evolved tactics

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MoutsGoat said:
El Coco would prolly play the square table.
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El Gaffer is the preferred nomenclature, dude.

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Better pre-season can't be underestimated. The players seem sharper and fitter now than this time last season. We're able to see games out and compete toe to toe with each team we come up against. Last season we looked like a half fit team trying to drag itself through games sometimes.

Then later in the season the rot had set in. Players had lost confidence, many were in bad form and couldn't pull out of it and the manager was getting a lot of his decisions badly wrong.

Football for you.
 
mkrudden said:
This.

The team last year had no pace whatsoever and Barkley was remarkably off form. It meant that when in possession we had nobody to try and go past Lukaku, nobody to stretch the game when we probe left to right and back again. Teams that came at us could do so knowing that there was very little we could do to punish them on the counter.

What does the manager do? Goes out and gets Deulofeu and Lennon to provide pace, width and in the former - invention. Barkley gets the summer off, comes back a different beast. Martinez also brings in Cleverley who does everything quickly: one touch to set and moves the ball on. Also brings in another ball-playing CB and bins off 2 players who for whatever reason couldnt give Jagielka and Stones the necessary competition.

He went looking for the playmaker for the left, couldn't get the one he wanted so didnt spunk the money. He's proven to be a stock-piler of cash and patient to ensure he gets the one he wants. See Lukaku, Romelu.

He has played this brilliantly and deserves far more credit than he's getting.
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davek said:
No. You're completely wrong.

My gripe last season was that we weren't playing the ball or moving as a team quickly enough. Possession and zipping the ball about catching opponents out of position is the name of the game. That's the way we play now. We dont launch it and run after it; we play the ball into spaces where we can springboard attacks from - many times deep in our own half.

I said last season our troubles were caused partly by a manager who'd prioritised Europe every bit as much as the PL and on occasion that he'd even failed to dose the effort in equal proportion (we put way too much into the early stages of the EL and it left us short of energy and preparation time for PL matches when they came thick and fast in the winter).

There's no contradiction there.

We're back to season one vintage football a lot of the time now because we have the PL to focus on and we got the pre-season sharpness that Martinez denied us last summer because he felt we could gain our fitness in the early season games. He's learned his lesson and that is a good trait in a manager.
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Please stop talking sense, you will only cause confusion and unrest.
 
The main difference this year is Deulofeu. In roughly 600 mins of football he's had 2 goals and 8 assists! Barkley's form and kone have also contributed.

I don't think the tactics have really changed.
 

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