than we would have had had we gone with our old 4-2-3-1, and a man more in defensive situations, imo (in the 4-2-3-1, the DM would drop between the two CBs, making three at the back, but there would be no *dedicated* DM still sweeping up ahead of them when this happened).

Formations do exhibit variety, and they do sometimes alter approaches in radical ways. But this is an old argument that's been done many times before - do you approach games by shaping the team to play a certain way regardless of the formation, or do you prioritise the formation and fit individuals into specific roles within it?
 
Finney Is Back said:
It always intrigues me how people get so obsessed with formations. In reality there isn't too much difference in many of them. For instance our standard 4-2-3-1 last season is hardly any different to the sudden flavour of the month 3-4-2-1. Rose and Walker play as wide midfielders as opposed to full backs, Toby and Jan fan out to play wider than a usual centre back pairing, Dier drops in between them playing a role similar to the old 'libero' type role. Eriksen would typically play narrow to make a central midfield 2 with Dembele and Lamela would join Ali in the pockets of space in central areas in the last third of the pitch.
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I don't entirely agree, and I think the change to a back 3 is pretty vital in combating a 4-2-3-1, and I think the teams that have played a back 3 against us (Everton this season, West Ham away last) have shown that it can stifle us pretty well, and we play pretty much the archetype 4-2-3-1 with narrow creatives behind the striker.

With a 4-2-3-1, we have the creative guys cutting inside, all looking to thread through a central striker, who is isolated. Not only that, but if Dier/Wanyama drop to collect the ball, a team that presses us can quite easily isolate our holder. It means we can't get the ball up the pitch and inevitably hoof it, causing what Poch described as the ball not arriving in the final third in a good condition.

3 at the back doesn't make too much difference to our full backs as they play high anyway, but it means if teams press us playing their 4-2-3-1, we have more options to play around that. Then getting into the final third, we'v'e exploited the space and get closer support to our striker. Effectively a 4-2-3-1 wouldn't be that much different to a 4-4-2, in that sense you are right, except we are playing with creative ball players high up as opposed to wingers supporting two strikers. If we played wingers, we might well be suited to playing against 3 at the back because we are exploiting the spaces.

As Wilson said, it's all about exploiting the spaces, and I'm just glad our manager is one of the ones that is capable of being highly adaptive. Tactics are usually cyclical as one system generally gets an advantage over another until teams adapt (Mourinho's original Chelsea 4-3-3 giving an advantage over the standard 4-4-2s at the time being one other example). Chelsea's current 3-4-3 exploits most teams playing a 4-2-3-1, and a 4-2-3-1 and a 4-2-3-1 was likely a response to teams adopting the 4-3-3. The interesting thing is rather than cycles taking 5 or so years, we may see a few within the same season as there''s a lot of good coaches trying to eke advantage.
 
He got lucky today. I don't think any of us thought the formation picked at the start would work and, given he changed formation at HT without changing players, Poch should have had the balls to change the formation during the first half. Like our team, he's young and hopefully he will have learned something from today
 
I honestly don't think we have the players to be anything more than a 4231 side at the moment. We have a level of flexibility thanks to having more of a squad (Janssen allowing us to go with two up front being one such addition). We are flush with central midfielder's, which does make the idea of a midfield three seem like a natural progression. Throwing them out without any real game plan though is probably not the right way to go about it and I'd echo what others have said, in that Kane and Son are a more mobile and potent pair.

Away from that though, we look static. There were a lot of times last year when the interchanging and linkup play between Lamela, Eriksen, Alli and Kane was top draw. They not only drew players out of position, but they all turned up at the end of moves and grabbed goals. This recent run though has seen very little of that this season, even taking the injuries into account.

I'd like to see our front player's moving like Liverpool's though. The moment there is the sniff of a chance, their front players are looking to get behind their opponents back line. Few of them are standing still and the man with the ball has option's, something that we don't do this year. Oh and Walker and Rose need to consider crossing the bloody ball early.
 
Finney Is Back said:
It always intrigues me how people get so obsessed with formations. In reality there isn't too much difference in many of them. For instance our standard 4-2-3-1 last season is hardly any different to the sudden flavour of the month 3-4-2-1. Rose and Walker play as wide midfielders as opposed to full backs, Toby and Jan fan out to play wider than a usual centre back pairing, Dier drops in between them playing a role similar to the old 'libero' type role. Eriksen would typically play narrow to make a central midfield 2 with Dembele and Lamela would join Ali in the pockets of space in central areas in the last third of the pitch.
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I agree that there's too much focus on formations.

The difference between a 3-4-2-1 and 4-2-3-1 when defending is pretty clear cut though and one of the bigger formation differences out there imo. 3 centre backs or 2 centre backs and rather different wing back/full back roles depending on having a midfielder directly ahead of them or not makes a big difference.

Cochise said:
I honestly don't think we have the players to be anything more than a 4231 side at the moment. We have a level of flexibility thanks to having more of a squad (Janssen allowing us to go with two up front being one such addition). We are flush with central midfielder's, which does make the idea of a midfield three seem like a natural progression. Throwing them out without any real game plan though is probably not the right way to go about it and I'd echo what others have said, in that Kane and Son are a more mobile and potent pair.

Away from that though, we look static. There were a lot of times last year when the interchanging and linkup play between Lamela, Eriksen, Alli and Kane was top draw. They not only drew players out of position, but they all turned up at the end of moves and grabbed goals. This recent run though has seen very little of that this season, even taking the injuries into account.

I'd like to see our front player's moving like Liverpool's though. The moment there is the sniff of a chance, their front players are looking to get behind their opponents back line. Few of them are standing still and the man with the ball has option's, something that we don't do this year. Oh and Walker and Rose need to consider crossing the bloody ball early.
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Some of our better games this season has been with a more 4-3-3/4-1-2-2-1 type formation with Wanyama sitting deep and two box to box players in Alli and Eriksen (for example). When we're without Dembele I think it's arguably the way to go.
 
Cochise said:
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I'd like to see our front player's moving like Liverpool's though. The moment there is the sniff of a chance, their front players are looking to get behind their opponents back line. Few of them are standing still and the man with the ball has option's, something that we don't do this year. Oh and Walker and Rose need to consider crossing the bloody ball early.
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Bingo, i know its the trend to slag L'pool off on here but the speed they move the ball and the way their players attack the box is streets ahead of out slow build up. I think it will improve for us but at the moment we have ( imo) too many players not at their best ( Eriksen, Lamela, Dembélé, Alli) and its been the same most of the season.

As for the crossing from our fullbacks i agree to a point, i said on here the other day that our forward/ M/F players are not attacking the box fast or often enough so there is not a lot of sense either Rose or Walker throwing the ball into the box faster/more often.

You saw them for England the other day when they did do that but because England had players making those runs and both had their crosses turned into goals. They both have the ability to do what you are asking bit we need to get more players into the box ( faster) then we are doing just now.
 
He got it completely wrong today. He has done great things for us, but the way we were set up today was a disaster. I'm not even sure what formation it was, but it left us incredibly vulnerable. Monaco had a motorway down both flanks because we had no one playing wide in midfield. Everyone was in the middle. And then when you can clearly see early in the game that things are not working, at least change it before it's too late. He did nothing. We got to half time without being punished and you think we have a chance to reorganise, and then we come out and play the exact same way. I think Poch is poor during games sometimes. He doesn't seem to recognise it when things aren't working, or he is too proud to change things. Whatever it is, he fails to take necessary action when we are struggling.

Another thing... if you want to progress in the Champions League, you need to play your best team. We aren't Real Madrid, we aren't Barcelona and we aren't Bayern. We are team that is playing in teh Champions League for the second time, and the last time was five or six years ago. If we want to progress, we must use our best players. We can't leave out our most experienced center back when our other experienced center back is already injured and play two young players who, as far as I can recall, have never played together before, in a must win game. It is suicidal. Not that Dier and Wimmer did worse than most other players, but it's simply an idotic thing to do unless Vertonghen was injured.
 
I'm tempted to kidnap him and tattoo "If it works, fudging leave it alone" on his forehead (but I'm clever so I'll do it in reverse so he can read it ;) ).

Then I think I'll prop his eyelids open and force him to watch the formation/tactics that worked really well last season.
 
"Maybe we need to improve our mentality and be ready in every game," Pochettino said as he addressed the pressures of playing in both the Premier and Champions League.

"From the beginning of the season, I said our challenge was not physical, it was tactical - to manage your mind and to play on Saturday and then Tuesday or Wednesday.

"To be ready again after two days is difficult. It's not an excuse because I don't think we showed enough quality to go into the next round."

"We are in a process, in a period in the club where we need to improve. We're in the third step of the project," Pochettino, whose side are undefeated after 12 Premier League games, said.

"Maybe we feel bad now, disappointed, but tomorrow is another day and we need to look forward.

"We're in a good position in the Premier League and we need to compete on Saturday (at Chelsea)," he added with Spurs in fifth, four points behind their next opponents who are top.
 
parklane1 said:
Bingo, i know its the trend to slag L'pool off on here but the speed they move the ball and the way their players attack the box is streets ahead of out slow build up. I think it will improve for us but at the moment we have ( imo) too many players not at their best ( Eriksen, Lamela, Dembélé, Alli) and its been the same most of the season.

As for the crossing from our fullbacks i agree to a point, i said on here the other day that our forward/ M/F players are not attacking the box fast or often enough so there is not a lot of sense either Rose or Walker throwing the ball into the box faster/more often.

You saw them for England the other day when they did do that but because England had players making those runs and both had their crosses turned into goals. They both have the ability to do what you are asking bit we need to get more players into the box ( faster) then we are doing just now.
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I agree I dont get why people on here are always slagging Liverpool off, as a club they always try to play good football, they produce a few of their own youth players and though a few of their fans might be idiots so are many of ours. I had Liverpool as champions at start of the season.

As for us, Poch has a lot to learn but as a club we need to get behind a young coach who will learn and improve as he goes along. Moyes at Everton reached a ceiling after ten years, I am prepared to give Poch ten years here and think he will stand a good chance of making us top four regulars, when we get the new stadium if should get a bit more money to spend.

My biggest concern is of the identifying of talent we sign, I am not impressed with our signings. But with youth players like Edwards, CCV and Sterling to come through I am hoping we can save money that way.
 
I am a huge Poch fan, but his comments tonight about adding more quality to the squad were quite mistimed in my opinion.

He had the chance to add that quality in the summer - and decided to spunk the money on the last day on £30m Sissoko!

In a heavily rotated side and with Alli nowhere fully fit, Sissoko could still only make the bench.
 
I am a bit confused though. If it were tactical - then Poch wouldnt have been able to beat Emirates Marketing Project 3-1 earlier this season. There is something wrong with our setup for Europe. Is it the players? the coaches? We have beat managers who have won or almost won CL in the BPL! So what exactly is the problem here?

PS I do agree on quality of the squad. We shouldnt have let certain players go then. The quality of the squad seems lower than last year.
 
afsoc4life said:
I am a bit confused though. If it were tactical - then Poch wouldnt have been able to beat Emirates Marketing Project 3-1 earlier this season. There is something wrong with our setup for Europe. Is it the players? the coaches? We have beat managers who have won or almost won CL in the BPL! So what exactly is the problem here?

PS I do agree on quality of the squad. We shouldnt have let certain players go then. The quality of the squad seems lower than last year.
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Are Chadli/Townsend worse than Sissoko/Ndoukou
 
scaramanga said:
I'm tempted to kidnap him and tattoo "If it works, fudging leave it alone" on his forehead (but I'm clever so I'll do it in reverse so he can read it ;) ).

Then I think I'll prop his eyelids open and force him to watch the formation/tactics that worked really well last season.
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This is the big one. Why on earth aren't we set up to play like we did last season? Sure, personnel isn't always available, but the system and the tactics worked. Keep at it.
 
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