10-25-2012, 04:16 PM
(This post was last modified: 10-25-2012, 04:17 PM by ACMILAN1983.)
(10-25-2012, 12:39 PM)Revolver Wrote: This 3-4-3 looked more like 5-2-3 to me.
To be all honest, I never realized something has changed in our system while watching the game. All looked like a ordinal 4-3-3 used many times this season, except Acerbi appeared to be used at left-back, moving a lot to the middle as it usually happens when you play center back at side-back position, and Constant (a left-center mid) was too defensive on the left side. De Scilio hardly crossed a half-way line.
So, it was really a 5-2-3 or 5-2-2-1.
When you play a 3 man defence with wing backs then it naturally changes to a back 5 when defending as the wingbacks pull back. You can call it a backline of 5 or a backline of 3 with wingbacks pulling back when defending, it doesn't really make much difference.
Acerbi did what he needed to. Constant was regularly leaving gaps behind (note De Sciglio wasn't covered anywhere near as much by Mexes), as well as pulling wide when Constant pushed up, a natural movement.
Constant was awful, offering nothing going forward and offering very little coming back. I'm not sure he really knew what was expected of him this match.
Edit: I don't understand why Urby or Antonini didn't play on the left rather than Constant, it's essentially a more natural role for them and they're actually better protected than when LB in a back 4.
10-26-2012, 04:41 AM
(This post was last modified: 10-26-2012, 04:43 AM by ACM2023.)
(10-25-2012, 11:07 AM)ACMILAN1983 Wrote: Right, before I start I will say I didn't see most of the first half as I was out or trying to find a reliable stream. However, seeing the second half, there were some improvements in our play, mostly around pressing better as a team. This isn't to say I wasn't depressed watching the state we're in, but rather we have some basis to build on. Also, all of the media outlets have generally said there was an improvement in our play yesterday, particularly in the first half, which I can't really comment on, but given the media's negativity towards us this season, I will generally believe if they said we played better.
Also match stats suggest it wasn't too bad from us. Malaga had 55% possession to our 45%, but we managed 13 shots at goal with 6 on target compared to their 9 shots with just 2 on target.
What we need to do is look at where we're going wrong in our game and think of basic solutions to rectify this.
To start, I think Sacchi hit the nail on the head with his summary from last night's match, saying essentially the players look confused and are all over the place as though there's no real structure to our game. For me this is our biggest problem and Allegri has to take a lot of responsibility here. He said just about a week or two ago that he's trying to teach concepts to the players rather than fixed systems, but quite honestly I think he needs to stick to one set formation right now. Whether it be 4-2-3-1, 4-2-1-3, 4-3-3 or last night's 3-4-3, we need one system of play where the players understand how and where they need to move, both defensively and offensively. This isn't to say we can't adjust during matches like we did against Zenit, but we need one fundamental gameplan to work from.
Quite frankly, I don't think we have an intelligent group of players and most are moving into stupid positions when left to their own devices. Despite our age being lowered considerably it's quite notable that 35 year old Ambrosini stands out as one of our more prominent players, despite having experienced players like Montolivo and De Jong next to him. This is simply because he's one of the few who understands how to move in the side. For the moment Allegri needs to get the players doing the basics correctly.
This leads to my next point. We have gifted attackers. Bojan's a decent player, Pato is world class when at his best and El Shaarawy's looking to become a great player and currently leading our attack. They all played together towards the end last night and one moment summed up their performance together. Montolivo had the ball in midfield, looking to move the ball forward into attack. Only problem was there were no options and he was forced to turn back and I think lost the ball or at least we lost momentum. The question is where were the front 3? Well, turns out when I looked higher up the pitch, they were all within a meter of each other in the CF position. None of them decided they should drop back to support the midfield and link play into attack and all of them were guilty of taking up positions where they step on each others toes, never mind making it easy for the Malaga defence to contain them. This highlights the disjoint in our side as well as the cluelessness of the players. Again, Allegri may desire free flowing movements of players who can take on responsibility, but the reality is the players need specific direction so that they're forced to take on responsibility in supporting the midfield and linking play into attack (something Boateng did the last two years but hasn't done this).
In the same instance, we're suffering in defence as we can't find the balance in our game. If we push high we're vulnerable on the counter, if we drop deep then like last night our opponents play in front of us and usually find the gap to exploit our weaknesses (last night it was Constant and Acerbi performing poorly and the flatness of our backline making it easy to break the offside). In previous years, we would press higher but then have Nesta and/or Thiago Silva at the back to slow down/prevent counters. This year we don't have players of that quality who can do that. Also, if we dropped back to defend too deep last year, then players like Nesta and Van Bommel would urge the midfield forward to press higher, but Ambro doesn't do this and himself often gets caught into the defensive line (despite being tactically more intelligent than those around him). Again, the principle failure is that the players aren't taking up correct positions in the system. We need to work more as a unit and in order to do that Allegri must impose a single set system which the players can understand and implement.
Finally, my issue is the way we press. Players don't move across when teammates shuffle to support wider players. This happened a lot last night. You would have a wide Malaga player on the ball with one wide midfielder challenging him with the rest in a line of four, looking like...
--DS---Montolivo---Ambro---Constant--
---------------------------Opponent--
In this instance, you'd see a midfielder, in this case Ambro coming across to support Constant. However, there would usually be two failures when this happens. One is Montolivo wouldn't shuffle across to cover the gap left by Ambro and the other is Ambro would cover the wrong side of the wideman, giving him space to play a square ball into the space he's left, with the player receiving getting a chance to run through. This would mean the play would often look like this...
-----------------------^-----------------
--DS--Montolivo-----|------Constant--
----------------Opponent---Opponent--
------------------------Ambro-----------
* The second opponent has an arrow above to show the space he'd move into.
Ambro's positioning is ok if Montolivo comes across and covers the gap, but yesterday this wasn't happening.
All in all, we've got problems, but there's one fundamental problem with the way Allegri's going about his job (albeit in an ideal world he's trying to do the right thing). Ultimately, he's trying to teach abstract concepts and a philosophy to the players so that he can play them on the pitch as a unit without teams able to counter them effectively as they have no set way of playing. The only team that have managed anything like this are Barca under Pep, but they played based on a philosophy which the club adopted for the past 15-20 years with 3/4 of the side's players brought up playing with this philosophy since they were in the youth set up and were technically one of the greatest sides ever, meaning they had the skill set to be flexible. Even then, I don't think Pep ever fully realised this ideal as he's had major headaches trying to change his system over the last couple of years. To me, given the limitations of his players as well as them being quite frankly stupid, Allegri must adopt a set gameplan where the emphasis is on the team's unity to build from.
Dev, that's very interesting point you made there. I am also concerned with the comment made by Allegri that he would teach the players a "concept" rather than a fixed system. An analogy would be to teach them "fishing" rather than "fish". Allegri must have forgot about the (much) lower quality of our current players. Going back to the "fishing" vs "fish" story, our current players are just like some kids who could not even hold still a fishing rod. Teaching them "fishing" may sound like a good idea but the kids would be starved to death before they could catch any fish. Maybe Allegri should feed them fish (play in fixed system) and let them grow stronger first (grinding out some positive results, gaining some confidence), before thinking of teaching them how to fish (more freedom on the field, for example, Seedorf with the freedom of not doing anything except for sending a few killer pass whenever he feels like it ).
aka xudong
10-26-2012, 02:46 PM
(This post was last modified: 10-26-2012, 04:44 PM by ACMILAN1983.)
If the players are intelligent then he could maybe pull off something good, but truth is I don't really think we have a group with footballing intelligence.
btw, there's one thing I forget to go over in my big post match post. The players are spending way too much time on the ball. Part of this is the lack of proper coordination through the side, but players have to stop holding the ball unnecessarily and keep it moving more frequently. We really need to work on this, as it slows our play as much as our lack of organisation. The other benefit is playing with a better rhythm, something which seems non-existent right now.
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