Football: A Blizzard of Games

[polishgenius]

This plan by Bielsa against this team of ours was absolute madness.

[ljkeane]

This is always Bielsa’s plan, there’s some variation in exactly how they set up but he always throws loads of players forward. The only question is whether Leeds take the chances they create or not.

[polishgenius]

3 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

This is always Bielsa’s plan,

I know

But you gotta modulate. Pressing hard on Bruno Fernandes is just too much risk. And they're pushing up on the FBs too, trying to intercept the passes out to Shaw, which is working to an extent, they've won possession there a few times, but means more space for Fred and McTominay to break and support Bruno.

[Soylent Brown]

United's plan seems solid - knowing Leeds like to have 7 goals in their games, they've rushed ahead and gobbled up 4, meaning Leeds can no longer win.

[ljkeane]

I mean, yeah, giving United so much space to counter into isn’t the ideal way to play them but throwing a, frankly, crazy looking number of players forward is their thing. It’s high risk but it’s also why they’re so good in attack. They’ve conceded four but they could easily have scored three.

ETA: What I would say is Leeds have conceded a couple of goals that have nothing to do with Bielsa choosing a high risk, high reward system. The set piece goal and counter off Rodrigo’s loose pass. They almost just did it again. 

But hey Rafinha almost scored too.

[The Sunland Lord]

For what qualities is Bielsa being praised by some people? Genuine question.

[polishgenius]

1 minute ago, The Sunland Lord said:

For what qualities is Bielsa being praised by some people? Genuine question.

Some people? More like basically everyone connected to the game. He's an incredible manager, gets his teams playing a really exciting style and usually outperforming expectations, known for intense preparation both on the training ground and in scouting and planning. He doesn't usually get the top jobs because he's a little too intense and extreme for risk-averse clubs and there is a risk of burnout over a season too, but he's an influence on the top guys - Pep and Pocchetino wouldn't be who they are without him and you can see his influence on Klopp as well.

Just today, and it will happen when he's this insistent on high-risk football, he got it wrong and got hammered.

[Consigliere]

Now that was a class game. We played some great football and so did Leeds. A tonic from the snoozefest that Spurs/Leicester served up. We were always going to get loads of counterattacking opportunities. In hindsight one could argue that Bielsa should have been more conservative but he has never been that type of manager. Bielsa is one of the more hardliners when it comes to his philosophy on how his team should play. He isn't going to significantly alter his gameplan regardless of the opposition. It's always going to be high risk and sometimes Leeds are going to get punished for it like today.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

54 minutes ago, Consigliere said:

Now that was a class game. We played some great football and so did Leeds. A tonic from the snoozefest that Spurs/Leicester served up. We were always going to get loads of counterattacking opportunities. In hindsight one could argue that Bielsa should have been more conservative but he has never been that type of manager. Bielsa is one of the more hardliners when it comes to his philosophy on how his team should play. He isn't going to significantly alter his gameplan regardless of the opposition. It's always going to be high risk and sometimes Leeds are going to get punished for it like today.

WRT to the Leicester/Spurs game. Predictably so. I mean, those are basically two counter attacking teams. When nothing's on offer, you get nothing. Neither team is exactly great when being forced to create something.

[Consigliere]

3 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

WRT to the Leicester/Spurs game. Predictably so. I mean, those are basically two counter attacking teams. When nothing's on offer, you get nothing. Neither team is exactly great when being forced to create something.

Leicester were actually playing on the front foot in the first half and trying to create something while Spurs parked the bus and hoped for some individual magic from Kane and Son which never came. The game might have been even more dull if not for Aurier's idiocy in giving away a silly penalty at the end of the half. That forced Spurs to come out and actually play a bit of football in the 2nd half. Up to that point it looked like Spurs were quite happy to play for a 0-0 draw at home against Leicester.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Yeah, but the end product of Leicester's creation attempts was rather meh, before Aurier's idiocy. There was like one Vardy chance I think. While Spurs really produced absolutely nothing, or in Mourinho speak, dominated the game.

[polishgenius]

To be fair Leicester are by no means a pure counter-attacking side these days. They're still effective at it because of Vardy, but their focus is short-passing possession play down the middle to create space for the wide players/fullbacks to run into - bear in mind their forwards/mids behind Vardy are usually some combination of Tielemans, Barnes, Perez and Praet (though Albrighton was in today having been freed of emergency FB/WB duties, also not a pace merchant) . So really Spurs allowed them to be doing exactly what they wanted to be doing, they were just so negative that Leicester didn't have a lot to go off and Madison is no Grealish/Bruno in that 10 role to create things from completely nothing. But they still won comfortably.
 

Just because I mentioned Grealish, here's a little response to Soylent's questioning of his creativity from open play this season.

[Soylent Brown]

Fair enough. Perhaps he was having a rare selfish day in the game I watched the other week. He's still a diving shitbag, mind!

[kairparavel]

When I hear the name Jack Grealish I always think of this guy:

 

That's all I got. Except how does Big Sam have a job instead of a lifetime ban? Along with the corruption he seems like a gangster straight out of a Guy Ritchie movie. 

[polishgenius]

9 hours ago, Soylent Brown said:

Fair enough. Perhaps he was having a rare selfish day in the game I watched the other week. He's still a diving shitbag, mind!

I won't dispute that last part. As a player he's fantastic but he's a chode.

To be fair to you Grealish does pass less than the other top creators because for him it's the run and not the through-pass that breaks the line. So he does look like selfish when a run doesn't come off and awful if it doesn't come off for the whole game, but when it does he's taken three players out the game. Bit like with Bruno and his risky passing- sometimes infuriating but I'd take him any day over Mata and his lovely 95% backwards-and-sideways possession rates.

It's given me simultaneously a new appreciation for and a new frustration with what Steven Gerrard used to do, watching Bruno.

[Consigliere]

 

[polishgenius]

33 minutes ago, Consigliere said:

 

Fuck

[BigFatCoward]

1 hour ago, polishgenius said:

Fuck

Of course its two of the better players. This message about how its impacting proffeseional athletes should be all over the news. 

[AncalagonTheBlack]

Atalanta winger Amad Diallo set to seal £27m move to Manchester United.18-year-old set to fly to England in early January - https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/dec/21/atalanta-winger-amad-diallo-set-to-seal-27m-move-to-manchester-united

 

 

[polishgenius]

I kinda feel for Diallo coz the price and lack of Sancho mean some fans will be expecting him to slot straight in as a problem-solver in sticky situations, but he's literally played 35 minutes for the Atalanta first team this season. He's being bought as part of the youth-team project and the press are doing nothing to counter the false narrative and point out that we've spent huge loads on players for the future, not just him though he is particularly expensive, which is gonna lead to unfair pressure on both him and on Solskjaer when he inevitabely doesn't even include him in the squad most weeks.