Our Achilles' Heel

[thinktank]

6 points dropped this season now to teams that have defended deep and hit us on the counter. We are weak against pace and teams that play counter-attacking football. It's our Achilles' Heel.

The high line works if we can keep our concentration defensively but it's clear to any manager of weaker teams, or even teams as good as ours, that the way to beat us is to sit back, defend deep and centrally (particularly if we offer zero width on the left) and then look to hit us on the break.

Arsenal should have beaten us by 3 or more using that tactic (Lloris saved us from embarrassment) and today, West Ham did the same except they also played for set pieces and corners when in our half of the pitch. I wasn't surprised to see Walcott tear our high line apart at the Emirates, and West Ham played exactly as I would have predicted today.

AVB now needs to get a plan B if that's what the opposition plan to do because we're now going to see a lot more teams set up to beat us like West Ham did today. Start with Sandro/Capoue in the middle and keep one destroyer sitting back and distributing from deep, in order to break up the counter, and use some bloody width on the left hand side. You're not going to break through a body of ten men if they're all congested in the middle, particularly if there's not enough movement off the ball.

And conversely we are the slowest team on the counter-attack in the prem.

It's painful watching us try and build something on the break, it really is.

 

[sim0n]

Powerful striker like Benteke would make teams think twice about getting too deep on us. We offer no threat from crosses or corners so why would anyone want to give us space between their lines?

yep, axe AVB and let Freund hold down the fort until DL signs up Lambert,.... 2 birds, one stone when Lambert then signs Benteke in the January window...

 

[kitchen]

I'll keep adding to this thread each time this naive tactic costs us points. I knew we'd lose today because it was another team with pace. Remy exploited our back line last game. Today, Aguero, Toure and Navas repeatedly got in behind, and Nasri was finding all of them without even trying.

53% possession means nothing when you leave gaping holes behind, and the opponents have the pace to exploit that. We'll also lose to Liverpool, Utd, Arsenal again, amongst others, unless AVB gets a plan B (that's if he lasts long enough to devise a plan B)

And I'm back here again…

Still no plan B, still the stupid high line, this time with a makeshift defence. No runners tracked. Again exploited by pace. We made Sterling look like a world beater today…

The ease with which liverpool ran beyond our back 4 was farcical.

 

[UncleBuck]

Unfortunately our Achilles heel is AVB, we won't see anything different from him as he just doesn't seem to see what everyone does.
With the squad we have I would expect better performances from a Sunday league manager.

 

[cwhite02]

For a manager who is meant to be so tactical, he doesnt seem to have many tactics or ideas against different threats from other teams. 3 wins at home is not good enough.

 

[OmarsComing]

yep, axe AVB and let Freund hold down the fort until DL signs up Lambert,.... 2 birds, one stone when Lambert then signs Benteke in the January window...

Lambert as our manager would make me not want to live anymore.

 

[Kalim]

Lambert as our manager would make me not want to live anymore.

Into the frying pan

 

[Black]

Come on that starting 11 was poor as usual.

90% of the time avb premiership starting 11 never look good.

Sandro, Dembele, Paulie and Chadli all four very similar types of players.

Then we had Lennon with Soldado up front. None of those players look a serious threat in games bar Soldado.

What would you expect from that team when on our bench we had Townsend, Holtby, Lamela, Sigurdsson. It's like Avb set us up for a draw you can clearly see why soldado doesn't score regularly. How do you go from giving him the service on Thursday to what looks like intentionally starving him today. We had no shots on target today lol

I don't think the high line has any thing to do with it, I actually like it. It works great when the players in midfield want to pass the ball. It all depends on the right combo between the three behind Soldado and who plays with Sandro and Avb continues to get this wrong.

And I still feel we miss Huddlestone, just some who could pass the ball.

Was the man city game the last time we actually looked good