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Barca can't do it at the moment.

Rodwell says the Count is teaching it to City. Can we do it ?

Last season, away at Fulham, Mancini had City playing & defending in their half & it was superb. Then it was gone.

Is that down to Mancini fucking about with a different plan every week or the players not doing the job ? I favoured the first (Mancini) explaination but if it's the second, & the players wouldn't do it, can the Count succeed where Mancini failed, or do people need dropping ?

At Barca, Yaya used to pick up the loose balls or intercept people forced into his zone by the Barca pressing game. He rarely chased people down for more than a few seconds. Silva, Nasri, do their bit but are hardly Tevez. Navas is ok at it, as are Jovetic & Negredo but again hardly Tevez, & Aguero/ Dzeko tend to do a quick sprint then give up.

Where this goes a bit pear shaped on last year's evidence, is that one of the best 'pressers' was actually Gareth Barry, as opposed to his more acustomed 'sitting' role. With all the flair players we have & the Count's intention to attack, I would have thought that he will require the Sivas, Nasris & Agueros to do the pressing rather than use Barry up there.

Can it be done ? We obviously have players such as Rodwell, Milner & Fernandinho, who will do it & Fernandinho is a quality, skillful, inventive attacking player if needed to be, but those 3 in midfield are not going to be on the same Level as Fernandinho, Nasri, Silva.

Will the Count get all thse flair fuckers grafting in the oppo's half, & if he can't, do we fire him, or change the players ?

When it works its very effective. Oppo no time on the ball and creates great chances from winning the ball in their final third.
The only problem is is that it requires ultra organisation by the whole team, just one player not contributing and the whole system can fall down which actually makes it counter productive with the potential consequence of spectacular fails

littlebig wrote:When it works its very effective. Oppo no time on the ball and creates great chances from winning the ball in their final third.
The only problem is is that it requires ultra organisation by the whole team, just one player not contributing and the whole system can fall down which actually makes it counter productive with the potential consequence of spectacular fails

I agree. Everyone has to do it, or at least 9 of the 10.

Our advantage over Barca imo, is that particularly if Lescott Plays, we have 4 proper defenders & they only have Puyol. Without him fully fit chasing around hurling himself into tackles & headers, they are very vulnerable to any team with the balls to exploit their system (which is not many in Spain tbf) & also hopeless at defending corners & set pieces.

I would prefer one of our Central defenders to be fast if we are to employ this system though. Lescott & Vinny are one paced & Nastasic is one paced & inexperienced.

Ted Hughes wrote:

littlebig wrote:When it works its very effective. Oppo no time on the ball and creates great chances from winning the ball in their final third.
The only problem is is that it requires ultra organisation by the whole team, just one player not contributing and the whole system can fall down which actually makes it counter productive with the potential consequence of spectacular fails

I agree. Everyone has to do it, or at least 9 of the 10.

Our advantage over Barca imo, is that particularly if Lescott Plays, we have 4 proper defenders & they only have Puyol. Without him fully fit chasing around hurling himself into tackles & headers, they are very vulnerable to any team with the balls to exploit their system (which is not many in Spain tbf) & also hopeless at defending corners & set pieces.

I would prefer one of our Central defenders to be fast if we are to employ this system though. Lescott & Vinny are one paced & Nastasic is one paced & inexperienced.

While they are not blisteringly quick, none of them are slouches.

Slim wrote:

Ted Hughes wrote:

littlebig wrote:When it works its very effective. Oppo no time on the ball and creates great chances from winning the ball in their final third.
The only problem is is that it requires ultra organisation by the whole team, just one player not contributing and the whole system can fall down which actually makes it counter productive with the potential consequence of spectacular fails

I agree. Everyone has to do it, or at least 9 of the 10.

Our advantage over Barca imo, is that particularly if Lescott Plays, we have 4 proper defenders & they only have Puyol. Without him fully fit chasing around hurling himself into tackles & headers, they are very vulnerable to any team with the balls to exploit their system (which is not many in Spain tbf) & also hopeless at defending corners & set pieces.

I would prefer one of our Central defenders to be fast if we are to employ this system though. Lescott & Vinny are one paced & Nastasic is one paced & inexperienced.

While they are not blisteringly quick, none of them are slouches.

True, but I just feel you find that situation where a bit of space appears & all 3 of our cbs are that yard too slow on occasion to get accross against a fast or clever striker. Keith Curle, when he was fit, used to eat situations like that for breakfast, even against Lineker or Dean Saunders. These 3 would struggle.

If you're pressing against a less skilled team then on balance they should make more mistakes, I also think it's easier for a team to maintain a decent tempo to the game if they're pressing because they are far less likely to have their minds switch off during periods of lost possession (although it depends on what they have been instructed to do when they actually have the ball).

I seem to remember us playing Barca style against the filth at their place, with the added luxury of having Milner who can shoot from distance, and doing so very effectively. However, I was half drunk and delirious with man-flu.

Hopefully our man Manuel can employ different styles and has the smarts to know when to use them. He has the players to do this.

We press against the rags and we would rip them a new arsehole again their midfield as it stands is fuckin shite.

Ha ha ha ...... oh how naive you all are. This is a perfect plan....starting against kinnears Newcastle. Everyone is expecting short 5- 10 yd passes but nooooo the count has them all foxed. Its route 1 all the way. Gooooo pellllers

Wonderwall wrote:Ha ha ha ...... oh how naive you all are. This is a perfect plan....starting against kinnears Newcastle. Everyone is expecting short 5- 10 yd passes but nooooo the count has them all foxed. Its route 1 all the way. Gooooo pellllers

We've secretly recruited Pulis as tactical coach, got to make sure we keep all players behind the ball!

i think we'll learn in years to come that you can only play like Barca if you have their physios and chemists injecting your buttocks with special substances which aren't legal. I think that they [strike]are[/strike] WERE all on the juice. And some might not even know it ffs.

And no this isn't a thread about horny monkey fuckers.

cheers

EDIT: i think the cycling investigations had probably thrown a spanner in the works, etc so i've corrected my verbage. The good news for us is that the Spafia will know what doctors to employ to get a step ahead if scientific advancements provide a new opportunity to dive back into the goods.

cheers again

DoomMerchant wrote:And no this isn't a thread about horny monkey fuckers.

At 01:20 in the morning a man wants to read about horny monkey fuckers you dick tease!

Twobob wrote:
At 01:20 in the morning a man wants to read about horny monkey fuckers you dick tease!

Totally been there. Sorry mate. Try xnxx. They have some stuff up there tho I cannot advise to the quality of their monkey fucking vids. The amateur section is worthwhile on occasion.

DoomMerchant wrote:
Totally been there. Sorry mate. Try xnxx. They have some stuff up there tho I cannot advise to the quality of their monkey fucking vids. The amateur section is worthwhile on occasion.

There was no cure for the insomnia, it was Monkeys or bust!

Ted, what are you basing Barca, can't do it anymore?. Pelli will have us primed to punish turned over possesion, I see us countering not counter attack teams who have weakness, Top quality players with well set plans, able to micro process an opportunity, Mancini was a control freak at times when our ability was lost in shite instruction from him and Twat. Barca, will be back with a fit squad which they never had from xmas mate The 3 MF, plus Messi were on one leg come the biz end of the season with the league won it masked a thread bare squad mate. Bayern, were in the right place at the right time with a ruthless attitude and a top team. I treat that scoreline as a one off, that said they play each other soon in the Allianz with bad feeling according to the Catalan Press or the Barca President .

Ted Hughes wrote:

littlebig wrote:When it works its very effective. Oppo no time on the ball and creates great chances from winning the ball in their final third.
The only problem is is that it requires ultra organisation by the whole team, just one player not contributing and the whole system can fall down which actually makes it counter productive with the potential consequence of spectacular fails

I agree. Everyone has to do it, or at least 9 of the 10.

Our advantage over Barca imo, is that particularly if Lescott Plays, we have 4 proper defenders & they only have Puyol. Without him fully fit chasing around hurling himself into tackles & headers, they are very vulnerable to any team with the balls to exploit their system (which is not many in Spain tbf) & also hopeless at defending corners & set pieces.

I would prefer one of our Central defenders to be fast if we are to employ this system though. Lescott & Vinny are one paced & Nastasic is one paced & inexperienced.

I think there is a need to refine this. Yes you need say 7 or 8 players ready to press if required. In reality only 2 or 3 at a time are doing that. Barca have the ultra fit Iniesta and Xavi on free roles to float about and they are often the ones reacting and doing most of the closing down. The majority of the others just have to roughly position themselves to cut out other options for the oppo player on the ball.
The majority of time it just takes Iniesta and one other to nick the ball away, sometimes two others in a 'bunch'. It is rare and only against good players in good teams that those 'bunches' get extended and more than 3 barca players are drawn in.

So basically what I'm saying is City would need a minimum of two instigators of the tactic who would have to be free to roam. The rest of the team just have to stay really aware and chip in when the closing is in their vicinity.

That is how I see it. but it does require a lot of practice as the key I think is players taking the responsibility in the first place and then a very very good sense of the organisation of it. Barca make it look easy but there is a strong organisation behind it.

Obviously there are other ways to do it, but they have to be simple in practice.

I thought this year's Champions' League disproved the Barca theory.

Tony P wrote:I thought this year's Champions' League disproved the Barca theory.

I'd say the opposite - just that Bayern did the pressing much better. They also spotted that Barca didn't like it up them and put lots of balls into the box. Barca were also without the world's best player and to make it worse, they decided to play with 10 by putting something that looked like Messi on the pitch.

The pressing game will work 90% of the time, certainly in the PL, if you're good enough at it. One of the times I thought we did it best was against West Brom towards the end of the title winning season when we'd fallen 8 points behind. As the pressure lifted from the players, they reverted to what we'd been doing at the start of the season. When we had the ball, we made West Brom chase shadows. If they got it, we immediately closed them down, be it in midfield or even their defenders and they just lumped the ball into touch and we were back at them.

Blue Since 76 wrote:

Tony P wrote:I thought this year's Champions' League disproved the Barca theory.

I'd say the opposite - just that Bayern did the pressing much better. They also spotted that Barca didn't like it up them and put lots of balls into the box. Barca were also without the world's best player and to make it worse, they decided to play with 10 by putting something that looked like Messi on the pitch.

The pressing game will work 90% of the time, certainly in the PL, if you're good enough at it. One of the times I thought we did it best was against West Brom towards the end of the title winning season when we'd fallen 8 points behind. As the pressure lifted from the players, they reverted to what we'd been doing at the start of the season. When we had the ball, we made West Brom chase shadows. If they got it, we immediately closed them down, be it in midfield or even their defenders and they just lumped the ball into touch and we were back at them.

does anyone agree with me that Barca have been on the juice and are now off it which is why they struggled this year?

cheers