But it doesn't really seem to be He doesn't sit like a Guardiola 6 He is using his energy to get around more like an 8
Whoa, easy big guy. It'd be a shame to let yourself be dragged down that slippery slope of bad Internet behavior. Of course the defensive side of our MF is not working well enough, which pressurizes our back 4, way too much. We've discussed that here and elsewhere, and it's clearly clearly on Emery to fix that. And I did read your posts the first time, as well as re-read our back-and-forth just now again. The gist was that I was emphasizing Luiz's culpability and you were de-emphasizing it. Yes, although you said "I'm not absolving Luiz" you used many many more words (and even stats) expounding on why it's really forces external to Luiz which are causing/inducing his problems. While I've acknowledged above and elsewhere that external forces are a relevant factor, I am not as willing as you seem to be to shift the blame away from Luiz. He's supposed to be our wily veteran pickup to help us get through this season, keeping our goals allowed down, until Saliba (and others?) arrive next summer. If this had been Luiz's only big mistake so far this season, I'd be cutting him more slack. But he's committed a series of lethal mistakes, in (nearly) every game. And directly costing us points. The 2 biggest factors in winning games are players and coaching. Emery's come under a lot of heat for our recent performance, and rightly so! But once the game starts, his players take over the dominant role. And there's a basic professional quality standard that all our players should possess and practice. With defenders & keepers arguably having to meet the highest standard, because their mistakes are so high-risk, high-impact. Yes, I'll admit that over the years, I've never liked David Luiz. Both for performance & personality reasons. I didn't want us to buy him, which I made clear. But we did buy him, and so I was willing to give him a fair chance. But he's been doing his level best to lose that chance in my book. Same goes for Emery. Should we move on?
NorthBank is probably right, though someone who's watched more Chelsea can probably add to this: I think the issue is that Luiz isn't a good 1v1 defender and isn't good at defending in space, because they expose his biggest limitations. I guess playing Luiz might work if we had Torreira in front of him? We're spending a lot of time talking about individuals here, but the bigger problem is that this team is a collection of mismatched parts that don't fit. I think some of the issues may get better when Bellerin and Tierney start playing, but the bigger issue is that we almost have to sit back and play on the counter with the forwards we have.
I think the ideological issue is that Emery is the opposite to Wenger not a mediation. Under Wenger we played a variety of Wenger all and it worked or it didn't, and the result wasn't necessarily attached to our philosophy, but the ability to execute. Emery's philosophy is pragmatism, but I dunno if that is the best philosophy when you can drop £72 million on a winger. Like build the team you want to play and give it a pattern of play to play. Sure you make tactical changes for the opposition, but making strategic changes week to week seems daft.
Emery should be managing a Watford. That’s not a knock on him, but that’s his football philosophy. A club like Arsenal is way too big to be a reactive manager.
I'm not ever sure it would even work at Watford. The Tinkerman finally got his trophy when he was so strapped he couldn't tinker. I think modern football is more and more being defined as doing your thing at as high a level as you can. Ironically this is an era where a conservative attacking philosophy would do well, almost all teams are pretty decent at getting the ball over the halfway line. I think an updated Invincibles strategy would work very well. But, I guess that is pretty much ManCity.
I really liked Jose's argument with Neville on this topic. It doesn't so much matter whether we want to do high press, medium block etc etc and for that matter, what is Emery's philosophy The point is, there are certain basic elements of football that have to be done well, like spacing, compactness etc no matter what tactics you use on the day. These things don't change. I find the conception similar to the german Wehrmacht approach which was always focussed on manoeuvre In the german view, there are 3 levels to this kind of game play. Strategy, tactics and operations. Often in the anglo saxon view, there is most focus on tactics. Also strategy is often confused with tactics (especially in corporate setting). Strategy is only the big picture stuff. What kind of players shall we buy? What kind of football do we want to play? So for example Klopp and his style at liverpool, is part of an overall strategy on how Liverpool wishes to compete. Tactics are solutions in games. Like shall we do high press? Pep is a highly tactical manager. In the german view operations is the most important level. You pretty much knew what the panzers would do, but stopping them was bloody hard because they were very flexible in their operational style. they'd simply react to whatever was in front of them, hour to hour. IMO this is where Emery fails. The team don't execute properly, or react well when the plan fails. Strategy can't be changed on a game to game basis. But IMO arse is actually doing better with their overall concept. The team also shall be proficient in the tactics. But the real question is, can the tactics be carried out at an operational level? IMO clearly not when the other guys are getting 30 shots. So yeah - i don't really care what his philosophy is - i think he is failing at basic delivery stuff.
Never heard of Maric. See that he is currently an assistant. What is so special about him vs going after Allegri or a sitting manager.
Liked him at Leipzig. Was on my short list to replace Wenger. Not as impressed with his stint at Southampton so far.
Tbf, he does have quite a rep for being the guy behind the guy in multiple really successful situations.
We should have gone after Nagelsmann hard before he went to RB Leipzig But I'm sure he would have clashed with Raul and left by now anyways Raul RAUS
Well he got a poor group of players to a avoid relegation and they completely turned their form around They won’t be in trouble this year and they play a quick counter and press Would t be worse than what’s happening atm
Mebe is teasing me Maric is only 27 and a hot talent over here. His next step will be to manage a team in germany if he goes that way. Possibly he will stay more focussed on first team tactics under other trainers
Disagreement even vociferously isn't bad behavior. Requesting that someone read what was actually written is not bad internet behavior. As a matter of fact better reading comprehension on everyone's part (not directing this at you, me included) would make the internet a better place, IMO. See, this is what I take issue with. I was not de-emphasizing Luiz's culpability. You drew that inference, I guess, because of word volume, but it doesn't take many words to say Luiz put in a bone-headed tackle. Bam. Done. Putting that bone-headed tackle in context requires more than one sentence. That's all. Nevertheless, it's still quite possible and not in anyway logically inconsistent to hold the simultaneous views that Luiz effed up but that our set up was such that he was given no protection. No protection means higher volume of dangerous situations to which he's exposed. Higher volume of dangerous situations increases chances of a stupid challenge occurring. Again, you're putting words in my mouth. I'm not shifting blame. Shifting implies moving in a different direction. I'm not doing that. I'm placing blame on two things at the same time. But this raises the precise issue the statistic I posted ponders. Yes, he's already made two bad mistakes for us, three if you count bailing out of the tackle on Salah because he didn't want to get sent off. But why? Why now, when at Chelsea he wasn't as gaffe prone? As he quite suddenly reached his physical cliff? Possible, I suppose. Or is there something different systemically between how they played versus how we play that's also contributing?