Ange Postecoglou

In Ange I Trust!

Only hope he's here long enough to see more of the results under a more confident team in Europe.

 

Give the man a good transfer budget in the next couple ae windows, so we can have a real crack at Europe next season.

 

A top CM and a Dembele level striker and we'll be cooking with gas.

Doubt we'll get that though.

 

This is probably exactly where I would disagree.

If one team sets out their stall - which in the case of Shakhtar was to get a point - and the other fails to break them down, I don’t think it’s necessarily true the the team that played a more expansive game deserved more from the game.

Myabe need to watch it again, but it was a game that we played better than the opposition in, but not by a clear enough margin to state that a draw was an unfair result.

 

It is the fact that we face a different breed in Europe which makes it difficult to compete.

We can't play one way for the vast majority of our games and then seemlessly change it for a handfull of games.

We just need to keep improving and we'll get there. A more clinical striker would have put an entirely different complexion on our efforts in Europe.
Not losing CalMac Starfelt and Jota would also have seen us in better light.

 

Not trying to be disrespectful but the closest most of our defence will come to facing CL forwards is in training games against our own forwards.

One thing I would like to see progression in is how our defenders and midfielders play out from a press and develop their press resistance. We have some who are really good at this but it really stands out to me in the CL just how good the other teams tend to be on the ball under pressure. In fact they are that good they tend to use it as an attacking weapon to draw out our press and counter on teams.

That is something I think we can adopt in a lot of domestic games where we tend to get bogged down in just going side to side. I cannot remember which team it was but they were talking about in training they actually set up drills which puts players in tight difficult situations and run it over and over to get them used to being pressured intensely and being comfortable playing under such pressure.

Yeah it doesn’t replicate the game completely but repetitive exposure is one of the best ways to learn and given our level of domestic opposition training may be one our main avenues to learn this.

That was something that was impressive about Bodo/Glimt when we played them, they had not just signed players who had those strengths on the ball they had developed defenders and midfield players who were ok on the ball to be able to become very effective at playing under pressure and breaking a press.

 

Good idea, but our own press is deficient. We are exposed to an environment where mistakes we make do not get punished...and then we have to change to a much harsher environment. This is why persisting with Ange's tactics is not likely to yield results in Europe.

 

I don’t disagree that our press is deficient but it is better than what we face domestically.

Plus maybe get Gav Strachan to get the laptop fired up and do some research on drills for effective pressing.

In terms of persisting with Ange’s tactics I do think we need to be more intelligent in when we press and our overall game management but regardless improving our quality of the ball and pressing will be important for us too ever make progress.

At the end of the day CL progress will likely be determined by who we get in the draw to start with and from that we want to do our best to achieve what’s reasonable from that. This group the fact Leipzig just beat Madrid means it was unlikely we were ever getting out the group. Given where we are in the football world food chain, we need to play as close to perfect for us (take nearly all our good chances, not give away anything cheap) and then still have a bit of luck or our keeper having a great day.

However becoming a better version of what we are has to be the aim. That will take a lot of things to come together, players ability, coaching levels, adaptability of players, physical conditioning, mental attitude and maturity (essentially knowing their roles so well it just happens naturally). These for me are all things that can make us better and that we must strive for.

Knowing when and where to press when on the ball will be one of the areas where there is a lot of potential for improvement, understanding how to manage our way through games is another. Add in getting some more players with the right profile and fine tuning our scouting to find them.

A lot to do.

 

I would rather play away in Europe with a 4-4-2.

 

Ange needs to have a chat to Giakoumakis. Taking his shirt off each time he scores is ridiculous.

 

Our press at times has been * unreal, all three CL teams have commented on the intensity of it, and all 3 have gave away loose possesion at the back because of it. Shakhtar away was constant for the first half hour with that, we haven’t took advantage of it though, when they know we don’t do anything when we win it high up the pitch, it’s easier to play out beyond it because they don’t feel as panicked about us getting the ball. You visibly see them react.

The Real game they didn’t until the 2nd half and Ancelotti used it against us, made us press into the corner then went direct as *. And it worked.

 

Knowing what to do at set pieces would be good.

 

Personally I think the way we are set up to press can be a disorganised mess. We knacker ourselves out mindlessly throwing everything into hunting the ball down without proper due care and leaving big chunks of the pitch free which makes us far too easy to play through once teams get over the initial fright and have a bit of technical competence about them.

There was an interview with the Napoli manager online somewhere and he goes into a bit of detail about how he sets his team up to do it. Like us, he wants the ball won back asap and high up the pitch but his players know when and how to press and work as a cohesive unit to cover any spaces that have opened up. We don't really do that.

Our press domestically works fine because we simply overwhelm average or poor teams who will panic and give the ball away, but at a higher level it can be borderline * at times.

 

i was driving home the other day and this song come over the radio on Yarra Valley FM

i told the hitchiker he had to sing along or he was out the car.....

 

See what your saying counter argument is maybe that way of playing isn’t perfected over night probably why it is important to have the b team and youth teams adopting the style but like La Masia at Barcelona


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Barcelona have nurtured the same style of football for decades. Nearly the whole of Spain has. I think a less ambitious playing style is better, because the team could adopt it faster.

 

When Ange does (in 40 years) I'm gonna have a cry