It simply can't be all ...

[brasil_spur]

Ah so 4-3-3 would have made it all better yesterday? Just don't see it that way myself.

All better no, but it would have helped.

4-3-3 plus a better CB pairing might have done.

Seriously Gallas and Ledley are passed it at that level.

 

[MattyP]

Ahh right, that 4-3-3, Th one with one striker and VdV going where he wants. Seemed pretty similar to me, or no wait, you mean not play Lennon for Sandro/Livermore? Should we have brought Sandro on chasing it?

Given that Juan Mata had the freedom of the entire borough of Brent, not just Wembley, throughout the game bringing on Sandro might not have been the worth thing in the world no.

Tackling someone who has the ball, breaking up their play, gives us more opportunities to feed the likes of Lennon, Modric, Bale. At some point we will end up getting the ball off them. Not waiting for them to score so that we can put three passes together by kicking off every five minutes.

 

[$hoguN]

and that's the problem, you can't/won't see any difference and to be honest that's hardly everybody else's fault is it....

Exactly, if you can't see the difference between matching Chelsea with a midfield 3 and allowing them a man advantage in there, this debate is not worth continuing.

The whole argument behind this is simply that we should have played Parker and Sandro to break the game up from the outset, and giving VDV the freedom to create from in front of them. As we did not, both Lennon and Bale were not used enough as the game became very scrappy in the middle of the park. Modric provided us with no drive from midfield and it all played in to Chelsea's hands.

This stands in stark contrast to the game at the Bridge when we played both Sandro and Parker, their presence in the CM positions allowed us to control the possession and impose ourselves, almost completely negating Juan Mata. That should have been the basis for our game plan yesterday and the choice in midfield should have been do we play Lennon or Modric. To compound this error we took off VDV who was providing us with very good cover in midfield whilst trying to link play and looking threatening with Defoe, who for all his attributes, allowed them massive dominance in midfield which sent them on to victory.

Those are Redknapp's errors, not the players. Yes, people were at fault for some of the goals but as a manager you really do have to set a team up in a manner that allows you the best chance of winning the game. If Harry had done that, and then we lost due to individual errors it would be completely on the players. As he did not though, he has to take the lion's share of the blame (and I am a Harry fan).

 

[Paolo10]

We had the better of the first half and only went in one down due to a wondergoal, I fail to see that as a massive failure on the manager's part. 2-0 in the way it came knocked the stuffing out of us, Chelsea did restart better. In all honestly the better team won, but the decision played a massive part.

Even if JD had not came on there's no guarantees we'd come back from 2-1 down, the 3rd murdered us and Ekotto had another stinker.

Individual errors from the officials and our players cost us that game more than any tactical decisions. That's my opinion.

 

[Paolo10]

We had Parker, Modric and VdV against Ramires, Lampard and Mikel until the abhorrent moment JD came on and THEN it all went wrong for us?

 

[$hoguN]

We had Parker, Modric and VdV against Ramires, Lampard and Mata until the abhorrent moment JD came on and THEN it all went wrong for us?

No, we had Parker and Modric against them, until VDV took the decision to drop back. They are two totally different scenarios.

We then proceeded to take off VDV who was giving us the extra man in midfield and replaced him with JD who plays a totally different type of game.

 

[mattyspurs]

Paolo, I admire your stance mate, but you really are on a hiding to nothing if you can't/won't see what is staring everybody, and I mean pretty much everybody in the face.

I've backed Harry to the hilt on many many ocassion, but these last couple of months he has been getting it seriously wrong, I though he had got it right after Stamford Bridge, but he has been contradicting himself, massively.

 

[werty]

I don't think there was anything wrong with the 4411/451 that we started with. Yes, we had more control in the game at the Bridge, but for 70 odd minutes yesterday we were still the better team imo and if it wasn't for a wonder strike and a terrible refereeing decison, both things that 433 wouldn't have prevented, we would have been at worst level. We had created a number of good chances and probably created better and more frequent ones in the first 70 at Wembley than we did in the first 70 at Stamford Bridge(other than the VDV chance I don't remember us having anything), and I don't recall Cudicini having much to do (he made one brilliant save but that's about it). I don't think Mata was in the game much until we changed tactics.

I think the only difference in both games were the last 20 minutes. The majority of our chances in the game at Stamford Bridge came when Chelsea opened up in the last 20. We obviously didn't need to and were able to create chances as they left more space for us. Yesterday it was the opposite, we opened up when we went 442, which was a terrible decision by Harry. That's when Chelsea ripped us open and Harry has to take the blame for that, but I don't think the intial team selection was bad and, as I mentioned above, I thought we were the better team until we changed it.

 

[Mr Pink]

Exactly, if you can't see the difference between matching Chelsea with a midfield 3 and allowing them a man advantage in there, this debate is not worth continuing.

The whole argument behind this is simply that we should have played Parker and Sandro to break the game up from the outset, and giving VDV the freedom to create from in front of them. As we did not, both Lennon and Bale were not used enough as the game became very scrappy in the middle of the park. Modric provided us with no drive from midfield and it all played in to Chelsea's hands.

This stands in stark contrast to the game at the Bridge when we played both Sandro and Parker, their presence in the CM positions allowed us to control the possession and impose ourselves, almost completely negating Juan Mata. That should have been the basis for our game plan yesterday and the choice in midfield should have been do we play Lennon or Modric. To compound this error we took off VDV who was providing us with very good cover in midfield whilst trying to link play and looking threatening with Defoe, who for all his attributes, allowed them massive dominance in midfield which sent them on to victory.

Those are Redknapp's errors, not the players. Yes, people were at fault for some of the goals but as a manager you really do have to set a team up in a manner that allows you the best chance of winning the game. If Harry had done that, and then we lost due to individual errors it would be completely on the players. As he did not though, he has to take the lion's share of the blame (and I am a Harry fan).

Exactly mate, perfectly put.

 

[ethanedwards]

We had the better of the first half and only went in one down due to a wondergoal, I fail to see that as a massive failure on the manager's part. 2-0 in the way it came knocked the stuffing out of us, Chelsea did restart better. In all honestly the better team won, but the decision played a massive part.

Even if JD had not came on there's no guarantees we'd come back from 2-1 down, the 3rd murdered us and Ekotto had another stinker.

Individual errors from the officials and our players cost us that game more than any tactical decisions. That's my opinion.

No guarantees, but if he had kept VDV on I doubt we would have been humiliated.

 

[Stavrogin]

Exactly, if you can't see the difference between matching Chelsea with a midfield 3 and allowing them a man advantage in there, this debate is not worth continuing.

The whole argument behind this is simply that we should have played Parker and Sandro to break the game up from the outset, and giving VDV the freedom to create from in front of them. As we did not, both Lennon and Bale were not used enough as the game became very scrappy in the middle of the park. Modric provided us with no drive from midfield and it all played in to Chelsea's hands.

This stands in stark contrast to the game at the Bridge when we played both Sandro and Parker, their presence in the CM positions allowed us to control the possession and impose ourselves, almost completely negating Juan Mata. That should have been the basis for our game plan yesterday and the choice in midfield should have been do we play Lennon or Modric. To compound this error we took off VDV who was providing us with very good cover in midfield whilst trying to link play and looking threatening with Defoe, who for all his attributes, allowed them massive dominance in midfield which sent them on to victory.

Those are Redknapp's errors, not the players. Yes, people were at fault for some of the goals but as a manager you really do have to set a team up in a manner that allows you the best chance of winning the game. If Harry had done that, and then we lost due to individual errors it would be completely on the players. As he did not though, he has to take the lion's share of the blame (and I am a Harry fan).

I don't think it was as significant as you make out. Chelsea played very well (ie. they were 'up for it'); we played rather poorly (a lot of lax passing and even poor control) and yet up until the second goal - which seemed to break our spirit for 5 minutes and then unleased a age of chaos - we were certainly equal, probably getting on top - much like the form of the previous chelsea game.

There just isn't that much difference between Parker, Modric and VdV and Parker, Modric and Sandro (at least when VdV assumes a modicum of discipline) - Unless we're in some kind of pitched battle (against Milan say), the use of two defensive midfielders has not been particularly optimal (that goes back to last season with Palacios and it's especially apparent now whilst Sandro's in poor(ish) form). It's probably a lack of a familiarity but there's been too much redundancy when Parker and Sandro have played together - there have been various knock-ons from that, which aren't worth going into now.

So I think it's a bit strong to call it an error. A bigger problem. I feel, is that our attacks are beginning to feel a bit anaemic. I know we should/could have scored a couple of goals in that first hour but too often we go forward and I think, 'nothing will come from this.' Do you agree?

 

[sloth]

I don't think it was as significant as you make out. Chelsea played very well (ie. they were 'up for it'); we played rather poorly (a lot of lax passing and even poor control) and yet up until the second goal - which seemed to break our spirit for 5 minutes and then unleased a age of chaos - we were certainly equal, probably getting on top - much like the form of the previous chelsea game.

There just isn't that much difference between Parker, Modric and VdV and Parker, Modric and Sandro (at least when VdV assumes a modicum of discipline) - Unless we're in some kind of pitched battle (against Milan say), the use of two defensive midfielders has not been particularly optimal (that goes back to last season with Palacios and it's especially apparent now whilst Sandro's in poor(ish) form). It's probably a lack of a familiarity but there's been too much redundancy when Parker and Sandro have played together - there have been various knock-ons from that, which aren't worth going into now.

So I think it's a bit strong to call it an error. A bigger problem. I feel, is that our attacks are beginning to feel a bit anaemic. I know we should/could have scored a couple of goals in that first hour but too often we go forward and I think, 'nothing will come from this.' Do you agree?

I think that on the whole that's a balanced post.

However game after game we try the 4-4-1-1/4-4-2, and people like me say it's fine if you're on top, but that there's far less likelihood of being on top, there's more likelihood that you'll lose control of the game, that the balance between winning the ball back and keeping the ball is wrong (winning it and keeping it being the two sides to the possession coin), and therefore it's a weaker set-up both in terms of attacking and defending, and then every time we have a poor game playing this way (which is probably one in every two or three) people come out and say it was just the players had an off day etc.

It's as if someone said, look smoking causes cancer, and someone else said, nonsense, they've just got bad lungs.

But we've played Chelsea three times this year, three halves with 4-2-3-1/4-3-3 and three with 4-4-2/4-4-1-1, the possession stats for the three halves of 4-3-3 are:

59.6% 1st half at WHL
54.5% 1st half at Stamford Bridge
58.4% 2nd half Stamford Bridge

Possession stats for the three halves of 4-4-2/4-4-1-1 are:

48.1% 2nd half WHL
47.5% 1st half Wembley
45.5% 2nd half Wembley

It's clear what the difference is surely?

 

[Bus-Conductor]

I don't think it was as significant as you make out. Chelsea played very well (ie. they were 'up for it'); we played rather poorly (a lot of lax passing and even poor control) and yet up until the second goal - which seemed to break our spirit for 5 minutes and then unleased a age of chaos - we were certainly equal, probably getting on top - much like the form of the previous chelsea game.

There just isn't that much difference between Parker, Modric and VdV and Parker, Modric and Sandro (at least when VdV assumes a modicum of discipline) - Unless we're in some kind of pitched battle (against Milan say), the use of two defensive midfielders has not been particularly optimal (that goes back to last season with Palacios and it's especially apparent now whilst Sandro's in poor(ish) form). It's probably a lack of a familiarity but there's been too much redundancy when Parker and Sandro have played together - there have been various knock-ons from that, which aren't worth going into now.

So I think it's a bit strong to call it an error. A bigger problem. I feel, is that our attacks are beginning to feel a bit anaemic. I know we should/could have scored a couple of goals in that first hour but too often we go forward and I think, 'nothing will come from this.' Do you agree?

There is a big difference between the two combos you mention. When we play Parker and Sandro together in a 4231/433 it changes the dynamics and roles for Parker, Modric, VDV & Bale. In the 433 what you effectively have is Parker and Modric being able to play as dynamic box to box players - alternating with Sandro always as insurance, in the 4231 you have Modric on the ball from the middle of the pitch to their third more, in the 4 man midfield of a 442/4411 Modric must spend far more time in our half and the middle of the pitch than in the 4231/433.

Because Modric must withdraw in the 4411/442 that means VDV is also sucked deeper more often, this in turn isolates Adebayor more.

In the 442/4411, Bale and Lennon become orthodox wide players, and because they are not very good at tracking back - an admission made by Redknapp after the Norwich game - this means Modric and Parker, and usually Parker, are pulled out of position discipline, this then exposes our defenders as we saw perfectly yesterday and against Norwich.

Contrast this with the previous four games, Chelsea, Bolton cup, Swansea, Sunderland. All were played with the 433/4231. We controlled all of those games, and even though Swansea had more possession, we completely controlled where they had that possession and allowed them hardly a sniff at our goal, yet created loads of great situations.

With any bad tactical application you can mitigate by having players work hard and press properly, and too many occasions what happens with us is one compounds the other, giving the appearance that players just weren't "up for it".

But I think, as Sloth's post indicates, there are clear signs that one set of tactics has quite radical knock on effect all over the pitch, and generally we are a better side when we are controlling the game, yet repeatedly Redknapp seems to make a conscious decision to open us up at the wrong times or the wrong games.

 

[Paolo10]

Possession stats don't say as much as you'd like them to Sloth with regards tactics, players giving the ball away is a player giving the ball away. Chelsea passed much better than us from front to back and despite them having more of the ball in the frat half, we had the better chances and more of them.

 

[Stavrogin]

well

I think that on the whole that's a balanced post.

It's clear what the difference is surely?

Well, i'm not sure, I don't think so. There are a number of things wrong with what you've posted.

Firstly, statistically, it's not a lot of evidence and it's not like for like. The matches took place under different circumstances; earlier in the season they were in crisis but in the second game we couldn't afford to lose. This will give them a different character - consider the extreme case of the SF, when it all went berserk, you can't really say it's valid comparison.

Secondly it's a bit reductionist. At our worst we only needed 2.025 minutes of possession to become the dominant team - which isn't necessarily a lot when you consider how much time can get sucked up passing the ball around the middle or when you get put under pressure/pinned back and cannot easily retake proper possession. So to attribute that relatively small difference to one single factor is surely wrong. Chelsea are a good team so their form will be one of the key reasons. Ours too. If someone makes an unexpected error, players are caught out of position, it can often lead to longer spell of possession - all of this will nibble away at those couple of mins.

No one would disagree with the concept that being able to win the ball back more effectively can lead to more possession - but it's not clear that playing Sandro and Parker together directly leads to significantly possession, nor that this produces more desirable results. It may be that our optimum style is allow the opposition to dominate the ball but for us to dominate clear cut chances.. etc. etc.

And I suppose the clincher is that there was no tangible difference in the performances against chelsea (excluding the aberrant last half of the SF). Over the course of those 2.5 matches things were almost uniformly even, whether Sandro played or not. We may have had more possession when he did play but I cannot say that it was a significant difference in the feel or results of the matches.

(But as I said, if he was on form or had better synergy with Parker, it'd probably be a different story)

 

[Bus-Conductor]

Possession stats don't say as much as you'd like them to Sloth with regards tactics, players giving the ball away is a player giving the ball away. Chelsea passed much better than us from front to back and despite them having more of the ball in the frat half, we had the better chances and more of them.

But there is a reason why they passed better than we did, it is because unlike at SB they had the stronger midfield than us, were able to press us better than we could press them. Di mateo effectively swapped Essien for Mikel. We swapped Lennon for Sandro. At SB we had 55% of the ball and 15 shots to their 5. Yesterday they had 53% and 11 shots to our 6.

So there is a correlation with with being able to win the ball, control the midfield, the game and creating chances.

At SB we made 491 passes to there 384. Yesterday they made 456 to our 357.

When they had the ball we only had Parker putting any pressure on the ball and if he wasn't there they had freedom to pass and create, and that is exactly what they did.

Of course we should press better no matter who plays and this would mitigate tactical blunders, but there is a very real pattern emerging recently.

Since the beginning of Feb:

Shit performances/results

Stevenage away (442) dr with club two leagues lower
Arsenal away (442) heavy loss
ManU h (442) heavy loss
Stevenage home (442) shit performance against team two league lower
Everton a (442) loss
Stoke h (4411) home dr
Norwich h (442) home defeat
Chelsea wem (411) heavy loss

Good performance/result

Chelsea a (433) Draw, deserved better.
Bolton h (4231) good win
Swansea h (4231) great win
Sunderland a (433) well earned draw at tough place. 71% possession.


I am of course over simplifying with my comments but surely there is a pattern there. So far this season I can't remember a single game when we have played 4231 or 433 and played badly and/or lost.

We have Redknapp after nearly all the above saying "I think this system gives us more control" , after nearly all the above shit performances and results he has trotted out the "this system makes us too open".

Surely it's time for the penny to drop.

 

[Spurs_Bear]

Swansea away we weren't great, and we were awful against Wigan away as well. But that's nitpicking as we didn't lose either of them.

 

[Krafty]

'We were so open' blah blah.... you know what Harry, how about you do some sodding work on the training pitch so that we aren't so open??? I'm getting tired of excuses that are akin to saying 'meh, its fate, what ya gonna do?'

Trying to shoe horn all the big name players into the same team is not a viable tactic. If Harry tries it again against QPR then my faith in him will be severely tested. While some of the players performances have been dire, Harry has to take responsibility for allowing these situations to fester. He's allowed egos to develop, overstretched certain players, and not devised a plan B when times have got tough. Its really disappointing.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

Swansea away we weren't great, and we were awful against Wigan away as well. But that's nitpicking as we didn't lose either of them.

Wigan away was the best first halve's we've played away from home apart from Norwich (also 433). And Swansea wasn't a great performance but we didn't loose either.

 

[Spurs_Bear]

Wigan away was the best first halve's we've played away from home apart from Norwich (also 433). And Swansea wasn't a great performance but we didn't loose either.

Yes. But the second half negated it, as many people have tried to tell you.

You're right about Swansea, that's what I said.