We have secured the last 16 of the Champions League, but were held to a goalless draw by Brugge and will probably come second, which irritates me because we're second to Atlético. Let's take out our frustrations on Freiburg.
Bürki LP Zagadou Diallo Hakimi Delaney Witsel Sancho Reus Bruun Larsen Götze Bench: Hitz, Toprak, Guerreiro, Weigl, Dahoud, Philipp, Alcacer As others have proposed as well, I too would like to see Philipp getting a chance on the wings again. It would make sense simply for the sake of distributing the workload and keeping the fight for playing time competitive.
1:0 Reus with a penalty. I think Bruun Larsen had a decent game so far. His agility and movement is surprisingly good for someone with his physique. He needs to learn to be smarter in defense, though.
zagadou injured, unable to continue. Torpak coming on. Penalty taken and scored by Reus( as if he would miss)
Goetze is not tall and strong enough to get on the end of crosses. He has no end product. We don't need to play a defensive winger against Freiburg.
Tough game that requires patience. Freiburg could have equalized almost immediately. Hopefully we don't lose control of the game. I think Dahoud and either Alcacer or Philipp will come in. It's hard to create chances when Freiburg has order in defense. Whenever we can attack with pace, it's another story.
True, except the one scene in the penalty box where only the last pass or good finish was missing, his offensive contribution was lacking. But he plays an active role, falls back when needed and had good runs. I also don't see him as a defensive winger. Of all our young wingers, he's the worst defensively. Just like Sancho, he can learn to improve his positioning though.
this feels like the kind of match where we drop points... such a plodding lineup when pace would run through them.. Paco is in at least.
2-0 great build up and unselfishness to put the match away in extra time... not a pretty win but a win..
So Zagadou and Akanji are both injured which is quite the blow. I have no idea how severe the injuries are. The next game is against Schalke and that is a game you just want to win. The way Zagadou left the pitch, I don't think he'll be back fast. He could walk by himself but my first thought was that something was broken.
I think we missd an opportunity today to rest Reus... I know these last two wins were important and we didnt exactly run away with it but we know that at some point we have to beat a couple of these lower table teams without him in the lineup to get him rest he needs for the Champions league matches and multiple match weeks coming up before the break. I would have liked to have seen a creative lineup with chances for rest. Now we are nicked up with injuries and Reus still isnt rested.
The front four are constantly getting into each other's spaces. This is what the final ball is always goes amiss, why through balls end up at the feet of opponents and why we have such few scoring opportunities. This is a well known LF weakness and it will never be addressed. Götze doesn't belong at the tip. It doesn't do anybody any good playing him there.
We have to get used to it. Future opponents will stuff ten men in their box after they saw how effective it was for Club Brugge. When teams do that we are forced to cross to our vertically challenged strikers, so playing defensively vs BVB has a lot of upside. Paco, Reus, Phillip, Sancho and JBL all fare worse when given little space and no room to counter. Sancho had a not so good game and still played a decisive role in the two goals, like how Dembele used to play.
yeah.. so it turns out that crowding of the middle is a feature of the game plan, and not Guerreiro ignoring instructions, like @eaglespark mentioned re last game, and had me thinking.. we rarely look for long (cross field) passes, or to widen the field.. that can come back to bite us against teams that defend and counter better. 2nd half was a pain to watch! JBL improving, but he and Gotze can't remain calm to deliver a good ball at the end of the attack. Why is Phillip not given a chance to play on the wing instead of JBL?? Does he not defend well?? And why not try JBL as RB, as he sometimes played in preseason games in past seasons? Couple of nice long passes from Delaney. That was a pleasant surprise and helped us get out of crowdedness i just mentioned. But to make these passes, you need players making runs into empty spaces
I'm still not getting the front 4 close together completely but I thought this game was a bit different than Bruges. Maybe it's something recent that Favre tried and the players are getting used to it. JBL and Sancho occupied the outside wings but got closer to the middle once the FBs were further up on the wings themselves. JBL also frequently came back into the midfield. Both wingers seemed more active today than in the Bruges game. That the wingers move once you pull up your FBs that high (which I think is dangerous) might make sense for the offense, especially as both our FBs are capable of making runs and getting crosses in. The FBs can basically get into space freed up by our wingers. But all 4 offensive players on the same line doesn't make much sense and can't be the plan. They tried to make a few runs behind the defense with passes and combinations which I assume is one part of the plan. Another part I guess is that Favre doesn't only want to rely on the wingers to get crosses in without a big target man waiting for it. Instead he's making it a numbers game when the FBs do the crossing with all offensive players closer to the goal.
@astrophyz Larsen's main use as wingrr is his high pressing. Throwing a greenhorn into the deepend at RB will weaken an already inexperienced back line. No way Sancho and JBL play on the same wing, the centre backs will pay for it. I agree Philip should play more.
Completely disagree with the first bit. The tactics seemed to have been switched up against Freiburg, because Hakimi was playing and he is actually good attacking. Larsen was given license to come inside, so Hakimi could exploit the space. On the right side, however, Sancho kept the width for the most part. Raphael and Pulisic, being completed dropped and Philipp coming on instead of either them is an indication of what Favre thought of their performance. We lack a really great passer in midfield, which is why we can't hit long range passers as easily. Reus is looking tired, but he still had a good game. Witsel was excellent. Larsen is getting better as said, but he is still not the required quality, but maybe he will get there in a couple of years. Overall it was a good win after a CL midweek match.
Dude, Pulisic was hurt and that is a bit different than what "completely dropped" implies. Sancho stayed wide when the attack came down his side, but he was all over the field, as if he had license to do so, same as the midweek game. It looked as bit different since Hakimi is an offensive minded fullback and has pace to get back, thus he pushes up early and often. You have a habit of announcing your opinion as if it was the infallible word of a supreme deity. It is quite annoying. It also tends to shut down discussion since you take such a superior attitude that is more talking down to us mere mortals than it is inviting a discussion about differences of opinion. @astrophyz is right, the wingers did play almost exactly the same way as they did midweek albeit with different personnel. Sure there were some subtle differences because Hakimi was one of the fullbacks, but the wingers positioning during the attack was very very similar and neither of them played as "chalk on the boots" wingers. It appears as if Favre likes to flood the middle and push his fullbacks up to create width. I am not a stat guy and mostly trust my eyes, but a heat map might show if they played similar in both games or not.