Football: Attempting to stay ahead (in your) City.

[Spockydog]

8 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

When did we start referring to positions by number? 

We've been doing that since I was a boy. However, whilst I'm fully aware of what a number 10 is, I have no idea what a 6 or an 8 is. 

ETA: Maybe an 8 is a false 7, or perhaps a bogus 6. Who the hell knows? 

 

[ljkeane]

I’m guessing they mean 6 to be defensive central midfielder rather than centre back.

[Consigliere]

From my understanding, #6 usually refers to the the deepest lying midfielder and #8 the box-to-box midfielder. Of course, player attributes determines what role the player actually performs. For instance, Jorginho is the #6 at Chelsea this season whereas Kante was the #6 last season but they are completely different types of #6's. Still using Chelsea as an example, Kante this season is playing in a more advanced #8 role but is still the more defensive minded of the two #8's which gives Kovacic/Barkley the licence to remain in advanced attacking positions. 

[mormont]

37 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

When did we start referring to positions by number? 

Decades ago?

I can't remember a time when people didn't talk about certain kinds of strikers as 'a typical number 9'.

[Rorshach]

Tbf, back in those days, the shirts were numbered 1-11 for the starting 11, with each number more or less equating the player's position.

[Mme Erzulie]

I felt like the formation was partly what gave Arsenal the upper hand for large parts of yesterday's game. The three in the middle often looked stretched and/or outnumbered, and the front three weren't involved enough in general play to offset that disadvantage. Arsenal also found a worrying amount of space out wide throughout.

We also rode our luck at times in our first half, with Arsenal's left side repeatedly overloading Trent, who had one of his shakier games in a while, and who was left to his own devices by a Salah whose backtracking is half-hearted at best. TAA is still prone to poor decision-making and sometimes shows his lack of experience defensively (but he's twenty, so that's to be expected), but he still offers a lot going forward. 

As far as Salah is concerned, it was really frustrating watching him yesterday. He still does many things well, and got into good positions, but his passing has been woeful at times this season, and that was certainly the case against Arsenal. He's also guilty of holding on to the ball for too long, and only playing the "correct" pass too late.

A little dismayed that Klopp always leaves his substitutes so late. Shaqiri got five minutes (and kept Gudmundsson on the bench for my Fantasy team), and I would have loved to see Sturridge come on at '75 instead of Matip at '89 (or whenever he was subbed on). Our attack is currently not clicking, and we have (at least) two hungry and in-form offensive players on the bench. I wish they'd get more of a chance to prove themselves.

[BigFatCoward]

37 minutes ago, mormont said:

Decades ago?

I can't remember a time when people didn't talk about certain kinds of strikers as 'a typical number 9'.

Number 9 I get, but 10, 6, false 9? Why?

[mormont]

19 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

Number 9 I get, but 10, 6, false 9? Why?

It's a useful shorthand. It can be taken too far, but it's generally how people have talked about football tactics since, well, ever. Position numbers exist for this very reason, in fact.

[BigFatCoward]

Never heard it in my life, and I've played to a decent standard (apart from I hated tackling, heading the ball, chasing back, and playing in the cold). You say left back not '3', in fact apart from 1,2,3,5,6,9 the rest of the numbers mean fuck all regarding position.

[mormont]

13 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

Never heard it in my life, and I've played to a decent standard (apart from I hated tackling, heading the ball, chasing back, and playing in the cold). You say left back not '3', in fact apart from 1,2,3,5,6,9 the rest of the numbers mean fuck all regarding position.

By the same token, the term 'full back' doesn't mean anything either, because full-backs don't play at full-back any more. (And centre-halfs don't play at centre-half.)

But originally, the numbering system was simple: 1 in goal, then 2 and 3 in defence, then 4, 5 and 6 in midfield, then 7 to 11 across the front line. That was the formation everyone played, so the numbers and positions were interchangeable.

[ljkeane]

So Andros Townsend does have a right foot after all.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Well, 6 is (at least in my understanding) the deep(est) lying midfielder, the classical 6er is your defensive responsible workhorse in midfield, that hopefully wins the ball and closes holes (think of Chelsea's Kante). It's a bit of the link between defense and midfield. That position has evolved quite a bit, as a good player on the six will provide a bit more in terms of playmaking these days.

8 is a box-to-box midfielder.

10 is your traditional playmaker (think of Özil at Arsenal or de Bruyne at City), that's (unfortunately) a bit of a dying breed.

9 is your classical goalscorer or poacher upfront. Fake 9 is this playmaking forward type, who is less of the finisher himself and more of a creator himself (compared to the classical 9).

Oh, and for completeness sake. 1 is your starting goalkeeper.

 

Edit: In other news. Top of the league.

[Consigliere]

Fuck me, 11 games in and City with a +29 GD. Best attack (without KdB even) and best defence in the league. Wouldn't surprise me if they break their own points record. We've got no chance against them next week and will do well to avoid a hammering by four or five. 

[Iskaral Pust]

Bad weekend for Liverpool, losing ground to everyone.  I was busy all of yesterday and didn’t get to watch the match but it sounds like we had a trifecta of disappointments: we didn’t play great, we had a legitimate second goal disallowed and we conceded a late equalizer when we weren’t under much pressure. 

Fabinho showed why Klopp was reluctant to use him yet against stronger opposition and TAA showed why Klopp would have had him on the bench if Lovren had not been injured.  TAA is now our weakest link by some distance and opposing managers are targeting him — but most of the fans still view him as unstoppable because he’s a local lad.  Hopefully he can develop again and improve.  

I saw a stat that Coutinho (12), Ox (8) and Can (6) had contributed the most goals from MF last season, which we can all see in the sterile play of our MF so far. 

[Mark Antony]

Fabinho has gotten a lot of shit for that performance yesterday but I didn’t think he was that bad? Broke up play well enough. His passing wasn’t as sharp as his first two starts but that’s to be expected in such an intense game. TAA was pretty dreadful though if we had to single someone out. Also thinking back that was one of Ginis invisible away performances. Had no influence on the game at all. Just found it weird how much stick Fabinho has gotten compared to other players.

City and Chelsea both playing great football at the moment. 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Just now, Consigliere said:

Fuck me, 11 games in and City with a +29 GD. Best attack (without KdB even) and best defence in the league. Wouldn't surprise me if they break their own points record. We've got no chance against them next week and will do well to avoid a hammering by four or five.  

Tall order for them to get 100+ points, but definately doable for them. But that's why they are the heavy favorites to win the league, and were so pre-season.

Just lean back and enjoy the show - that's what I did during Guardiola's Bundesliga reign, admittedly, I did and do not support any top tier teams, so for me it was easier to lay back and laugh at the teams getting hammered most of the time. It was either that or bemoan the boredom.

[ljkeane]

2 hours ago, Mark Antony said:

Fabinho has gotten a lot of shit for that performance yesterday but I didn’t think he was that bad? Broke up play well enough. His passing wasn’t as sharp as his first two starts but that’s to be expected in such an intense game.

I didn't watch much of the game live and the passing of a holding midfielder isn't something that features heavily in highlights packages so I can't comment on his actual performance yesterday but isn't that kind of what people are concerned about with Fabinho? With Klopp's style of play quick progressions through midfield are fairly key, Fabinho was supposed to represent a significant upgrade on that front and we really haven't seen it yet.

I'm not a fan of jumping to conclusions too quickly about players, it's entirely possible Fabinho will still turn out to be really good, but I think most Liverpool fans were hoping the money spent in midfield would result in an immediate improvement like we've seen with Van Dijk in defence. That's not really been the case with either Fabinho or Keita so far.

[Consigliere]

1 hour ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Just lean back and enjoy the show - that's what I did during Guardiola's Bundesliga reign, admittedly, I did and do not support any top tier teams, so for me it was easier to lay back and laugh at the teams getting hammered most of the time. It was either that or bemoan the boredom.

Given the financial muscle in the EPL, he might face a bit more competition especially if Klopp, Sarri and Emery continue to improve their respective teams. Those managers have the best chance to compete with Guardiola because of their style of play as well as the quality of players and financial resources at their disposal (much moreso than the chasing pack had in Germany). 

The absolute worst thing the opposition can do against a Guardiola team is park the bus. The overwhelming majority of Guardiola's time as a manager, he's had to face teams playing with 10 men behind the ball and his system is tailor-made for breaking down a low block. That tactic rarely works against a Guardiola team which is why a manager like Mourinho has a very poor record against him while Klopp has a good one. 

I don't include Poch because Levy will never give him the necessary funds to get to the next level and with their wage structure and stadium debt they might be losing some key players down the line. Poch probably ends up at Real Madrid anyway. United will not improve under Mourinho but the club has much deeper problems as the entire football structure has been a shambles since the departures of Ferguson and Gill. 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

6 minutes ago, Consigliere said:

The absolute worst thing the opposition can do against a Guardiola team is park the bus. The overwhelming majority of Guardiola's time as a manager, he's had to face teams playing with 10 men behind the ball and his system is tailor-made for breaking down a low block. That tactic rarely works against a Guardiola team which is why a manager like Mourinho has a very poor record against him while Klopp has a good one. 

Yes, but the problem is, less than a handful of teams in the EPL that are able to go toe to toe with City. If the other teams try that they are most likely in for a rough ride, with City just running the score board. I wonder when the first EPL team will take an approach Frankfurt used against Bayern back then. Basically, double defensive full backs, plus an extra centreback, and abandon any idea of an active matchplan of their own. That was really funny and dreadful to watch at the same time. They managed to get the 0-0 in the end, btw. that game really annoyed the Bayern players.

Anyway, with the three clubs you mentioned (Pool, Chelski Arsenal) that leaves like 30 fixtures which they are very likely to win each season. Which puts them at 90 points.

 

[Jordan La Cabra]

Another positive display from Chelsea. We started slowly but began to control the game soon after. A defensive error from David Luiz left Townsend clean through to score.

Our problem, defensively, is that, while we don't offer teams many chances to score against us, the ones we do offer them tend to be very good chances, from which they are likely to score. That comes, clearly, from playing a high defensive line - something these players aren't used to. I remember when AVB tried to introduce a high line it was nearly unheard of at the club. The players failed to adapt to it, especially David Luiz. 

I think this is why Sarri still looks at us as a work in progress, despite the positive start to the season. The players have taken to the idea of playing a possession based style of play like ducks to water. Effectively, this is the style the players have been itching to play for years, so it should have been no surprise that they would relish the opportunity and adapt to his methods quickly. However, as they have been used to more pragmatic, counter attacking style managers in Mourinho and Conte, who prefer them to defend deep and contain teams, it should also be no surprise that the switchover to a high line is causing them some problems at the back.

Arsenal gave us the biggest test so far, but Man United troubled Chelsea's backline in the second half of their recent fixture. At the moment, our back line is going to give away chances, especially against teams that counter attack well and look to go down our left hand side, where Hazard rarely tracks back, where the most attacking of our midfielders usually plays (Kovacic, Barkley or Loftus-Cheek), and where Marcos Alonso leaves space, as he spends most of his time in the opposition half.

It could end up being a bit like Man City's first season under Guardiola. They started very well, but struggled badly against strong counter attacking teams - particularly Conte's Chelsea.

I'm probably most impressed with the fact we have scored so many goals - second only to Man City for goals scored. Last season, we really struggled to score, particularly when Morata's form dipped off. Until about November / December last season, I thought we looked like the second best team in the league, but when the goals dried up, we turned to mush. 

Morata has done really well to find his scoring boots again. His is very much a confidence player, and, at the moment, he looks confident. Holding the ball up and playing with his back to goal isn't his strength; playing on the shoulder of the defender and making clever runs in behind is. One thing about Morata, even when he was in poor form, is that he gets chances to score. He has a knack for finding the right place to be in, and we need to play to that.

I wonder if Morata has played better the past two games as Hazard didn't play against Burnley and didn't start against Crystal Palace. Hazard did set up Morata's second yesterday, though it was from a set-piece rather than a passage of play. Hazard seems to have a better understanding with Giroud, though, as Giroud is the more 'traditional number 9' (sorry, BFC!). Giroud has the ability to bring Hazard into play and create more chances for him to score (he has assisted Hazard for 3 goals this season, I think).

This is our joint third best start to a Premier League season in terms of points, but with Man City playing the way they are, it is hard to consider Chelsea a true title contender.