Why Change The System?

[Pretty Boy Lee]

I think the amount of know it alls afte the fact is sad this time around.

Only formation I heard people clamoring for was 5 man midfield. We get that, get undone by a freak play and you all suddenly knew better.

Some right fucking moaning on here at times.

[Ted Hughes]

I think the amount of know it alls afte the fact is sad this time around.

Only formation I heard people clamoring for was 5 man midfield. We get that, get undone by a freak play and you all suddenly knew better.

Some right fucking moaning on here at times.

You didn't hear me asking for it & certainly not Kolarov, in a million fucking years.

[Dubciteh]

I thought the tactics were spot on and were exactly what i called for pre game(see match thread).

We tried going gung ho previously in europe against top sides and it never works.

We were shading the game up until the stupidity of Demi. The key was not to concede an early goal and grow into the game and thats exactly what was happening until the sending off. I fancied us right up until that moment.

Even at one down i thought the subs the count made just after the sending off were perfect.

The second goal was the killer but was a result of the sending off, kolorov had alves in his pocket in the 1st half, once silva went left wing we were always liable to leave space there and they exploited it, this coupled with clichys exhaustion was the reason for the second goal.

We will get there in the champions league i have full confidence on another night we would of won, its small margins.

[Ted Hughes]

I thought the tactics were spot on and were exactly what i called for pre game(see match thread).

We tried going gung ho previously in europe against top sides and it never works.

We were shading the game up until the stupidity of Demi. The key was not to concede an early goal and grow into the game and thats exactly what was happening until the sending off. I fancied us right up until that moment.

Even at one down i thought the subs the count made just after the sending off were perfect.

The second goal was the killer but was a result of the sending off, kolorov had alves in his pocket in the 1st half, once silva went left wing we were always liable to leave space there and they exploited it, this coupled with clichys exhaustion was the reason for the second goal.

We will get there in the champions league i have full confidence on another night we would of won, its small margins.

How about this for a tactic: we play our strongest available side & are a bit more cautious going forward not to leave too many players in front of the ball, then try to beat Barcelona ?

[Pretty Boy Lee]

You didn't hear me asking for it & certainly not Kolarov, in a million fucking years.

I don't recall seeing who you asked for, I don't normally make it to the 8th paragraph tho so I might have missed it :)

[Ted Hughes]

You didn't hear me asking for it & certainly not Kolarov, in a million fucking years.

I don't recall seeing who you asked for, I don't normally make it to the 8th paragraph tho so I might have missed it :)

I didn't ask for anything. I believed Pellegrini when he said we will not change. Just assumed the choice would be whether he plays Jovetic, Dzeko or Nasri as the 2nd attacker. I would have gone for Jovetic as he is like an extra midfield player anyway & Nasri isn't fit.

If I thought we were going into systems to play v Barca, at home, not even one of them I came up with would involve Kolarov as a midfield player.

[RodneyRodney]

You make a persuasive argument. I can kind of understand why he did it though. Which makes claims that we will only attackattackattack a bit daft. For me, in hindsight, of course I would have loved to see us press them all over and try and tear them a new arsehole as soon as we had possession. Maybe we're still not there psychologically, I know I didn't expect to win (not suggesting I may have psychokinetically affected the team, like, just in case). The pride they can take in the way we played and attacked with ten men ,will hopefully do wonders for our mentality. Not as if we can't afford to sit back all game away is it!?

You never know this defeat could prove to be the catalyst.

Point being i don't think we would have gone to the Nou Camp looking to play an attacking game prior to this defeat.Now i suspect we will just go and play our natural game and see what happens there.Wouldn't it be ironic if those tactics get us an early goal and send us on to a famous victory.You never know,we can only hope.[/quote]

Absolutely really good point - best post in this thread ; how would we have felt with a 1-0 or 2-1 win or 0-0 ? Perverse as it sounds , this result actually makes it EASIER for us - (. . . no, I've only had 2 beers).

At 1-0 up , we'd have gone to the Camp in two minds - sit back and park it, or look for another ?? What do we do ? Dither , dither , indecision , oh shit , they've scored .

In this situation , our decision is made for us and we have no choice but to play to our strengths . Bring it on.

[Hazy2]

I think our captain has said he thinks they were not all that and we showed to much respect. We are still work in progress and this almost a fresh start, Kin was a massive miss last night.

[Dubciteh]

You didn't hear me asking for it & certainly not Kolarov, in a million fucking years.

I don't recall seeing who you asked for, I don't normally make it to the 8th paragraph tho so I might have missed it :)

I didn't ask for anything. I believed Pellegrini when he said we will not change. Just assumed the choice would be whether he plays Jovetic, Dzeko or Nasri as the 2nd attacker. I would have gone for Jovetic as he is like an extra midfield player anyway & Nasri isn't fit.

If I thought we were going into systems to play v Barca, at home, not even one of them I came up with would involve Kolarov as a midfield player.

I actually wanted milner there all along but only realised yesterday he was suspended, with nasri not fit and jovetic/silva not great at tracking back, it made sense to me to play kolorov there to thwart one of there most dangerous weapons Dani Alves on the overlap and it worked the 1st half. Granted as you have said in other threads i didnt expect kolorov and the rest to forget how to pass and shit themselves but in theory before the match the tactic for kolorov was the best available. I would imagine once we had a stonghold in the game the plan was then in the second half to replace him with nasri or jovetic but the sending off killed this option.

[Ted Hughes]

You didn't hear me asking for it & certainly not Kolarov, in a million fucking years.

I don't recall seeing who you asked for, I don't normally make it to the 8th paragraph tho so I might have missed it :)

I didn't ask for anything. I believed Pellegrini when he said we will not change. Just assumed the choice would be whether he plays Jovetic, Dzeko or Nasri as the 2nd attacker. I would have gone for Jovetic as he is like an extra midfield player anyway & Nasri isn't fit.

If I thought we were going into systems to play v Barca, at home, not even one of them I came up with would involve Kolarov as a midfield player.

I actually wanted milner there all along but only realised yesterday he was suspended, with nasri not fit and jovetic/silva not great at tracking back, it made sense to me to play kolorov there to thwart one of there most dangerous weapons Dani Alves on the overlap and it worked the 1st half. Granted as you have said in other threads i didnt expect kolorov and the rest to forget how to pass and shit themselves but in theory before the match the tactic for kolorov was the best available. I would imagine once we had a stonghold in the game the plan was then in the second half to replace him with nasri or jovetic but the sending off killed this option.

That's all fair enough & sound tactically, but we have ruined our system in order to stop a fullback. What did Barca do different ?

That sends the message out to the whole team, that Barca are better than us & we went to pieces accordingly.

They had Masherano. How many headers did he have to win ? How many corners did we have ?

If we are admitting that we can't play football on equal terms v Barca, which Kolarov's selection says, then how about we have another plan of actually trying to beat them, by hitting them at their weak spots ?

We just stood in a line & got beat. Like Palace at Arsenal. Except Palace created more chances.

[Douglas Higginbottom]

I was not surprised or disappointed that MP changed the set up a little for Barca but like Ted amazed and disappointed that the change involved Kolarov. Given how well Garcia played against Chelsea (plus his recent improvements in all games) I expected him to partner Fernandinho to allow Yaya to fully support our attacking play.

Kolarov probably did help down Barc's right side just by being a body there but his talent as a genuine midfield player is close to nil. No touch or control at all.At nil nil I was just hoping MP would make changes in the set up for the last 20 minutes or so but events changed all that.Even at 1 nil with 3 minutes to go I would have said we had a good chance away but 2 nil is probably too much.

[Dubciteh]

You didn't hear me asking for it & certainly not Kolarov, in a million fucking years.

I don't recall seeing who you asked for, I don't normally make it to the 8th paragraph tho so I might have missed it :)

I didn't ask for anything. I believed Pellegrini when he said we will not change. Just assumed the choice would be whether he plays Jovetic, Dzeko or Nasri as the 2nd attacker. I would have gone for Jovetic as he is like an extra midfield player anyway & Nasri isn't fit.

If I thought we were going into systems to play v Barca, at home, not even one of them I came up with would involve Kolarov as a midfield player.

I actually wanted milner there all along but only realised yesterday he was suspended, with nasri not fit and jovetic/silva not great at tracking back, it made sense to me to play kolorov there to thwart one of there most dangerous weapons Dani Alves on the overlap and it worked the 1st half. Granted as you have said in other threads i didnt expect kolorov and the rest to forget how to pass and shit themselves but in theory before the match the tactic for kolorov was the best available. I would imagine once we had a stonghold in the game the plan was then in the second half to replace him with nasri or jovetic but the sending off killed this option.

That's all fair enough & sound tactically, but we have ruined our system in order to stop a fullback. What did Barca do different ?

That sends the message out to the whole team, that Barca are better than us & we went to pieces accordingly.

They had Masherano. How many headers did he have to win ? How many corners did we have ?

If we are admitting that we can't play football on equal terms v Barca, which Kolarov's selection says, then how about we have another plan of actually trying to beat them, by hitting them at their weak spots ?

We just stood in a line & got beat. Like Palace at Arsenal. Except Palace created more chances.

Yep fair points, maybe the plan was to get kolorov on the ball to deliver crosses and let negredo peel away onto maschareno and dominate him in the air, im just guessing though i dont know.

i have criticized Pelligrini in the past for not changing tactics depending on the opposition and i was pleased to see he did that last night, but granted i was still expecting a bit more but lesson learned we are not out of it yet.

[Ted Hughes]

I was not surprised or disappointed that MP changed the set up a little for Barca but like Ted amazed and disappointed that the change involved Kolarov. Given how well Garcia played against Chelsea (plus his recent improvements in all games) I expected him to partner Fernandinho to allow Yaya to fully support our attacking play.

Kolarov probably did help down Barc's right side just by being a body there but his talent as a genuine midfield player is close to nil. No touch or control at all.At nil nil I was just hoping MP would make changes in the set up for the last 20 minutes or so but events changed all that.Even at 1 nil with 3 minutes to go I would have said we had a good chance away but 2 nil is probably too much.

Nastasic v Messi.

[bayblue]

I don't get all the doom and gloom around here.
So, we played one of the top three teams in the world and lost. We still have a second game to play and so we are not out of it yet, especially as we can hope that Serge and Samir will be fully fit.

And by the way we are still very much in for three other competitions.

All the evidence before us is that teams need several seasons to become successful in Europe. We have learned from our previous seasons and have learned already this season. Next season we will improve again, we might not win it even then but if we keep doing things in the right way and continue to enjoy the patronage of our owner then we will win the champions league this decade.

[Ted Hughes]

I don't get all the doom and gloom around here.

Well I'll give you where mine comes from.

Imo, we have just been played off the park at football by a side which isn't better than us, because we were scared of them.

[bayblue]

Well I'll give you where mine comes from. Imo, we have just been played off the park at football by a side which isn't better than us, because we were scared of them.

That's where I differ. We weren't played off the park. Bayern did that to us, and Chelsea nearly did. Barca are a class team. Who know what would have happened if the ref had given the Navas foul, or not given the penalty. We had fresh legs ready to come on and I think they would have made a difference.

[Bridge'srightfoot]

You didn't hear me asking for it & certainly not Kolarov, in a million fucking years.

I don't recall seeing who you asked for, I don't normally make it to the 8th paragraph tho so I might have missed it :)

I didn't ask for anything. I believed Pellegrini when he said we will not change. Just assumed the choice would be whether he plays Jovetic, Dzeko or Nasri as the 2nd attacker. I would have gone for Jovetic as he is like an extra midfield player anyway & Nasri isn't fit.

If I thought we were going into systems to play v Barca, at home, not even one of them I came up with would involve Kolarov as a midfield player.

I actually wanted milner there all along but only realised yesterday he was suspended, with nasri not fit and jovetic/silva not great at tracking back, it made sense to me to play kolorov there to thwart one of there most dangerous weapons Dani Alves on the overlap and it worked the 1st half. Granted as you have said in other threads i didnt expect kolorov and the rest to forget how to pass and shit themselves but in theory before the match the tactic for kolorov was the best available. I would imagine once we had a stonghold in the game the plan was then in the second half to replace him with nasri or jovetic but the sending off killed this option.

Why are we changing our whole system to stop one of their fullbacks?
We should have been more concerned with causing Alves problems.

[dazby]

That's all fair enough & sound tactically, but we have ruined our system in order to stop a fullback. What did Barca do different ?

That sends the message out to the whole team, that Barca are better than us & we went to pieces accordingly.

They had Masherano. How many headers did he have to win ? How many corners did we have ?

If we are admitting that we can't play football on equal terms v Barca, which Kolarov's selection says, then how about we have another plan of actually trying to beat them, by hitting them at their weak spots ?

We just stood in a line & got beat. Like Palace at Arsenal. Except Palace created more chances.

Bollocks Ted. Kolarov on one wing and Navas on the other. What does that tell you? I just wish Dzeko was fully fit. If we'd have kept 11 on the pitch I've no doubt we could have won that, and I'm confident we can get them a right scare in the return.

[Bridge'srightfoot]

One thing really irked me last night in particular. Barcelona clearly aren't the best in the air, but whenever we got a free kick ten/fifteen yards inside their own half, rather than launch it into the box, we played it short and it just came to nothing.
Also we get a corner in the 87th minute, bring our defenders up, the crowd gets excited and Silva hit's the first man. Why oh why does he take corners?

[bayblue]

One thing really irked me last night in particular. Barcelona clearly aren't the best in the air, but whenever we got a free kick ten/15 yards inside their own half, rather than launch it into the box, we played it short and it just came to nothing. Also we get a corner in the 87th minute, bring our defenders up, the crowd gets excited and Silva hit's the first man. Why oh why does he take corners?

Spot on. Totally agree with both points.
Doug, do you see much corners being practised? And is Dave's success rate at getting beyond first man any better?