- Jul 22, 2006
- 301
- 1,288
Have to agree with @mpickard2087 in that it's not the tactics but the execution.
For the first 25 minutes of the game yesterday I really was not worried at all. Marseille went man for man in a press and with us dropping our midfielders and defensive line back it left acres of space both in behind and between their midfield and backline for us to exploit. We fluffed so many opportunities to take advantage of this in the first 25 minutes but I just thought it was matter of time before we got it right and punished them. Unfortunately from about 25 minutes we got even more careless with the ball and with our forwards losing pretty much every single battle we really struggled in that period.
Second half we came out and immediately we looked much better on the ball. We were just that little bit sharper, took more care in possession and stopped trying to force things that weren't really there. You might look at that game and say Marseille were in control but they were ripe for picking off which we did pretty much straight after half time by getting Son in behind and forcing the red card.
For the first 25 minutes of the game yesterday I really was not worried at all. Marseille went man for man in a press and with us dropping our midfielders and defensive line back it left acres of space both in behind and between their midfield and backline for us to exploit. We fluffed so many opportunities to take advantage of this in the first 25 minutes but I just thought it was matter of time before we got it right and punished them. Unfortunately from about 25 minutes we got even more careless with the ball and with our forwards losing pretty much every single battle we really struggled in that period.
Second half we came out and immediately we looked much better on the ball. We were just that little bit sharper, took more care in possession and stopped trying to force things that weren't really there. You might look at that game and say Marseille were in control but they were ripe for picking off which we did pretty much straight after half time by getting Son in behind and forcing the red card.