Clrnc wrote:
Klaus wrote:
A lot has been said of our lack of organisation on the counter where Spurs scored their second, but not enough has been said about the absolute trash pass from Bellerin preceding it that goes five yards behind Aubameyang. I'm watching some highlights and feeling my blood boil. It's basically on for a tap-in and he plays it to a Spurs player instead. How useless can you be?
Spot on. Go have a look at MOTD analysis this for this game, pretty accurate as well.
Our main problem is that our CMs don't take enough responsibility in direct comparison to Hojberg and Lo Celso for example. They constantly pass direct balls into central players (the 3 spurs attacker keep rotating for someone to go short and receive on the half turn in the middle). Once they do that they already bypassed our midfield and open.
We have tons of opportunities to do so, but Xhaka as always don't pass it forward and instead go back or go sideways to fullbacks who are then easily pressured and forced to go back to Leno. Our movement up front is absolutely pathetic, everyone is static so easily marked, no rotation whatsoever. We keep focusing to create space down the flanks to cross which is once again easily defendable.
I think coaching is a big problem, especially attacking patterns.
Clrnc, I said as just during the game at half time but it kind of got lost because of what was happening on the field.
Big Willie wrote:
Klaus wrote:
I'm still not sure what happened on that counter. How did we only have two defenders and two midfielders left against six Spurs players?
It's been so annoying. I been watching the game constantly thinking "ok, we seem to have more players in the attack" but they line up in a straight bank of 4 at the 18 yard line with the fullbacks wide and Xhaka/Partey on the halfway line. The middle is completely empty.
Doesn't matter if we are pushing a lot of people forward (which we did) if no one is dropping into the middle to provide a passing option between the lines. I think there was only a couple moments where Saka dropped in to get the ball and turn and feed into Tierney but other than that dead zone. This leaves us with Xhaka/Partey (who got injured) and the CBs if we lose the ball.
You need those staggered positions in the middle third to provide yourself with passing options as well as to prevent the opposition from passing directly through the middle. Hojberg made a number of straight passes down our throats in the middle of the park to feet that cut out our whole midfield. Didn't amount to much most of the time but it's crazy it's happened so many times in this game.
We don't have bodies in the middle between the lines. Usually that's because of how we line up with men behind the ball or out wide. But this time we actually pushed more and more men forward but still, we lines up with some sort of reverse back 4 with Saka, Laca, Auba and William all lined up in a straight line.
The few times we had men in the middle (who weren't ignored by the likes of Xhaka) receiving the ball on the turn we nearly created some potential opportunities. We need to look for players between the defence and midfield more often and those players need to be able to to more than just pass it straight back to the person who passed the ball.
If we can do that better even our wing play will look a lot better by giving our fullbacks/wingers more opportunities to either get a free run to the byline or at least isolate their man on the flank.
