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Minimum width

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comment by Pun (U21588)

posted on 6/4/23

Watched this myself earlier. Tifo is a brilliant channel

posted on 6/4/23

Tldr: minimum width is why ten hag’s wife is so frustrated

posted on 6/4/23

comment by Baz tard (U19119)
posted 2 minutes ago
Tldr: minimum width is why ten hag’s wife is so frustrated
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And 'bald is best' was actually coined by Guardiola's wife in relation to his maximum width.

comment by Busby (U19985)

posted on 6/4/23

I’ve definitely noticed this, it’s why I think we’d benefit from a rb who uses the width more. Perhaps it’s instructional but Dalot refuses to overlap and run into the space that is there so often.

posted on 6/4/23

comment by Busby (U19985)
posted 2 minutes ago
I’ve definitely noticed this, it’s why I think we’d benefit from a rb who uses the width more. Perhaps it’s instructional but Dalot refuses to overlap and run into the space that is there so often.
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Yes, I think overlapping full backs are an important element of this, as we saw with ETH's Ajax. I guess he has fairly strict instructions as to when the overlapping should happen. If he's creating an overload on the right, I'd guess he probably doesn't want Shaw outside of Rashford on the left, but an extra body tucked in further back to ensure we have the right 'rest defence' to guard against counter attack. From what we've seen so far, Dalot is very good at tucking in to become an additional midfielder; and not exceptional as the flying attacking on the outside.

posted on 6/4/23

This system probably suits us more given our lack of pace on the right and the fact that our most senior options from the left are failed number 9s.

posted on 6/4/23

They analysed the West Ham Newcastle game on MOTD last night and the one thing that was highlighted was how Newcastle maximised the width of the pitch when attacking and how it worked so well, even though some of their goals came from individual mistakes

comment by Busby (U19985)

posted on 6/4/23

"From what we've seen so far, Dalot is very good at tucking in to become an additional midfielder; and not exceptional as the flying attacking on the outside."

Same with Shaw, who is about as close to a playmaker as we have at the moment.

I think it'd be nice to have the option of a Robertson (when he was good) type fullback going up and down the line. It would bring out more in Antony.

posted on 6/4/23

comment by Bobby Dazzler (U1449)
posted 4 minutes ago
They analysed the West Ham Newcastle game on MOTD last night and the one thing that was highlighted was how Newcastle maximised the width of the pitch when attacking and how it worked so well, even though some of their goals came from individual mistakes
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There's definitely no right/wrong answer, and I guess trade-offs with every tactical solution. The differences between coaches working at the top level are more and more points of small detail. This is a good example of how nuanced things are: Ten Hag is not doing the opposite of Guardiola. He's still using width to stretch a defence (or 'girth', as Baz would have it), only he's using a bit less in order to try to eke out other marginal benefits.

posted on 6/4/23

comment by Busby (U19985)
posted 1 minute ago
"From what we've seen so far, Dalot is very good at tucking in to become an additional midfielder; and not exceptional as the flying attacking on the outside."

Same with Shaw, who is about as close to a playmaker as we have at the moment.

I think it'd be nice to have the option of a Robertson (when he was good) type fullback going up and down the line. It would bring out more in Antony.
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The recurring links with Frimpong and other dynamic right backs suggest that ETH agrees. Malo Gusto looked an excellent candidate for the job, but he got swept up in the great Chelsea shopping spree.

posted on 6/4/23

The tucking in is very much deliberate as a way of drawing defenders out and creating space but ETH does definitely need an overlapping fullback that can cross or at least square it properly. Ie someone that can both tuck in and overload the attacking midfield area and overlap overloading the wide areas.

As mentioned above Shaw can do both quite well tbf but neither Dalot nor AWB are good at overlapping & creating chances.

posted on 6/4/23

My pal JJ is on Tifo. Do you like him? He's funny.

posted on 6/4/23

comment by Tyler French (U1734)
posted 39 minutes ago
My pal JJ is on Tifo. Do you like him? He's funny.
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You don’t have any pals

posted on 6/4/23

RR, all your comments regarding goalkeepers is self evidently right. The only proviso is that DDG does regularly save us, so the new keeper also needs to be adept at actually saving shots as well as sweeping.
A DDG with the other attributes we need.

comment by Pun (U21588)

posted on 6/4/23

comment by Tyler French (U1734)
posted 41 minutes ago
My pal JJ is on Tifo. Do you like him? He's funny.
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He's fantastic. You don't know him.

posted on 6/4/23

comment by manusince52 (U9692)
posted 0 seconds ago
RR, all your comments regarding goalkeepers is self evidently right. The only proviso is that DDG does regularly save us, so the new keeper also needs to be adept at actually saving shots as well as sweeping.
A DDG with the other attributes we need.
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Sorry gone of topic there.
Re wingers, I'm old fashioned, I want them to be able to beat the man on the outside mainly, cross from near the by-line so the ball is going away from defenders, towards attackers. If the can occasionally cut in and shoot, fine.

posted on 6/4/23

Ten Hag isn’t wedded to this. We’ve switched between having the wingers wide and narrow all season. It’s something that his last Ajax side was particularly good at, though my understanding is that he had a preference for using them wider in the attacking line. We’re limited with how we can optimise either of the approaches with the midfield and full backs we have, however.

comment by Cloggy (U1250)

posted on 6/4/23

Thought this was an article on 'size does matter'

posted on 6/4/23

Tifo are great and channels like theirs has caused to completely avoid mainstream punditry/analysis because it's so poor.

MOTD is not actual analysis. It mostly boils down to saying if x had done y then the goal would have been prevented, but that does nothing to explain the tactical reasons behind the choices etc and just seems like captain hindsight sort of stuff.

posted on 6/4/23

comment by Cloggy (U1250)
posted 1 hour, 46 minutes ago
Thought this was an article on 'size does matter'
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That's because you can't read for the purpose of comprehension.

posted on 6/4/23

comment by Kobbie The King Mainoo (U10026)
posted 3 hours, 10 minutes ago
Ten Hag isn’t wedded to this. We’ve switched between having the wingers wide and narrow all season. It’s something that his last Ajax side was particularly good at, though my understanding is that he had a preference for using them wider in the attacking line. We’re limited with how we can optimise either of the approaches with the midfield and full backs we have, however.
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Yeah, ETH has a nice combination of being tactically smart and innovative, while also being very flexible and not in the least dogmatic.

I'll watch out for the wide/narrow thing in the future, as per your observation.

posted on 6/4/23

comment by TheFoxOutsideTheBox (U20459)
posted 47 minutes ago
Tifo are great and channels like theirs has caused to completely avoid mainstream punditry/analysis because it's so poor.

MOTD is not actual analysis. It mostly boils down to saying if x had done y then the goal would have been prevented, but that does nothing to explain the tactical reasons behind the choices etc and just seems like captain hindsight sort of stuff.

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It's not even a case of all mainstream TV pundits lacking that kind of knowledge. Some of them go on other, more specialist media and turn out to have much more interesting things to say than you'd suspect from their TV punditry. Which tells us that these mass market programs probably know what their audience wants: getting too technical turns them off, so feed them infotainment. Surely we can't be too far away from a segmented offering where we can choose to watch matches narrated by the kind of commentary we want: select channel A for nerdy tactical breakdowns, channel B for hipster cultural references, channel C (or the match thread here) for hysterical partisan catastrophising and invective.

posted on 6/4/23

I read some interesting stuff about how his Ajax side had similarities to both City and Liverpool with how they’d set up with the 5-5 attack/defence shape. It’s obviously player dependent, and he had a lot of time to work on things, even it he did lose players, but it shows an interesting insight into how he can work with a group of players. And also why he would seem to like having multifaceted players in the squad.

From a tactical perspective, I suspect this season has been a lot more challenging for him than he would have expected. And you can see that in his approach, where we’ve tended to opt for a more transitional style of football in lots of games.

posted on 6/4/23

comment by Kobbie The King Mainoo (U10026)
posted 5 minutes ago
I read some interesting stuff about how his Ajax side had similarities to both City and Liverpool with how they’d set up with the 5-5 attack/defence shape. It’s obviously player dependent, and he had a lot of time to work on things, even it he did lose players, but it shows an interesting insight into how he can work with a group of players. And also why he would seem to like having multifaceted players in the squad.

From a tactical perspective, I suspect this season has been a lot more challenging for him than he would have expected. And you can see that in his approach, where we’ve tended to opt for a more transitional style of football in lots of games.
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posted on 6/4/23

comment by Red Russian (U4715)
posted 4 hours, 33 minutes ago
comment by Kobbie The King Mainoo (U10026)
posted 3 hours, 10 minutes ago
Ten Hag isn’t wedded to this. We’ve switched between having the wingers wide and narrow all season. It’s something that his last Ajax side was particularly good at, though my understanding is that he had a preference for using them wider in the attacking line. We’re limited with how we can optimise either of the approaches with the midfield and full backs we have, however.
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Yeah, ETH has a nice combination of being tactically smart and innovative, while also being very flexible and not in the least dogmatic.

I'll watch out for the wide/narrow thing in the future, as per your observation.
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I’d argue it’s more down to the players he’s got at his disposal, I don’t think it’s a system he’d actually like to play as although it makes sense overall as to why he’s employing it, it’s not maximising the strengths of many of them. Been your biggest issue over the last decade though, there’s not been much coherence to your recruitment and getting complimentary players.

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