Its been ever so subtly introduced but has anyone else noticed how we are now playing much more like how AVB had Porto set up than we were at the beginning of the season? The high line came in almost immediately at the beginning of the season, but we were still playing Lennon and Bale out wide, 1 up and 1 behind. Since the emergence of Bale as much more than a winger and his subsequent move to a more free role he is basically playing the Hulk position. He is sort of up front but often drifts left/right/back, he has power, pace and strikes the ball like a wizard. All attributes Hulk has. Similarly at Porto he lined up with a high up the pitch right winger. A sort of winger-cum-third-forward. This is the position Lennon is occupying. Being "lopsided" (no left winger but right winger) means the central/attacking mids have to play with a sort of left bias to their play in order to balance it out which you can sort of see in average positions of the players in this article (don't read what Savage says unless you want to): http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/21624635 Also at Porto he played with a defensive mid and a deep lying playmaker (Moutinho). I was again surprised at just how deep Dembele is playing in the article above, in fact on average he is further back than Parker. So, while Dembele does it a slightly different way to Moutinho (from what i've seen of Mouts) he is basically occupying the same position in the AVB way. Edit - here is the relevant average positions image:
Just need Adebayor to start playing like Falcao I can't say I remember too much of how AVB had Porto set up but I don't think Hulk and Bale's role yesterday were that similar. I don't remember Porto testing the offside trap as much or having such slack passing, to be honest. I think it's a case of AVB adapting his tactics to our squad better than trying to turn us into Porto but I'm probably not in a good position to talk as I could probably only name 3 players of Porto's starting 11 back then.
Yeah, same diff, a sort of Spurs/AVB hybrid. We're not exactly like Porto but what i was getting at is we have introduced more features AVB had at Porto as the season has progressed. We've got a better defence than Porto. They were more "if you score 3 we'll score 5" type.
The Gooners pathetically useless attempts at the offside game were obviously something AVB had noted. It was well highlighted by Hansen last night just how disorganised they were defensively. I can't believe that's something that had escaped AVB's notice.
Whatever tactics you employ, you need the players to execute them. There are two factors which made the difference yesterday. The first one is obvious- the threat of Bale (and to a lesser extent Lennon) running centrally from deep positions to exploit the flat-footed Arsenal defence, who had no plan B when they couldn't play offside. The second was the ability of Vertonghen to read the game and intercept the ball so often, with Dawson scrapping well behind him on the occasions Arsenal did threaten. Arsenal certainly had the upper hand in keeping possession in midfield- Spurs didn't have anyone who got a grip there all afternoon- but the defence was so resolute, limiting Arsenal to one or two chances only. Spurs unbeaten run of results since the defeat to Everton in early December seems to down to one or other of these factors against almost all the teams played in that period.
That's clearly untrue. Plan B was to stand as still as possible and stick their hands in the air, then gesture wildly at the linesman once the ball was in the net. Not a great plan, admittedly.
I just think AVB doesn't necessarily have a "way" since being sacked from Chelsea. He still seems to be devloping his own style, in my opinion, and that involves experimenting with different tactics.
He clearly has preferred ways and tactics. For example, the high line was a feature at Porto. It was brought in immediately at chelsea and at spurs to differing degrees of success.
Playing a high line with John terry wasn't the smartest move! and one of my criticisms of AVB, is that he will play a system regardless of if it suits the squad as I have always believed the best managers set up the tactics/system to suit the squads ability. With our current system there are still flaws, but we're on a 12 match unbeaten run, so its difficult to actually debate what is wrong within the team, as fans just look to the results and then say where playing fantastic football. But just from my view, I don't feel our football is that impressive overall, but our defence is impressive, and with the talent in front, all we need is to make quick move, or play the right pass and we're taking our chances , so that means in short spells we're able to put together moves and have players like Bale to score. Yesterday our passing was embarrassing at times (overall), but in key moments we where cynical, so its such a fine line between his tactics working and failing. Overall I can see more positives in AVB and "his way" since the start of the season, yet if we could pass the ball better, keep it, pass and move then we could be onto something, but for that to happen we have to sign some key players this summer.
I actually prefer watching counter attacking to tika-taka type things. While we could deffo do with a better keep ball game i want us to continue with the pressing and counter attacking. Some of Arsenal/Swansea/Barca/Spain's football is bloody tedious imo. Impressive skills but coma inducing some times with no end product. Probably the most exciting team i've watched in my lifetime (my opinion of course) was the Utd one with Giggs/Kanchelskis splatting teams on the break.
I'm a big fan of counter attack, but playing a high line isn't a counter attack quality, as when a manager sets up a team to play a high line it means taking the game to the opponent and pressing them into mistakes high up the pitch, which we have seen in short spells. I think the main reason we still get joy from the counter attack, is because we lose the midfield battle, we get pushed back and then because our squad is naturally a counter attacking team, we get joy because its their natural game. But we definitively have to learn how to keep the ball, as yesterday even when it was 2-1 and we where under pressure, our defenders would just thump the ball away, it was like watching England under pressure. If we could have kept the ball, and passed it, then it relives pressure.
Did we need to? I think on paper that was always going to be the case, so why try to outdo them there. Its risky, but if we'd had the ball more in MF they would be deeper and less likely to go forward other than to counter. It would have played into their hands had they given us the ball in MF and try to break them down because we're crap at it. Teams that have had joy against us have done this, trust good ol Wenger to ignore the (successful) trend and do it differently.
I saw it differently to you then yesterday, Boss. for the majority of the second half I thought we played it out well, usually with Parker running forward or getting it to whoever out of Sigurdsson, Lennon or Bale had come fairly deep to exploit the gaps Arsenal left. Defoe was blowing out of his arse after about 10 minutes playing, which didn't help things but generally, whilst not playing brilliant we were fairly comfortable other than conceding a few soft freekicks. Overall I agree though. Longterm I want us playing better football than we do right now. The trouble when we were playing a slower, passing build up was that we didn't have Bale banging in regular goals from anywhere which meant we had to create chances against sides who were defending with 10/11 behind the ball, which we're not very good at. More often than not it took a bit of luck or brilliance for us to take the lead and if we didn't get it we wouldn't score. I was hoping for more progress on our passing game as the season wore on but with Dembele not having the influence he should have and Bale thriving in the middle, making it more difficult to play Holtby there. I'm prepared to wait for us to carry on as we are if we keep getting the results. Next season, with a couple of signings and a more settled preseason(touch wood) we can start to look to control the football better.
Fair points YV. Yes I'm more thinking overall, as I know the goons where always going to see more the ball, as taking away the banter, they are a better passing team and have a better midfield unit. If we continue to adapt to the defensive system (which we are) and then improve in midfield, while also having bale, lennon, holtby (assuming he settles) and that NEW STRIKER! then I can see huge potential in "AVBS way". Although I won't moan too much about us getting luck or a moment of brilliance, as over the years thats deserted us at key times!
I'd go along with most of this. As Luke also said, we were pretty much outplayed in midfield - nobody exerted any control when we had the ball - our passing and movement were also poor compared to The Goons. To be honest, if they had the first clue of how how to defend effectively, or how to deliver a telling final ball, they'd probably have beaten us.
Did you manage to watch MOTD2? they showed three occasions when Wallcott made superb runs, and their "saviour" Jack, failed to play a through ball, when if he had, he would have been clean through, although that doesn't mean a goal, but luckily the pressure of getting back into the game was too much for their midfielders as they didn't see the runs.
Most probably didn't (ah! just seen it was a direct reply to nsis. Nsis, this isn't at you ), well not to listen to the pundits analysis, there was a thread here recently and I was amazed the amount of posters here that refuse to watch/listen because they think the pundits are all ****. Well, every week the '**** pundits' pick up something out that nobody else does in here. Whatever you think of them, there'll be something they've spotted that none of us here do, even if its one thing, its one thing worth learning. Re. Walcott and his thankless runs, you could say Ade has similar games in that respect Boss.
I think that the difference is that Adebayor knows that his runs are often going to be thankless, Notso. He intentionally goes into offside positions and runs away from where the ball's going to be played in order to draw opposition players out of position. Walcott's actually hoping that the ball's going to be played to him, as it was early on in the first half, when Walker got back and put him off. please log in to view this image Mertesacker starts to track Adebayor's run and leaves a lovely big gap for Sigurdsson to play the ball through. Didn't see Giroud making any similar runs yesterday, though I wasn't really concentrating on him, to be fair.
