Very good analysis here and covers what I have been saying all season about our lack of press and our defensive inefficiencies due to our setup and Slots persistance with plus 1 at the back.
Passive is the word about our team and this is all on Arne
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So far 10 minutes in, and he is talking about a shift to a zonal system causing problems when defending…
When we usually press higher up the pitch, is that normally a zonal system used?
I don’t buy the +1 thing with the specific flaws we’re seeing. Our attempts to press are breaking down way earlier in the defensive sequences than can be explained by that.
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I just finished the video and I think it’s revealing in terms of what it observes, but think it was incredibly lacking in diagnosis. He said over and over again the players aren’t right for this…why? He never says and it’s an odd suggestion because that was not a concern about any of the players brought in this summer when we signed them. Wirtz in particular was credited for how hard he is willing to work defensively.
There are of course differences in how different teams and managers want to structure their pressing and so there was going to be a learning curve getting the new guys on board to the way we want to do things, and that far more than the identity of the players or their inherent traits seems far closer to the source of the problems - either its a bad plan that is setting them up to fail, or the plan is fine and Slot just cannot find a way to get them to buy in and/or implement it
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International football is such a pain in the arse. Clubs pay huge amounts of money for players in fees and wages, and the international managers take them and just fucking run them regardless of how fit they are.
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For me yes as we seem to not commit to a press, we sometimes have our front 2/3 try a press an because of how Arne sets us up there is no back up
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I agree on the issue he kept mentioning about players as actually he never covers it.
However, I cannot understand why you can’t see the shape and Arne’s commitment to the plus 1 not being an issue.
I have said all along, because of this tactic we cannot press high effectively, because the players behind our forwards aren’t committed to the press due to restraints from the coach.
The only game we were committed to it was Gala at home.
The difference is Hungary don’t pay Dom’s wages throughout the year. And if Dom suffers a season ending injury, it is not Hungary that are made to suffer by losing a key player for so many games
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Couldn’t agree more. The whole thing needs massive reform.
Personally I would ban international football from being played during the domestic season. It will shorten the season but then a month can be tacked on at the end to play international football. In one hand and out the other. The overall load isn’t greater. Qualifiers, tournaments - arrange it as you will. You have a month, then a proper break for the players, before coming back for preseason.
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I’d offer all our players a 25K bonus per International match that they missed!
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Well this seems an incredibly pointless period. Also Hungary aren’t even going to the World Cup like if they don’t know what Dom can do now they probably should retire.
Might as well extend November by a week or so for the playoffs.
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I did not say it was unrelated to our shape. I said the things that are going wrong are not because we want to leave one man free at the back.
You dont need to go man for man all over the pitch to do this effectively so the idea you cannot press because we want one free at the back just doesn’t fly. We are leaving one free at the back and we are pressing appallingly badly, but one does not necessarily follow from the other. With Klopp you would have routinely seen that we’d do this successfully sometimes with both CBs free.
What I see is they are making bad decisions all over the pitch, but mostly with a disconnect between the forwards and midfield. I dont know if what they are doing is by design and its just a shit plan or if the players are at fault. I genuinely dont even understand what Slot is trying to do with this most of the time. You even yourself call out the midfield not being committed. You may argue that is because they are concerned about getting exposed in the space they leave behind them because of the free CB, but that risk is always present in a high press and if players ahead of the free CB are choosing not to press because of that concern, or are too gun shy, that is still on them.
If he changed from requiring us leaving 1 free at the back maybe we get better, but with how bad the rest of it is then there is no guarantee. And if he had it in him to address this he’d be able to do that while still leaving one free at the back
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It all comes from Arne wanting 1 plus and how he shapes the team to protect the one plus.
Our midfielders struggle to push out to assist any press, because if they do the opposition attacker drops into the space to receive the ball, as was shown in the Fulham game and if they don’t their is a midfielder open, when we play 3 up top or wide player with 2.
In the end it comes down to what the presenter said, we are too passive and that must come from the coach as we are doing it game after game.
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I still blame that video posted around September that was singing his praises and vision. We’ve been shocking ever since that or that Soton game.
Even in your own words you describe the problem as being much broader than just having 1 man spare at the back so I dont get the conversation at all
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Because that spare player at the back isn’t ever picking up or stepping in to pressure the player dropping deep so that a midfielder can push out earlier to pressure/mark a player.
The midfielders are in limbo in who to press or pick up.
It is how Arne plays the plus 1 and I can’t seen how you don’t see this as part of the issue and was demonstrated perfectly in the video.
its like cleaning the back shed on the weekend… every so often it looks neat, but if you havent got a proper storage solution it always doesnt look quite right, and never stays clean for long…
a perfect crossover example from football…im off to enjoy my saturday now…
jokes aside, i think what SB is saying is that is the fundamental issue, you can discuss moments, and passages and examples, but youll never get the right outcome until you release the structure from what binds it.
you might get moments.
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Heaaavvvyyyy Maannn
To be fair nobody expected Salah to drop so hard this season.
Even though, I did have a strong issue with selling off squad players (like Elliott) and selling Diaz without a new winger coming in when the majority of our attacks between 2016 and 2025 came down the flanks.
We were clearly thinner in terms number of players that could actually be used (not counting the likes of Chiesa and Nyoni who were only there to fill up our 25-player squad).