I'm prepared for the derisive responses this will get. But ..... if you had it to do over again, would you man mark Gio? I mean, we play with two d-mids anyway. If Mex is in their 451, then those guys 1st responsibility is going to be Gio, anyway. And, those guys are pretty unsuited for staying in front of him. Bradley & Jones aren't really nimble guys w/ great lateral movement. One of the arguments against is that when you man-mark, that guy marks himself out of the match. In this case, I say so? Losing one of the two dmids ain't going to kill us in our offensive scheme. And, most likely, if Gio is being manmarked, when we have the ball, he's probably going to pick up the guy who is marking him.
I get what your saying and your spot on. but, i don't think anyone is thinking about this what if. I think the big what if eliminates yours. after being up 2 nill (Hell, even 1 nill) we shouldn't have continued to attack the way we were. We left ourselves open for counter attacks time and time again. had we played conservative and honest football after our lead, Gio wouldn't have STARTED his run behind bornstein in the first place. our midfield was far too attacking after those goals. Yes, we were right to be as agressive as we were at the beginning. But doing what we did after a lead only showed complete arrogance (or simple stupidity) ESPECIALLY after being up 2-0 in the first half. Either bradley was out to get revenge for GC final 2009 or he completely neglected the mindset of a prudent coach. And can someone PLEASE explain to me why he kept donovan upfront after having a lead on our biggest rival in a final? The idea was great and it confused the HELL out of marquez with adu and donovan changing back and forth up front. But, why oh why did he think for a second holding dempsey behind him to play field general over donovan (A faster better passer who does better first touch passing) is beyond me. Ok, i'm going off on a rant. The answer is YES your right but over all it's not the real question. Why didnt we play classic italian football after our lead. Control the ball, hold the ball with our back 4 and pass up. Frustrate the opposing team after being down 2-0 and if we see an opening then we strike. That would have made a much bigger difference than whether or not Gio was marked.
In this day and age if you man mark anyone you're going to open up a huge gigantic space/hole that a good team will exploit. Unless you're playing without a forward at all, it's a recipe for disaster.
This is pretty much true. Usually you have a defensive midfielder who once in his own half of the field may float toward a particular attacking player a bit. See AC Milan's destruction of United a few years ago in the CL. Ronaldo was always United's danger man. They didn't man mark him but Gattuso would float out his way to help double team and take him out of the game. It's more of a team shift than one player man marking another.
I say yes ... if you have a man-marker on your team. And Rico Clark wasn't called up. Otherwise, you just roll your defensive coverage toward the weak area. Bob rolled it away from it. Seriously.
The way Mex played, I don't think so. With what I'm saying, you've got a guy to track Gio, you still have a d-mid there. There's no hole. And, we still have a guy in the hole & a forward. And, if Gio pulled his tracker out wide, who fills the hole for Mex?
Mex w/ Gio in the middle -----------------------------Chich --Guardado--------------------Gio---------------------Barrera- --------------Torrado--------------------Otro dude It was stated that if we man-marked Gio, he could pull the defender with him, leaving a hole in our defense. If he does that, he'd leave a hole in their offense ----------------------------Chich --Guardado---------------This hole------------------Barrera -----------------T---------------------O.D. Where's Gio? If he's pulled his marker with him, leaving a hole in our D, where's Gio? And, who is attacking up the middle for Mex?
If they're attacking someone fills that hole for them. It becomes free space. They have the ball in the attack so any hole he leaves doesn't matter. Also, a hole at the top of your line up (where Gio plays) isn't really comparable to a hole in the back of a line up that gets created by a defender or deep lying midfielder shadowing and being dragged around the pitch by Gio.
But, we wouldn't have a hole. You've still got the other DM. I'm just replacing a Jones or Bradley w/ a guy to man mark Gio. If Gio leaves the middle and takes manmarker with him, we've still got a DM in the middle. And, frankly I'd happy to see a marked Gio pull out wide (as opposed to an unmarked Gio, as we saw Sat) and a Guardado, Barrera, Castro, or Torrado come in and try to be the playmaker in the middle. To me, that's a win.
As I posted on the US Men's Bornstein thread, the US did have a big hole. ---------Goodson-------------Bocanegra----------- -------------Bradley-------Jones-----BIGFLIPPIN'HOLE- Lichaj---------------------------------------Bornstein Both fullbacks played up, Boca couldn't cover the whole area behind Jonny and both mids were caught upfield or too centrally. Chepo moved Barrera into a wide forward role behind Bornstein and Bob never adjusted.
good scouting/tactics then. We're always vulnerable behind our fullbacks. Imo, that is part of why we had success in the CC. Scouting was minimal to none. Opposing teams didn't either know that space was available, or what to do w/ it. They'd get there and cross, over & over. To me a big difference between playing Spain at CC & the recent friendly was that when Spain got the ball wide, they held it and waited for the late run into the box. Kept it on the ground. Rather than pumping in endless hopeful crosses. And, Mex, when they got to that space, would attack it on the ground.
The 2nd Spain approach was different to the 1st but so was the US tactics. In 2009, Bob sat back and absorbed the pressure and Spain didn't have enough men in the box - Villa played high and normally left and Torres made slashing runs but never camped out there - so Jay D and Gooch ended up clearing everything. In the 2011 friendly, del Bosque brought in a true penalty box forward in Alvaro Negredo (20 goals in La Liga in 2010-11) and he tied up both central defenders. That freed up Villa to do a lot of one-on-one work (though often, it was Villa and Negredo against Spector, Gooch and Ream or 2 vs 3). But then Bob didn't space his midfield as well or tightly as the last time and David Silva kept getting the ball in the 10 yard gap between the midfield and the backline, which gave Spain a lot of 3-on-3 situations and that produced a bunch of chances for them.
I would be interested to know how much ground Gio covered during the 90 mins against the US ... he was a one man wrecking machine. And Harry Redknapp wants to get rid of him because he parties too much?
That may have a small part to do with it but the bigger part would be he has shown no ability to cope or deal with the rigors of the EPL. In fact for the most part he has been a bust there.
based on what he did to the US he looks far better to me than Shaun Wright Phillips - who did just fine in the EPL ... of course I am no Harry Redknapp .. but he ripped us apart. Just does not make sense to me.
Part of it might be that he & Modric probably wouldn't be on the field at the same time. And, he wouldn't displace Modric.