Dark Savante
22 Jan 2007, 07:10 AM
You’ve just had a taster of how we will go out of Europe this year.
The formation, the tactics and the absolute lack of leadership in the captain being asked to implement these ideas on the pitch, will see us stuffed.
We don’t have the personnel to play the way the manager seems to want for these big games. Tucking Giggs in and placing Rooney out on the flanks reduces not one, but four! of our best attacking players. Rooney is nowhere near as comfortable or effective out wide as he is in the ‘hole.’ Giggs cannot play through the middle in big games like the latter satges of the CL or big 4 PL games. I’ve said it on numerous occasion that we should put Giggs on the LW and use him for the 60-70 minutes he can contribute there rather than put him central, have him be half as effective whilst playing the full 90.
There is no doubt we put Rooney out wide because of his stamina, pace/power and defensive abilities – he becomes an industrious player.. is that what we’d want Rooney to be? An industrious, reliable layman? I think not. He is a creator, an attacker, one who should be used to draw defensive players towards him and pull central defensive schematics all over the place – out wide he has no fantasy, he will run, he will work, he will cross and get the odd shot in, but he does not think like a winger and he does not have that forward-thinking/running a traditional winger has – one who is looking to take on his man and get further and further down the touchline – you’ll see Rooney do that maybe once a game, if you’re lucky. Note. None of this is a criticism of the player, he is a SS by trade, just as with 95% of players, using him outside of his nominal position will see his powers decrease – you wouldn’t pay £30m for Wayne Rooney the winger..
The same goes for Giggs in reverse. He is a winger, or a wing forward – he is an expert in both positions. If you play him at CM or SS you’re getting a decent player – you are not getting Ryan Giggs LOTW – what’s more not one, but two players become frustrated and restricted in the attacking sense. Rooney’s running in the middle is usually devastating. He has the positional and spatial awareness of a veteran.. through the middle of the pitch we can say this vis-a-vis Giggs and the flank. All this is sacrificed for the ‘legs’ a young Rooney has over Giggs to track back for the entire 90. I’d much rather see Giggs play hard for 60 minutes and come off than stay on for 90 and have nary a true run at a man – Giggs is not central dribbler so it’s rare to see him run straight through the heart of a team, we lose a lot of his cunning when he is played in the middle. He may no longer have the legs he once did and he’s not going to skin the fastest FB’s anymore, but what he can do when on the flanks is twist and turn and jink and cut in and out to his hearts content. After all, he is still incredibly hard to dispossess as his base flank dribbling skills are probably better now then they were in his prime. Writing this in text actually dulls some of the edge off of it… seeing this manifest on the pitch (for both of them) brings it home with a certain oomph, like being punched in the gut and winded.
The other two players deeply affected in these big games when the tactics and formation we used yesterday are implemented are Ronaldo and the CF, in this case Larrson. As I said in the Run-in thread; Ronaldo is no conventional winger – every flaw in his game is exposed in games of this magnitude where he is used as one because of what’s at stake and the sheer attacking quality the opposing sides have in games of this calibre. Ronaldo does not want to work the wing for 90 minutes. He wants to interact with the central core, receive and cut infield or, go wherever he wants. He has and will never be a conventional winger, one who can run down the touchline and supply cross after cross like a Downing or Pennant etc will do. In any scenario where Ronaldo has the choice of running the flank and putting in a first time cross or running the touchline, cutting in-field and interacting with the central core or taking shot he will chose the 2nd option. A conventional winger will always look to work his flank first and foremost. A conventional winger will always look up whilst flying down the wing because his main (and in many cases, only) objective is to whip a cross in whilst the opposing CB’s are facing their own goal. A conventional winger will always support his FB in defence. This is what they’ve been taught since they were 8, 9 10 yrs old. It’s not even a point of being able to spot the dangers, rather, an automated response that has been coached into them – Ronaldo does not have this and he will frequently leave his FB exposed and isolated. Evra bore the brunt of this yesterday as many times Ronaldo could be seen jogging back when the dual wing-attack was on leaving Evra in all kinds of trouble and often resultant in a cross being flashed across our box – one of which Henry headed straight at our keeper where he should scored. None of these things are Ronaldo’s fault. We modified our game a great deal this season to allow him the freedom that has made him so unique, so much of a goal-scoring threat – there is no winger about to score 13goals in a league campaign that hasn’t even ended playing conventionally. – but in the big games PL or Europe respectively the creative licence and the freedom cannot be so readily afforded. If Ronaldo goes walkabouts in a big game we cannot recompense defensively. Our schematic and shape is momentarily comprised, which is why you will not see Ronaldo ‘all over the place’ in the biggest games unless we set the team up with him and that in mind to the point where a midfielder is his water carrier as is the case with Portugal. Basically Ronaldo is told to hold his flank. He is uncomfortable doing that as he was never raised as a winger, in turn this reduces his game to that of a cameo where we are used to Ronaldo of this season being everywhere and scoring all kinds of goals and being right in the thick of the action centrally it’ll be rare you see that Ronaldo in these big games unless we play a system with him as the figurehead. There is no doubt at all (for me) that in huge games Ronaldo must be used as a WF in a 4-3-3, with next to no defence responsibilities nor the paying of duty in having to hug a touchline. It is often stated that it is the pace of opposing FB’s that stuffs Ronaldo in such games. That is not the case. The conventions of trying to play as a traditional winger are aspects Ronaldo is simply not comfortable with and as he doesn’t want to ‘merely’ run the line and cross and frequently looks to interact with the over-lapper for him (the FB) to cross or for said over-lapper to receive and then give him back the ball as he (Ron) cuts in-field. If you put Ronaldo in a 4-3-3 and allow him to run free, many of these pace vs. pace scenarios don’t even take place because then the FB has to worry about him cutting inside a lot more, which forces the FB into positions he doesn’t want to be. In a pacey FB vs. Ronaldo playing as a conventional winger expected to supply crosses as his main objective, Ronaldo is linear and way easy to read than he is when free to do what he wants. This plays a huge part in why he can sometimes look ‘not at his best’ when used conventionally.
And finally the CF. It doesn’t matter who it is, when we play our ‘big game system’ the CF will be isolated for huge passages of a game. Giggs doesn’t know how to support a CF for 90 minutes and Rooney being out wide a mile away from the central action means that our only player who really could support the CF is not in a position to do so. Yesterday Larrson was the fall-guy to this, he rarely got a sniff of the action. He had nary a shot on goal as he wasn’t supplied. And as you have not one but both of our flanks ‘flanked’ by wide men who aren’t comfortable playing conventionally, there are no crosses, at all. The Cf has nothing to feed off of. The opposing back-line can get very comfortable knowing that 8 times out of 10 there will be no cross coming in the immediacy of the first wave of attack. Our 2nd wave (the FB’s) are expected to supply the crosses – do you know how hard it is for them to overlap, get down the pitch and supply meaningful crosses in games where they have so much defensive responsibility? This goes for the FB’s on both teams. Next big game we play, just count how many times it is possible over the 90 as opposed to a smaller game where we can camp in the oppo half. The times it happens it usually means the first flanker has conceded space and allowed the FB to come on to him – either through tactical instruction, fear or a piece of brilliant play from the FB in question – it’s usually one of the first two…rarely the 3rd.
Beings as we are an attacking team, one that is really not comfortable trying to hold out for a lead nor one who can switch well from our attacking instinct to one where we invite the enemy on to us, we rely on our attack firing and firing well in the big games. To do this they have to be optimised. Until we sort that out (which I don’t think we’ll do this season) we are going to get ‘surprisingly’ stuffed time and again. One of the ways to optimise is obviously our fabled 4-4-2, but this is never going to be used in these games – I refer you to To 4-4-2? (http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=440591) people. Please don’t hold your breath waiting for our 4-4-2 in these games.. ironically we don’t have the personal for it, as strange as that sounds.
This thread isn’t a knee-jerk to the game yesterday, nor is us going out of Europe something I’m saying out of the blue; I’ve been saying the same thing since the window closed. It’s more of an observation and a prediction of sorts… when we go out of Europe, I expect it to be because our attack misfires under these conditions and the lack of attacking impetus to give the oppo who beat us the platform to really get at our back-line. I also think this system we play will always suggest we’ll try to sit on a one goal lead and won’t hunt for the 2nd that kills the game. We don’t have the personnel to sit in our own half like that.
What I suggest is that we use Fletcher, yes Fletcher in the next big game and sacrifice Giggs if we aren’t going to put him on the wing anyway. As per the Ronaldo paragraph, putting Fletcher (a runner) behind him will allow him to play ‘free’ and until we get our busy-body new signing (be it Hargreaves or whoever) who will do the same job, but better and with more oomph, Fletcher is perfect for these games, well, he’s certainly the most excitable and harrying of all the midfielders at the club. Just as Essien completely freed up Robben (who is an awful defender) last season for Chelsea and allowed him to attack as he wanted, we need to follow a similar template with the runner we have (Fletcher) as we really lack the energy in the midfield to drive hard in these games where we can’t dominate possession like we do against most teams outside the big 4, where we set-up camp in their half and take it from there.. We are one man away from being a complete side who can vary enough to take on all-comers. Right now, within camp, we may have the components, but whether they will be used right… I doubt it. I expect us to go out of Europe on the same principles as noted this season. If it helps us to win the league I won’t be too disappointed :)
The formation, the tactics and the absolute lack of leadership in the captain being asked to implement these ideas on the pitch, will see us stuffed.
We don’t have the personnel to play the way the manager seems to want for these big games. Tucking Giggs in and placing Rooney out on the flanks reduces not one, but four! of our best attacking players. Rooney is nowhere near as comfortable or effective out wide as he is in the ‘hole.’ Giggs cannot play through the middle in big games like the latter satges of the CL or big 4 PL games. I’ve said it on numerous occasion that we should put Giggs on the LW and use him for the 60-70 minutes he can contribute there rather than put him central, have him be half as effective whilst playing the full 90.
There is no doubt we put Rooney out wide because of his stamina, pace/power and defensive abilities – he becomes an industrious player.. is that what we’d want Rooney to be? An industrious, reliable layman? I think not. He is a creator, an attacker, one who should be used to draw defensive players towards him and pull central defensive schematics all over the place – out wide he has no fantasy, he will run, he will work, he will cross and get the odd shot in, but he does not think like a winger and he does not have that forward-thinking/running a traditional winger has – one who is looking to take on his man and get further and further down the touchline – you’ll see Rooney do that maybe once a game, if you’re lucky. Note. None of this is a criticism of the player, he is a SS by trade, just as with 95% of players, using him outside of his nominal position will see his powers decrease – you wouldn’t pay £30m for Wayne Rooney the winger..
The same goes for Giggs in reverse. He is a winger, or a wing forward – he is an expert in both positions. If you play him at CM or SS you’re getting a decent player – you are not getting Ryan Giggs LOTW – what’s more not one, but two players become frustrated and restricted in the attacking sense. Rooney’s running in the middle is usually devastating. He has the positional and spatial awareness of a veteran.. through the middle of the pitch we can say this vis-a-vis Giggs and the flank. All this is sacrificed for the ‘legs’ a young Rooney has over Giggs to track back for the entire 90. I’d much rather see Giggs play hard for 60 minutes and come off than stay on for 90 and have nary a true run at a man – Giggs is not central dribbler so it’s rare to see him run straight through the heart of a team, we lose a lot of his cunning when he is played in the middle. He may no longer have the legs he once did and he’s not going to skin the fastest FB’s anymore, but what he can do when on the flanks is twist and turn and jink and cut in and out to his hearts content. After all, he is still incredibly hard to dispossess as his base flank dribbling skills are probably better now then they were in his prime. Writing this in text actually dulls some of the edge off of it… seeing this manifest on the pitch (for both of them) brings it home with a certain oomph, like being punched in the gut and winded.
The other two players deeply affected in these big games when the tactics and formation we used yesterday are implemented are Ronaldo and the CF, in this case Larrson. As I said in the Run-in thread; Ronaldo is no conventional winger – every flaw in his game is exposed in games of this magnitude where he is used as one because of what’s at stake and the sheer attacking quality the opposing sides have in games of this calibre. Ronaldo does not want to work the wing for 90 minutes. He wants to interact with the central core, receive and cut infield or, go wherever he wants. He has and will never be a conventional winger, one who can run down the touchline and supply cross after cross like a Downing or Pennant etc will do. In any scenario where Ronaldo has the choice of running the flank and putting in a first time cross or running the touchline, cutting in-field and interacting with the central core or taking shot he will chose the 2nd option. A conventional winger will always look to work his flank first and foremost. A conventional winger will always look up whilst flying down the wing because his main (and in many cases, only) objective is to whip a cross in whilst the opposing CB’s are facing their own goal. A conventional winger will always support his FB in defence. This is what they’ve been taught since they were 8, 9 10 yrs old. It’s not even a point of being able to spot the dangers, rather, an automated response that has been coached into them – Ronaldo does not have this and he will frequently leave his FB exposed and isolated. Evra bore the brunt of this yesterday as many times Ronaldo could be seen jogging back when the dual wing-attack was on leaving Evra in all kinds of trouble and often resultant in a cross being flashed across our box – one of which Henry headed straight at our keeper where he should scored. None of these things are Ronaldo’s fault. We modified our game a great deal this season to allow him the freedom that has made him so unique, so much of a goal-scoring threat – there is no winger about to score 13goals in a league campaign that hasn’t even ended playing conventionally. – but in the big games PL or Europe respectively the creative licence and the freedom cannot be so readily afforded. If Ronaldo goes walkabouts in a big game we cannot recompense defensively. Our schematic and shape is momentarily comprised, which is why you will not see Ronaldo ‘all over the place’ in the biggest games unless we set the team up with him and that in mind to the point where a midfielder is his water carrier as is the case with Portugal. Basically Ronaldo is told to hold his flank. He is uncomfortable doing that as he was never raised as a winger, in turn this reduces his game to that of a cameo where we are used to Ronaldo of this season being everywhere and scoring all kinds of goals and being right in the thick of the action centrally it’ll be rare you see that Ronaldo in these big games unless we play a system with him as the figurehead. There is no doubt at all (for me) that in huge games Ronaldo must be used as a WF in a 4-3-3, with next to no defence responsibilities nor the paying of duty in having to hug a touchline. It is often stated that it is the pace of opposing FB’s that stuffs Ronaldo in such games. That is not the case. The conventions of trying to play as a traditional winger are aspects Ronaldo is simply not comfortable with and as he doesn’t want to ‘merely’ run the line and cross and frequently looks to interact with the over-lapper for him (the FB) to cross or for said over-lapper to receive and then give him back the ball as he (Ron) cuts in-field. If you put Ronaldo in a 4-3-3 and allow him to run free, many of these pace vs. pace scenarios don’t even take place because then the FB has to worry about him cutting inside a lot more, which forces the FB into positions he doesn’t want to be. In a pacey FB vs. Ronaldo playing as a conventional winger expected to supply crosses as his main objective, Ronaldo is linear and way easy to read than he is when free to do what he wants. This plays a huge part in why he can sometimes look ‘not at his best’ when used conventionally.
And finally the CF. It doesn’t matter who it is, when we play our ‘big game system’ the CF will be isolated for huge passages of a game. Giggs doesn’t know how to support a CF for 90 minutes and Rooney being out wide a mile away from the central action means that our only player who really could support the CF is not in a position to do so. Yesterday Larrson was the fall-guy to this, he rarely got a sniff of the action. He had nary a shot on goal as he wasn’t supplied. And as you have not one but both of our flanks ‘flanked’ by wide men who aren’t comfortable playing conventionally, there are no crosses, at all. The Cf has nothing to feed off of. The opposing back-line can get very comfortable knowing that 8 times out of 10 there will be no cross coming in the immediacy of the first wave of attack. Our 2nd wave (the FB’s) are expected to supply the crosses – do you know how hard it is for them to overlap, get down the pitch and supply meaningful crosses in games where they have so much defensive responsibility? This goes for the FB’s on both teams. Next big game we play, just count how many times it is possible over the 90 as opposed to a smaller game where we can camp in the oppo half. The times it happens it usually means the first flanker has conceded space and allowed the FB to come on to him – either through tactical instruction, fear or a piece of brilliant play from the FB in question – it’s usually one of the first two…rarely the 3rd.
Beings as we are an attacking team, one that is really not comfortable trying to hold out for a lead nor one who can switch well from our attacking instinct to one where we invite the enemy on to us, we rely on our attack firing and firing well in the big games. To do this they have to be optimised. Until we sort that out (which I don’t think we’ll do this season) we are going to get ‘surprisingly’ stuffed time and again. One of the ways to optimise is obviously our fabled 4-4-2, but this is never going to be used in these games – I refer you to To 4-4-2? (http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=440591) people. Please don’t hold your breath waiting for our 4-4-2 in these games.. ironically we don’t have the personal for it, as strange as that sounds.
This thread isn’t a knee-jerk to the game yesterday, nor is us going out of Europe something I’m saying out of the blue; I’ve been saying the same thing since the window closed. It’s more of an observation and a prediction of sorts… when we go out of Europe, I expect it to be because our attack misfires under these conditions and the lack of attacking impetus to give the oppo who beat us the platform to really get at our back-line. I also think this system we play will always suggest we’ll try to sit on a one goal lead and won’t hunt for the 2nd that kills the game. We don’t have the personnel to sit in our own half like that.
What I suggest is that we use Fletcher, yes Fletcher in the next big game and sacrifice Giggs if we aren’t going to put him on the wing anyway. As per the Ronaldo paragraph, putting Fletcher (a runner) behind him will allow him to play ‘free’ and until we get our busy-body new signing (be it Hargreaves or whoever) who will do the same job, but better and with more oomph, Fletcher is perfect for these games, well, he’s certainly the most excitable and harrying of all the midfielders at the club. Just as Essien completely freed up Robben (who is an awful defender) last season for Chelsea and allowed him to attack as he wanted, we need to follow a similar template with the runner we have (Fletcher) as we really lack the energy in the midfield to drive hard in these games where we can’t dominate possession like we do against most teams outside the big 4, where we set-up camp in their half and take it from there.. We are one man away from being a complete side who can vary enough to take on all-comers. Right now, within camp, we may have the components, but whether they will be used right… I doubt it. I expect us to go out of Europe on the same principles as noted this season. If it helps us to win the league I won’t be too disappointed :)