Tactics last night

[nidge]

We played the perfect European away match last night. Unfortunately for us we did lose the tie last night but, in the first leg at WHL.

As I saw it last night we played more of a 4-1-3-2 formation with Zoko hold and Malbranque, Hudd and JJ given the freedom to change positions because I counted several times when they weren't in position set out on the team sheet. As Yanno said our FBs were set to stop PSV's wide strikers and that left King and Woodgate to cover the one central striker and enough presence in the centre as not to be over run.

As I said he set us up to play the perfect away match in a european tie.

 

[Shanks]

Agree completely with Yanno and Pete on this one.

Tactics were fantastic, but over fantastic. With the right players at his disposal and possibly a fully fit team, they would have worked.

Mind if it wasn't for their keeper

 

[idlepete]

Football is a game of fine margins - especially at the top level. Ramos came out with a gameplan which enabled us to be the better side last night. A bit of luck here and there, a slightly sharper Darren Bent, Steed's screamer going in the top corner, etc etc, and we would have won last night.

Remember Ramos inherited this squad, including the Curse of the Attacking Left Back (ie they're all sodding well injured). I'm gutted. But still more optimistic about our prospects than I have been for years and years.

Yep, there were all sorts of things about the gameplan I liked. For instance, although playing for a clean sheet wasn't a necessity, goals do change games and it did deny PSV anything to build on (you need to score 1 before you can score 2) and it silenced their fans, all of which made PSV very nervy... psychologically Ramos really tested them.

Maybe the real reason I'm a bit miffed is because I spent the previous night slating Benitez to my scouser mates for making me sit through 90 minutes of unattractive, negative football while feeling utterly confident that we'd be going all out to score an early goal in this fixture with some fast, one-touch, passing football...

I'm also very optimistic about next season, and can't wait for Ramos to stamp his authority all over this team with a good pre-season and some more new signings. I feel we can hit the ground running, something we were never really able to achieve under Jol. And I always said when Jol was in charge that if we could do that, just once, then the top four would look like a realistic target.

 

[yanno]

As I saw it last night we played more of a 4-1-3-2 formation with Zoko hold and Malbranque, Hudd and JJ given the freedom to change positions because I counted several times when they weren't in position set out on the team sheet. As Yanno said our FBs were set to stop PSV's wide strikers and that left King and Woodgate to cover the one central striker and enough presence in the centre as not to be over run.

Nidge - I suspect Jenas was the player who was meant to play at the point of the diamond, but as you suggest, there was a lot of fluidity. I also think that, at half time, Ramos specifically put Bent on and moved Berba into the hole to make the formation more attack-minded. In other word, Bent up front to stretch their defence by looking to get in behind, and Berba to give us more creativity at the point of the diamond.

PSV created very little, but they became so cautious that it was very hard for us to break them down.

 

[nidge]

Nidge - I suspect Jenas was the player who was meant to play at the point of the diamond, but as you suggest, there was a lot of fluidity. I also think Ramos specifically put Bent on and moved Berba into the hole to make the formation more attack-minded. In other word, Bent up front to stretch their defence by looking to get in behind, and Berba to give us more creativity at the point of the diamond.

PSV created very little, but they became so cautious that it was very hard for us to break them down.

I agree. We completely stopped a team 6 point ahead of their nearest rival in the league and are a regular CL team. It shows what Ramos is capable of inspite of the limitations our squad has at the moment. As we have both said previously he is one of (if not the) best managers I have ever seen when it comes to game management he sees things long before anyone else and doesn't seem to second guess himself either.

 

[walworthyid]

I think what a few of you seem to be neglecting is the fact that last week we struggled to break them down. Yes, on our day we are a fantastic attacking side but were we going to have one of those days? Based on the previous game we were not.

Ramos gave us a system that enabled us to apply pressure to PSV without being exposed. He then went for a more attacking formation, that seemed to confuse the players for a while, but once we scored PSV had no way back into the game.

It is also very important to realise that we simply do not have the creativity in the middle to unlock teams that play 5 across the middle and just sit back.

In the end a fantastic save from their keeper from steed and another from JJ in the penalty shoot-out won them the game.

It had nothing to do with tactics. We done enough but did not have the luck.

 

[leetotty]

Given who was and wasn't available, I thought Ramos got the gameplan correct last night, as I've written here:

http://www.spurscommunity.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=28671&page=2

Yep agree with all that. I thought his starting 11 game plan was excellent given the success of the "wingers" of Lennon and Steed in the first leg.

My only very small criticism was why Ramos made the Bent for Lee change at half-time. I agree that the subsitition had to made, but making subs at half time can give the opposition time to counter his moves as they are made aware of subsistitions at half time too. I can understand why he did then as he can prepare his players and they go out with new gusto and given bent nearly scored it was nearly a dream sub, but I think 5 minutes followjg half time would cause more confusion for the opposition.

I also thought Lennon for King for a few minutes following caused us problems, following that substituion was the only time in the game where PSV gained some terroritial advantage. I couldn't ascertain whether that was intended by the sub so thus encouraging PSV to attack more and thus leave more spaces or whether some people were not aware of their new positions.

Anyway, Ramos is a good tactician, there are very little managers in the world that I know of who would make such bold substitutions and that should be applaued..Its just a shame I think that he hasn't got more diverse players to play with

 

[Gilzeanking]

Deciding how well our tactics went must go hand in hand with an assessment of how good PSV are .

Having seen their excellent performance at WHL , I thought our domination (anyone got the possession figures ?) was amazing .

PSV are doing very well in their league , we had more chances .Hard to characterise this performance as a tactical failure imo .

Unlocking massed defences at the Lane looks to be a problem for us .We require midfield guile and (shudder) the thought of our forward line without Berbs.....

 

[fozzi44]

Hello. I'm not criciticising the tactics as you can clearly see if you read the original post. Nobody's picking up on what seemed to me the most interesting aspect of the tactics - why start with three central midfielders, and was he expecting Hudd to control the game in a sort of free role? This isn't a criticism, it's a question - I'm trying to understand the tactics.

Sad to say, Ramos got this one wrong.

:roll::roll:

whats that if its not a criticism

 

[Kendall]

Ramos got it right. If only we'd gotten that goal a little earlier. The players were too shattered by ET to really go for the jugular.

PSV were fucking turd.

 

[chewie]

the only thing ramos got wrong was no width in the final 3rd. their keeper was like a parrot flapping at everything...

PSV were only interested in playing down the centre, so where was our width?

even if we did go wide more often, their 3rd was always going to be packed with men.

we lost the tie in the 1st leg.

 

[idlepete]

:roll::roll:

whats that if its not a criticism

It's an idlepete criticism. He was trying to quote me and failed.

 

[wojch]

To be honest: Ramos did the right thing. He didnt play Lennon from the start - Aaron when he comes in fresh, no one can beat his pace... Playing "three" at the back in later stages - superb tactic. There was nothing to loose at that time.
I could go on and on about yesterday but instead:
hail Ramos and his "open minded" tactics!

coys

 

[striebs]

Was going to write something along those lines but not a lot of point as you have summed it up perfectly for me.

In fact the more I think about it the more I applaud Senor Ramos for completely changing the game plan and setting the team out in a such a different manner. Was a very brave move and penalties aside it worked.

Have some rep.

Credit to him for changing it but he got the starting line up wrong .

We could have beaten that side if we had gone all out .

TBH mendes I'm not quite sure what JR was trying to do, but it worked that's the thing, and I think it's unrealisitc to expect us to go 'gung-ho' away from home from the start - (and you've pointed out some of the problems in this thread) - for me JR got it right overall given the circumstances (of which he's far more aware than we are)

I fail to see how it worked , we needed 2 goals and didn't get them . Would rather we gone out in a blaze and lost 4-3 .

 

[DC_Boy]

I fail to see how it worked , we needed 2 goals and didn't get them . Would rather we gone out in a blaze and lost 4-3 .

It worked because we beat a 'CL team' on their own patch - that's pretty glorious to me - had we won the shoot out it would have gone down as one of our greatest-ever European triumphs

 

[Damian99]

I said this in the 'Proud' thread:

Mixed feelings for me. Proud of the effort that the team put in to beat PSV and how well-organised we were, but... tactically we were cagey as fuck last night. What happened to a compact midfield with two wingers? What happened to 'to dare is to do?' We needed to go out there and beat the other team... 2-1 or 3-2 would have been better than 1-0 and I really expected our lineup to reflect that from the off.

Ramos put out a team to keep us in the tie for as long as possible, and in doing so put the result above the football. This isn't a major criticism. I can understand why he would do that. Get the result right first and worry about the football later. Problem is, when you do that and then don't get the result, no matter how close you come you're hoist by your own petard.

Sad to say, Ramos got this one wrong. And I'd have been prouder if we'd gone out in a blaze of glory and goals.

I guess if it's possible to accuse Ramos of anything last night it's of being almost too tactically astute and overthinking our approach to the fixture. We were already losing. We could have done with some all-out attack Jol-esque tactical naivety...

Didn't ramos play the way you're suggesting in the first leg with Lennon and lose the tie 1-0? Lennon was very very inaffective in that game aswell. Would make sense to play the same way i suppose :shrug:

 

[Pedro]

I think the tactics were spot on - untill extra time. We were the better team and won the leg. My only diapointment was when we lost our attacking drive in extra time and seemed to accept peanlties. I think this was down to tiredness more than anything. In hindsight we should have pushed harder for the second goal and not worry too much about conceeding a goal, since 2-1 would have still put us through. Hopefully in the future we will consider a penalty shootout the same as a loss and do everything to avoid it.

 

[DC_Boy]

Hi Pedro But as you say we were tired, that's not the tactics fault, it was the fact we played on Sunday they didn't, we'd had the plane journey etc they hadn't, it wqas a tribute to our fitness we got to penalties -

next time we go to extra time we may win - remember we did it at Wembley using, yep you guessed it, JR's tactics

 

[Johnspur]

I thought Ramos had the tactics right, we went to their place setup a midfield to stop them from playing which we did and won 1-0, only tired legs and a great last minute save stopped us from taking it in extra time. Over 90 mins we gave them only their 3rd home defeat of the season, 1 of those came in the champs league to Inter.

 

[claw_diddy]

The tactics were wrong at the Lane in the first leg, end of.