Ronald Koeman discussion

[windymiller]

I said unless we were in relagation trouble he will be here for the season that does not equate to untouchable,and I believe he will be here to the end of the season.

I reckon if we bumbled along in 12th place all season after spending £150-200m on players he'd be under enormous pressure. Doubt we'll find out as 7th or 8th looks pretty straightforward but after spending so much and getting his major targets, particularly if we get a striker of his choosing in, there'll be no more room for calling out the board when results don't go our way or harking back to previous regimes. This team will be RonKo's lock and stock. No room to hide. Hopefully it'll be a success.

 

[Zatara]

Been saying this for ages....halfway down the page. Need better centre backs ffs

https://fansided.com/2017/08/28/table-doesnt-lie-tottenhams-stupid-curse-everton-blunt-attack/

 

[D410]

For me, the manager has start getting the team selection right from the kick off - too many head scratching moments for me when he names a starting eleven.

Play our best players in the right positions instead of keeping players happy and be more aggressive with team set up and tactics.

 

[arbok]

I'm not a fan of the back 3, especially with the players in the three that Everton have. I don't think Ashley Williams is up to it, he was serviceable against Chelsea, but offered nothing when Everton have the ball. Similarly Jagielka looks a ghost of his former self. Keane looks promising but he also looks a little inconsistent. He'd play better if he had someone more experienced (and decent) alongside him.

The problem with the back 3 is that it leaves one short in midfield so ball retention is harder. Against a team like Chelsea, you just don't play one less in midfield. If your forward moves into the midfield, then their defenders can push higher up the pitch. Again, its also a problem, especially if you don't have pace to exploit behind the opponents defence (Siggy, Rooney don't and Sandro didn't get any balls over the top). The wings are also vulnerable as its a huge effort for the wing backs to track all the way back. That's where the first goal came from, from Fabregas taking advantage of that space between the wingback and the left central defender.

At the same time I see Koeman's dilemma right now, he can't play two central defenders because they'll get carved up with the amount of pace all the top sides have, Chelsea, Man City, Man U, Spurs, Liverpool, Arsenal.

The solution really is to get another top tier central defender so then Jags AND Williams can sit on the pine. It will be a miracle if anyone sells a top defender this late in the window and I doubt Koeman is getting one this late, so its probably why he's been persistent with a back 3 even though it didn't work in preseason.

 

[Sy-]

Love this place after a defeat.

Results wise, 4 points and through the European group stages is a decent start considering opposition we've faced so far.

To be fair, a lot of this is an accumulation of eyebrow raising, we'd be hounded out as "bed-wetting" lunatics around here if we dared to voice reservations after wins/draws regardless of whether they are valid or not.

Agree with what you're saying, I didn't realistically fancy us to get much out of the league games so far either, or the next few for that matter. The problem is we've looked toothless and slow for the majority in all of our games which is a massive concern.

There is currently an issue with potency of the unit as whole, this is a tactical issue and I'm not really convinced 1 more striker is going to magically fix it.

 

[Thomasc]

As I said last week, Jags and Williams are OK when playing as stoppers, when we are under the cosh that is the sort of game they enjoy.

In a back 3 when they need to show a bit of guile and intelligence, they struggle.

If we are going to play with a back 3 we need the players to be able to do it.

 

[ryanbeno80]

I'm a huge fan of Koeman, he did a fantastic job last season and I believe him and the board have signed really well, all our forwards and advanced midfielders are new, it's going to take time, probably 15/20 games before we start to see them gel. Despite this we've managed to have a really good start and look like a team that can grit results out when we're not playing well.

However, Koeman got it wrong against Chelsea, we simply don't have the personnel to play 3 CB's as Jags and Williams are utterly dreadful on the ball, you need ball playing CB's to make it work. By playing 3 CB's, you are taking out a player comfortable on the ball from higher up the pitch and replacing him with Jags or Williams, so in theory you have one less player on the pitch who can retain the ball and that showed, it looked like we where playing with 10 men. We where so much better when Jagielka got taken off.

The formation worked at city because they play higher up the pitch and therefore we could hoof it up to DCL as he had space to cause problems. Chelsea play deeper so this tactic would be more difficult to cause Chelsea problems leaving us having to play through the midfield. This was never going to work with the likes of Jags and Williams picking passes to a bare midfield (due to the extra CB). Especially as the passes went to Gueye, who's job isn't to be a ball player, and Davies, who had probably his poorest game for us. Rooney Sig and Sandro just didn't get the ball in dangerous positions.

I think if we play a back 3 we have to play Holgate, Keane and Williams. Holgate is much more of a ball player than Jags and next to two more experienced centre half's would succeed IMO.

 

[Toffe3m4n]

We're still not quite up to speed but tbh I wholly expected that, it isn't like it hasn't been this way for years already anyway.

We've gotten off to an ok start. If you'd have asked me before a ball was kicked whether I'd take a smooth passage into the EL group stages and 4 points in the league by the international break I would've taken it. Obviously we haven't been too great performance wise but that just leaves us loads of room to improve going forward and everyone at the club knows it.

That said, it's vitally important that we get another top attacking name in before the window closes otherwise we could be in for a frustrating period until the New Year. We're generally looking alright as a team - we just need a talisman up top.

 

[Sy-]

If we are going to play with a back 3 we need the players to be able to do it.

Totally agree, I'd even go as far as saying it is an acceptable risk to have 2 slow-ish CBs if you have outright pace in both wing-backs, but we don't!

Pacey wing-backs occupy the opposition a lot further up the pitch, which is protection for the 3 in itself.

 

[Thomasc]

Totally agree, I'd even go as far as saying it is an acceptable risk to have 2 slow-ish CBs if you have outright pace in both wing-backs, but we don't!

Pacey wing-backs occupy the opposition a lot further up the pitch, which is protection for the 3 in itself.

The difference Seamus and Bolasie could make to this side is really undervalued IMO.

Not as much Seamus as everybody loves him, but to have 2 players of such pace injected back into the side with some of the quality that has been introduced, such as Schneids, Gana, Gylfi and Rooney could really make a massive difference.

Seamus would be perfect for wing back too on the right.

 

[Lanolin]

I love how we use a formation change to just smash City last year as well as lots of different tactics to go on the run we did from January on, and now we are picking on Ronnie for changing tactics to suit the situation. Nice work, guys.

Different situations though.

Changing formations/tactics to execute a specific game plan (and, most importantly, it working) is fine. I think what people are voicing concerns about here though, is changing things round because we're not quite sure what our best team or formation is.

My main issue with the game on sunday was that I couldn't see what the plan was in an attacking sense. We played 3 attacking players but I couldn't work out how we were expecting to get them into the game or what we wanted them to do. That's concerning. Sometimes you know exactly what a manager is trying to do, even when it fails miserably, but on Sunday I was left scratching my head as to how Koeman had thought we were going to score.

 

[Kev50]

Different situations though.

Changing formations/tactics to execute a specific game plan (and, most importantly, it working) is fine. I think what people are voicing concerns about here though, is changing things round because we're not quite sure what our best team or formation is.

My main issue with the game on sunday was that I couldn't see what the plan was in an attacking sense. We played 3 attacking players but I couldn't work out how we were expecting to get them into the game or what we wanted them to do. That's concerning. Sometimes you know exactly what a manager is trying to do, even when it fails miserably, but on Sunday I was left scratching my head as to how Koeman had thought we were going to score.

there wasn't really a plan cos Koeman knew his geriatric back 4 was running on empty and would need all the protection it could get. these lads can still run all day into their mid 30s, but what they can't do is run with the same vim as Chelsea's who are ten years younger and had twice the rest. Koeman knew he was beat just from the stats on the players fitness. That's why he didn't move to a back 4 until the 83rd minute even though we were a goal down in the first half.

 

[Toffe3m4n]

Different situations though.

Changing formations/tactics to execute a specific game plan (and, most importantly, it working) is fine. I think what people are voicing concerns about here though, is changing things round because we're not quite sure what our best team or formation is.

My main issue with the game on sunday was that I couldn't see what the plan was in an attacking sense. We played 3 attacking players but I couldn't work out how we were expecting to get them into the game or what we wanted them to do. That's concerning. Sometimes you know exactly what a manager is trying to do, even when it fails miserably, but on Sunday I was left scratching my head as to how Koeman had thought we were going to score.

Think in hindsight the back 3/5 was a mistake. We looked a bit better when Besic was introduced and we eventually went more of a 4-5-1.

As @arbok said, the 3 CB's worked at City (to a degree) as they like to press high under Pep. They attacked us relentlessly as a result but always left you feeling that we could still get the ball up into the gaps they left, unfortunately we just couldn't take advantage in that second half.

Chelsea play deeper and rely on their midfielders playing it into their front men and getting it straight back, moving up the pitch as they go. The 3 CB's wasn't effective here because it left us light in midfield where the important battles needed to be won. It didn't help that we couldn't have both Gana and Morgan on the pitch (also factoring in the Besic situation possibly making Koeman hesitant to start him) but I too think that he should've thought about it a bit more. The game was already lost by the time he changed it.

 

[Lanolin]

there wasn't really a plan cos Koeman knew his geriatric back 4 was running on empty and would need all the protection it could get. these lads can still run all day into their mid 30s, but what they can't do is run with the same vim as Chelsea's who are ten years younger and had twice the rest. Koeman knew he was beat just from the stats on the players fitness. That's why he didn't move to a back 4 until the 83rd minute even though we were a goal down in the first half.

I don't think we pay him £6m a year to decide we've lost before kick off.

 

[Kev50]

I don't think we pay him £6m a year to decide we've lost before kick off.

he made the best of a bad situation. not sure what else he could have done