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Welcome Ange: To Dare is to Didgeridoo

Yesterday felt to me like a few too many players were off the boil as well as the issues of breaching wolves 6 at the back.

It's pretty fair to expect that Maddison, Son, Sarr and Bissouma have a way to go to get their rythym back after lay offs and international tournaments. It's far from being an excuse for what was a poor performance but it has to be factored in.

This for me and also we have become very lazy. You can play any formation you want but if people don't put in a shift then they all fall apart. Like any system Ange style means people need to work hard for it to work, yesterday that effort wasn't there IMO.

Maybe looking too much at stuff but the whole hype and social media stardom, dancing after games etc we all seem to be enjoying maybe gone to a few of their heads, a few of them IMO have def let their standards slip.

I dont buy the plan B thing, the best sides have a system that tends to be "younworry about us" but they have better players and strive to freshen up. I've been guilty of maybe over hyping our lot and also believing we are close to that but it's clear we have more work.to do, we need better

Finally I like richy and backed him, also backing Levy but we neglected the replacement of Kane and that's showing in games where we are just not taking chances and yeh we have scored in batches BUT as much as we can blame being open and making mistakes we have IMO left points out in many games in not having a top class proficient CF, our issues in these games come from not taking chances, being dynamic enough in that area and the ball not sticking. Yesterday's pinball showed that IMO
 
Yesterday felt to me like a few too many players were off the boil as well as the issues of breaching wolves 6 at the back.

It's pretty fair to expect that Maddison, Son, Sarr and Bissouma have a way to go to get their rythym back after lay offs and international tournaments. It's far from being an excuse for what was a poor performance but it has to be factored in.

N ail on the head, we are struggling but once we get Maddison and Bentacur fit again and the others you mention up to speed we will pick up again.
 
Considering the size of the rebuild, the long term injuries and AFCON, that isn't a huge issue

I do agree, we had such a long way to improve as a team after the last couple of seasons and i think our good start to the season has got some fans expecting too much to soon.( imo). Our great start has been good but we are still a work in progress and we should not under estimate the work that still needs doing.
 
For discussion: Ange's first season at Celtic. I count 23 clean sheets and 42 wins in 60 games played. 11 losses. 70% wins.

Second season: 19 clean sheets and 41 wins in 53 games played. 7 losses. 77% wins.

Don't think you're ever going to get loads of clean sheets under Ange. When his sides win, just nature that half the time (or more) they will also concede.

I agree with PD, it’s not asking too much for a few more clean sheets. The top teams have a sound defensive structure to fall back on. Liverpool didn’t really achieve anything of note (other than top 4) until they sorted out defence and upgraded the goalkeeper. I feel we’ve already done that in terms of upgrading the individual positions (GK and CB). We just need to tighten up as PD said.

Before the season started the consensus was top 6-8 would be a successful first season under Ange, I feel you should revise the goals as the season progresses and I do think anything lower than 6th would be a disappointment after the start we had and how many points we have now. 4th would be fantastic, 5th would be respectable, 6th should be the minimum now.
 
I agree with PD, it’s not asking too much for a few more clean sheets. The top teams have a sound defensive structure to fall back on. Liverpool didn’t really achieve anything of note (other than top 4) until they sorted out defence and upgraded the goalkeeper. I feel we’ve already done that in terms of upgrading the individual positions (GK and CB). We just need to tighten up as PD said.

Before the season started the consensus was top 6-8 would be a successful first season under Ange, I feel you should revise the goals as the season progresses and I do think anything lower than 6th would be a disappointment after the start we had and how many points we have now. 4th would be fantastic, 5th would be respectable, 6th should be the minimum now.
I wasn't saying I agreed or disagreed friend, just providing the numbers.
 
Popping in with a few observations on his time so far. I'd like to think it's fairly objective, since, given work and personal commitments, I haven't had the time to get too invested in this season - mostly I just watch the games and then put it out of my mind.

1. I feel like Postecoglou took the league by surprise in his first ten games - his approach with underlapping full backs and an aggressive high press created overloads in the middle that teams simply couldn't handle.

2. The easy start in terms of fixtures, the lack of midweek games, and the growing confidence of the players in their approach, all helped us click into high gear early.

3. It all came apart against Chelsea - the combination of long-term injuries to key players (for both Van de Ven and Maddison, the longest of their careers so far), suspensions disrupting momentum, and having to play players regardless of declining form or fitness due to lack of alternatives, meant the next ten games (11-20) were up and down. But this was more down to fitness and availability than tactical issues or player commitment.

4. Since then though, even as our availability issues have greatly eased, two things seem to have happened - teams have figured us out, and players aren't as committed to the plan as previously. For the first, teams have committed to pressing us ridiculously high, and man-for-man, knowing we lack the technical ability to play through them - this has resulted in many turnovers and an inability to control games. There have also been smaller tweaks to take advantage of our issues - Vicario being marked at corners, etc. And, crucially, teams have crowded us out of the middle, trusting that our wingers are not good enough to hurt them - and they have been entirely right. For the second, look at how the press has declined in recent games - we don't press well anymore, with large gaps between players leading the press, players being caught in poor positions well away from the ball carrier, etc. Look at how our players pass back when under pressure, instead of turning and playing through it. All signs of declining belief in the system.

Overall, Postecoglou has had a fairly even hand to work with. In his favour, he has had fan buy-in, and mostly empty midweeks to work with his players. Against him, he has had severe injury and availability crises. He's shown some promise, but he needs to get a grip on our recent decline in performances and form.

1. Part of the issue lies in his selections - Kulusevski on the right instantly nullifies that wing because he cannot use his right foot at all, so the opposition easily controls him. Son on the left only works occasionally - more often, he has completely anonymous games. These selection issues need tweaking.

2. More broadly, he needs to get players believing in his plan again - pressing high, playing through the press. And if he can't do that, he needs to have alternatives for when the players can't execute it, and after the end of the season, he needs better players, period.

I think Postecoglou has shown enough promise to persevere with. He is *not* Pochettino - Poch, along with Klopp, completely revolutionized tactics in the Premier League by bringing coordinated high pressing to England, which is why we had a sustained period of success while teams tried to adapt to us/copy us. Postecoglou's plan is more of a variation on Guardiola's system of underlapping full backs and high pressing, than a total revolution.

But it's clear that his system, when it has total buy in, can work. It just needs a lot of time, and a lot of buy in - much more than the first ten games might have indicated.

With Kane gone, I think a lot of pressure on Postecoglou and the club to succeed now has gone. He'll get the time to build. But, equally, he needs to tweak things on his end, too, to make it a success. The toughest league in the world rarely rewards puritanism.
 
It’s not but I think the issue we have that others don’t is how aggressively we use the full backs which leaves massive space at the back and puts a lot of strain on the CBs as they’re often outnumbered on the counter.

We will have bumps in the road like today, I’m expecting more this season. I still stand by top 6 being success and top 8 being acceptable. Unfortunately for Ange, he had such a good start that top 6 now almost feels like failure and fans generally tend to (re) act on feeling rather than logic.

For me, Ange needs to tweak his approach and use of the full backs a bit. If we face a defensive team, it’s crucial we don’t give them easy chances on the counter. Ange has more than enough credit in the bank to attempt to fix whatever is wrong and a good enough track record to suggest that he stands a very good chance of doing it.
Defensively there's not much difference between how we push our full backs forward and the now more traditional wing backs high and wide approach. There are teams that use one or even both full backs deeper now, but quite a few still push back. It's about the balance from midfield and I think we're fine.
I'd really like to see him tighten the defence, the top teams have mean defences that don't give much away so even on days the attack isn't firing 1 or 2 goals will win them the game. Read on the BBC today that we've kept 1 clean sheet in our last 16 games, that's just not good enough. Even with the injuries we had for a period we should be doing better.
We've definitely conceded too many goals. I think our lack of chance creation is part of that. We haven't been able to get teams on the back foot as much as we've struggled to create chances.

If we make them worry more about our game imo it becomes easier to defend too.

That's not necessarily the only solution, but it's a big part of it imo.
 
Yesterday felt to me like a few too many players were off the boil as well as the issues of breaching wolves 6 at the back.

It's pretty fair to expect that Maddison, Son, Sarr and Bissouma have a way to go to get their rythym back after lay offs and international tournaments. It's far from being an excuse for what was a poor performance but it has to be factored in.
This 100%. Add to that the lack of creativity from our full backs with Porro and Udogie out and you get games like this sometimes.
 
Lets not beat around the bush, we are predictable and any manager who changes tactics depending on opposition has our number.
I don't know. It's not like teams have all set up in a particularly similar way in recent games when we have struggled.

We've faced both high pressing, aggressive mid block type defending and a low block. If Wolves looked at our previous games to see how they could stop us by copying others they did a really poor job at copying others. We still struggled.

These are the ways these teams set up to play against bigger teams. Sure, some tweaks, but mostly them doing what they do in these games imo.

If anything it's been a while since we've come up against a team sitting as deep as Wolves did iirc. Perhaps that's part of the problem, it's not something we've been able to get match practice in facing and thus we looked a bit lost with the ball?

I agree that we have become predictable. But I don't think it's due to opponents adjusting to us, I think it's because our overall level has dropped. Movement, tempo, individual skill, just not at the same level so we're easier to defend against.

Need some of our best players to get back into good form. Maddison in top form changes that game a lot imo.
 
I don't know. It's not like teams have all set up in a particularly similar way in recent games when we have struggled.

We've faced both high pressing, aggressive mid block type defending and a low block. If Wolves looked at our previous games to see how they could stop us by copying others they did a really poor job at copying others. We still struggled.

These are the ways these teams set up to play against bigger teams. Sure, some tweaks, but mostly them doing what they do in these games imo.

If anything it's been a while since we've come up against a team sitting as deep as Wolves did iirc. Perhaps that's part of the problem, it's not something we've been able to get match practice in facing and thus we looked a bit lost with the ball?

I agree that we have become predictable. But I don't think it's due to opponents adjusting to us, I think it's because our overall level has dropped. Movement, tempo, individual skill, just not at the same level so we're easier to defend against.

Need some of our best players to get back into good form. Maddison in top form changes that game a lot imo.
It’s a good sign that teams wanna set up different against us
It shows we’re feares
How we deal with it is key
 
City face this every week. They have massive quality going forward (and hence, win) BUT (and even yesterday v Chelsea) I often see them give up quality chances most weeks. It's the nature of counter attacks having more space and less defenders to deal with.

And City have done everything to improve this. Speedster in the back line, converting Stone to DCM, having one of the best DCMs in their ranks, playing multiple CHs across the back. Yet the chances come.

What is slightly bizarre with us, is earlier in the season I didn't feel we were vulnerable at all. People (pundits) were saying we were 'open' or the way we played was 'madness' but it didn't feel for one moment we were being 'run ragged' or our defence was 'all over the place'...and maybe that's because more of the games were to and fro...we weren't facing the deep block, counter attack that we may do now.

Going back to City, that's why we used to have their number, we were great on the counter and used to punish them. They (the almighty Pep) used to know this and still couldn't do f.ck all about it.
Teams hadn't seen, let alone faced that way of playing at the beginning of the season, so we caught a few by surprise. Now teams leave one or two players high and wide, and compact the defense in the middle. If/when they win the ball, they have an out ball on the wings, where we have no one, often leaving us two vs two.
 
Teams hadn't seen, let alone faced that way of playing at the beginning of the season, so we caught a few by surprise. Now teams leave one or two players high and wide, and compact the defense in the middle. If/when they win the ball, they have an out ball on the wings, where we have no one, often leaving us two vs two.
We also worked alot harder than we have been recently IMo
 
It’s a good sign that teams wanna set up different against us
It shows we’re feares
How we deal with it is key
Well this is it TBH we need to maintain high standards and continue to add quality to squad and depth and it will get better IMO. The key for any successful team isn't having a plan B, I don't really see that eith top teams, think ita abit of a lie, its their ability to hut heights every week and managers ability to keep them up. Pep and Klopp do it really well, you rarely see them not not work hard and they have added bonus of quality. Fergie was master of it IMO, also knowing when to sell and improve. That's where we need to be IMO
 
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