Muswell Hill Gooner wrote:
They played like that all last season when they destroyed the Championship, so yeah.
Clrnc wrote:
That's definitely coaching. A lot of sides with lesser players play better football than us.
Passing out from the back is design to make teams press us and we beat the press with quick passing to open up spaces. That's the entire purpose of putting 2 defenders in the box to entice strikers to come forward into our advance areas. Ajax did it perfectly, Napoli and Betis of previous years love to do this too. Norwich admirably did that even at Anfield trusting their philosophy and actually trouble Liverpool a few times before they conceded the first goal and subsequently collapse.
But our lack of press resistant players has been a problem since Wenger era. We constantly lose the ball and even in possession whenever we encounter any sort of press we pass it back or sideways to safe options. That's exactly what opponent want us to do and so far we haven't been able to play through that. Having players like Ceballos is extremely beneficial as shown this season when he can twist his way pass into space and play our advance players in but as a system we are still lacking by far
None of those players are Ceballos quality but they are doing what Guendouzi/Ceballos don't do and that is pass first time against one of the best teams in the world.
One touch first time passes are all good but not essential to good football. We had that sick move against Fulham too last season, but for most part of the entire season we played like shit. We can't hold possession and we are actually one of the most direct teams in the entire league.
It's hard to even have a philosophy when like what Jones mentioned Emery change formation and personnel every damn week to cater to the opponent. How are the players supposed to gel and have a relationship with their tried and trusted formation? We want to be protagonist but every game we don't have the ball enough, don't shoot enough, let the opponent have as many tries as they want. It's not sustainable this chameleon flexible shit we are trying to have. Top teams don't behave like that. I can understand and was supportive of what he did at Anfield, yesterday was downright embarrassingly small time.
