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Nagy and Massengo


ORANGE500

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None of them are bad players. But they are not the type of players we needed. And that’s an issue for the recruitment team (Ashton). 
 

Our style of play for the last 2 seasons has been to play out from the back, have Pack as a DM able to collect the ball and be comfortable with it in his own half. Webster able to be comfortable bringing the ball out too. We had no panicking on the ball inside our own half. 
Off the ball we had a DM who patrolled the edge of the box and stayed disciplined in front of the CB’s to offer protection, who also ‘sat in’ for the CB if he roamed forward. 
 

What we have in Nagy & Massengo is basically no different to the other CM’s we already have. We have not replaced the DM. 
 

Both Nagy & Massengo are wanderers. They have energy and like to get around the pitch, close down the ball (sometime actually chase the ball unnecessarily). They do not have the discipline of a strict DM. Therefore we are often wide open down the middle and the CB’s are often exposed. Brownhill & Smith are exactly the same - they are ball chasers, harriers, close down, lots of energy, but no strict positional discipline. Of course, these are good traits and you need 1 of these, but you can’t play with 2 of these - there’s no one covering for them when they wander. 
On the ball, Nagy & Massengo are very much like Brownhill. You are happy for them to have it in the opposition half where they have decent technique and can play quick passes to try to work openings. However, none of them fill you with any confidence whatsoever if you want them to receive the ball in their own half. None of them have the composure and awareness receiving the ball on the edge of their own box, being able to calmly play out from the back. All 3 of them have a bit of a panic when in those areas. Whilst Pack got caught once or twice having a bit of a dawdle on the ball sometimes, we’ve seen Nagy, Massengo & Brownhill all get caught there this season and it’s been about 15-20 times already. They panic, have no awareness, lose composure and make bad decisions. 
 

In summary, we lost a strictly disciplined DM who was composed on the ball (albeit with his own faults), and we’ve replaced him with 2 players who are totally different to him but ever so similar to each other. Our CM’s are all exactly the same and we have no DM to hold it together. 
 

Doesn’t mean they are bad players. They’re just exactly the same as each other and do not complement one another. 

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41 minutes ago, Harry said:

None of them are bad players. But they are not the type of players we needed. And that’s an issue for the recruitment team (Ashton and Johnson )However, none of them fill you with any confidence whatsoever if you want them to receive the ball in their own half. None of them have the composure and awareness receiving the ball on the edge of their own box, being able to calmly play out from the back. All 3 of them have a bit of a panic when in those areas. Whilst Pack got caught once or twice having a bit of a dawdle on the ball sometimes, we’ve seen Nagy, Massengo & Brownhill all get caught there this season and it’s been about 15-20 times already. They panic, have no awareness, lose composure and make bad decisions. Doesn’t mean they are bad players. They’re just exactly the same as each other and do not complement one another. 

They were both capable of it earlier in the season. Virtually every player, other than maybe 2 or 3, were in full panic mode today.

I definitely think we would benefit from some players with better physical attributes - strength and pace. 

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44 minutes ago, Harry said:

None of them are bad players. But they are not the type of players we needed. And that’s an issue for the recruitment team (Ashton). 
 

Our style of play for the last 2 seasons has been to play out from the back, have Pack as a DM able to collect the ball and be comfortable with it in his own half. Webster able to be comfortable bringing the ball out too. We had no panicking on the ball inside our own half. 
Off the ball we had a DM who patrolled the edge of the box and stayed disciplined in front of the CB’s to offer protection, who also ‘sat in’ for the CB if he roamed forward. 
 

What we have in Nagy & Massengo is basically no different to the other CM’s we already have. We have not replaced the DM. 
 

Both Nagy & Massengo are wanderers. They have energy and like to get around the pitch, close down the ball (sometime actually chase the ball unnecessarily). They do not have the discipline of a strict DM. Therefore we are often wide open down the middle and the CB’s are often exposed. Brownhill & Smith are exactly the same - they are ball chasers, harriers, close down, lots of energy, but no strict positional discipline. Of course, these are good traits and you need 1 of these, but you can’t play with 2 of these - there’s no one covering for them when they wander. 
On the ball, Nagy & Massengo are very much like Brownhill. You are happy for them to have it in the opposition half where they have decent technique and can play quick passes to try to work openings. However, none of them fill you with any confidence whatsoever if you want them to receive the ball in their own half. None of them have the composure and awareness receiving the ball on the edge of their own box, being able to calmly play out from the back. All 3 of them have a bit of a panic when in those areas. Whilst Pack got caught once or twice having a bit of a dawdle on the ball sometimes, we’ve seen Nagy, Massengo & Brownhill all get caught there this season and it’s been about 15-20 times already. They panic, have no awareness, lose composure and make bad decisions. 
 

In summary, we lost a strictly disciplined DM who was composed on the ball (albeit with his own faults), and we’ve replaced him with 2 players who are totally different to him but ever so similar to each other. Our CM’s are all exactly the same and we have no DM to hold it together. 
 

Doesn’t mean they are bad players. They’re just exactly the same as each other and do not complement one another. 

They are different players. Nagy is a deep playmaker where as massengo for me is the standard holding defensive midfielder.

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5 minutes ago, Kibs said:

They were both capable of it earlier in the season. 

Were they though? Both made plenty of errors in their first few games, but fans cut them slack as they were new. Look back - you’ll see lots of errors from both. We’re all just noticing it more now because we’re not winning. 

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3 minutes ago, Lez said:

They are different players. Nagy is a deep playmaker where as massengo for me is the standard holding defensive midfielder.

They’re the same. They both have bundles of energy and want to chase, harry, close down. Neither are strict or disciplined in a traditional DM sense. 
Decent players, don’t get me wrong. But they are the same and do not compliment each other. 

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2 hours ago, old_eastender said:

Here's the rub, both Nagy and Massengo looked like real quality in the first few games they played. The fact they are now 'hiding' from taking the ball on at all, I suspect is more to with the 'quality' of our combined coaches, than any lack of ability.

LJ, Macca and Holden all need to be shown the door.

Just follows a pattern, doesn't it.

The players change but the patterns remain similar.

I seem to recall amongst others the following players under LJ who are no longer here, and I'm not including Matthews or Tomlin due to attitude, but beyond those were lauded or praised on here early on, before declining over time, this is off the top of my head as there were likely more too:

  • Magnússon
  • Hegeler
  • O'Neil

 

1 hour ago, dave36 said:

At times today it was Nagy, Massengo and Dasilva in a line defending, must be the shortest trio in the EFL

Red herring possibly. Check the heights of Brentford's midfield.

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1 hour ago, Kibs said:

Nagy (who I do like btw) was just unbelievably bad today. He looks completely shot in terms of mentality and confidence. He doesn’t want the ball and he’s taking twice as long to try and get it under control as he was earlier in the season. 
 

Morrell would be a far better option.

The far better option would be to help Nagy get back to his best. Pearson if only.

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1 hour ago, Harry said:

None of them are bad players. But they are not the type of players we needed. And that’s an issue for the recruitment team (Ashton). 
 

Our style of play for the last 2 seasons has been to play out from the back, have Pack as a DM able to collect the ball and be comfortable with it in his own half. Webster able to be comfortable bringing the ball out too. We had no panicking on the ball inside our own half. 
Off the ball we had a DM who patrolled the edge of the box and stayed disciplined in front of the CB’s to offer protection, who also ‘sat in’ for the CB if he roamed forward. 
 

What we have in Nagy & Massengo is basically no different to the other CM’s we already have. We have not replaced the DM. 
 

Both Nagy & Massengo are wanderers. They have energy and like to get around the pitch, close down the ball (sometime actually chase the ball unnecessarily). They do not have the discipline of a strict DM. Therefore we are often wide open down the middle and the CB’s are often exposed. Brownhill & Smith are exactly the same - they are ball chasers, harriers, close down, lots of energy, but no strict positional discipline. Of course, these are good traits and you need 1 of these, but you can’t play with 2 of these - there’s no one covering for them when they wander. 
On the ball, Nagy & Massengo are very much like Brownhill. You are happy for them to have it in the opposition half where they have decent technique and can play quick passes to try to work openings. However, none of them fill you with any confidence whatsoever if you want them to receive the ball in their own half. None of them have the composure and awareness receiving the ball on the edge of their own box, being able to calmly play out from the back. All 3 of them have a bit of a panic when in those areas. Whilst Pack got caught once or twice having a bit of a dawdle on the ball sometimes, we’ve seen Nagy, Massengo & Brownhill all get caught there this season and it’s been about 15-20 times already. They panic, have no awareness, lose composure and make bad decisions. 
 

In summary, we lost a strictly disciplined DM who was composed on the ball (albeit with his own faults), and we’ve replaced him with 2 players who are totally different to him but ever so similar to each other. Our CM’s are all exactly the same and we have no DM to hold it together. 
 

Doesn’t mean they are bad players. They’re just exactly the same as each other and do not complement one another. 

I agree with a lot of that.  But....I only feel panicked when I see little to no angles made by other players.  You have to look at high Eliasson positions himself when playing RW.  He can’t receive a pass from RB, CM or CB.  It’s that in part that is making all of our CM’s job more difficult.  It would be very little different if Pack was there either imho.  Pack became more used to receiving it alongside him CBs rather than forward from his CBs.

When you watch the better teams in this league, you see complimentary movement, e.g. one player creating space for another, etc.  We look like we have little plan / patterns of play at the mo’.

13 minutes ago, Harry said:

Were they though? Both made plenty of errors in their first few games, but fans cut them slack as they were new. Look back - you’ll see lots of errors from both. We’re all just noticing it more now because we’re not winning. 

Nagy was at about 97% for his first 2.5 games!!!  Massengo, I agree to an extent.  Nagy looked lost today though.  I’ve seen enough of him to know he’s a far better player than he’s showed in the last few games.  I thought Massengo was ok today, not great, but ok.

If LJ has truly set them up to play the positions/roles they started with today, he needs to have a hard look at himself.  On the flip, If the players aren’t doing what they’ve worked on, then don’t play them.  We started off as a 424 in effect.  I saw nothing from the coaching team in that 20 minutes telling Eliasson (in the main) and Palmer (who tried to get into the game) to come shorter, and not play so high up.  Why not?  No wonder Nagy and Massengo (and therefore Kalas and Moore) were exposed.  Not making excuses for them, it’s just what happened and what it caused.

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I'd like to put in here as well some part of what I've posted earlier in another one because it fits more here.

What I saw during the last few games is the following as a kind of outsider (so not tempted by the love / hate of LJ, maybe a little with the affection for Nagy):

1, Nagy: he makes mistakes like he never done before. Maybe only once per season and that’s it. He seems to lack confidence which he also never did. Maybe that ankle isn’t 100% at all and he has to adjust to that but mostly I think it’s due to my 2. point as his positioning and awareness hasn’t changed.

2, Most of the times I can’t see the point of the attempted attacks from the team. When the midfielders try to quicken up the attacks (mainly Brownhill and Nagy) in 90 % it fails. Today apart from those 2 big misplaced passes I was watching Nagy closely: during the first half there were at least five occasions when get got the ball, passed forward and run immediately to get it back and fastly go on with the attack. And he didn’t receive it back, because everyone was twisting and turning, including Palmer and Eliasson ( they seem a little selfish to me though Niclas' crosses are amazing).  So he runs a lot eventually for nothing (most of the games) and at the end I think it tires him mentally therefore the mistakes. At least half ot these runs should end as at the Fulham game but since then attacks seems so slow…

3, The overall technical quality of the forward line bar Eliasson’ crosses is quite poor.

4, Based on what I’ve seen I agree with those who think LJ reached his limits, also seems a little arrogant to me at times. A coach should fill his players with confidence and clear playing strategy based on what his player can do.

At Ferencváros when Sergei Rebrov took over rumour was that the players were all puking after the first few trainings so I was afraid they might play against him. And voilá: after 15 years he got us to the EL group stage and before Christmas our skipper gave and interview and said ’He’s a hard man but we got behind him as he has clear vision, everyone knows his part, his duty on the pitch. We won’t be buddies but we respect the hell out of Rebrov because we know his methods ( be as painful and hard as they are) are bringing trophies and success.’ That's the good attitude from coach and players I think.

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21 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

I agree with a lot of that.  But....I only feel panicked when I see little to no angles made by other players.  You have to look at high Eliasson positions himself when playing RW.  He can’t receive a pass from RB, CM or CB.  It’s that in part that is making all of our CM’s job more difficult.  It would be very little different if Pack was there either imho.  Pack became more used to receiving it alongside him CBs rather than forward from his CBs.

When you watch the better teams in this league, you see complimentary movement, e.g. one player creating space for another, etc.  We look like we have little plan / patterns of play at the mo’.

Nagy was at about 97% for his first 2.5 games!!!  Massengo, I agree to an extent.  Nagy looked lost today though.  I’ve seen enough of him to know he’s a far better player than he’s showed in the last few games.  I thought Massengo was ok today, not great, but ok.

If LJ has truly set them up to play the positions/roles they started with today, he needs to have a hard look at himself.  On the flip, If the players aren’t doing what they’ve worked on, then don’t play them.  We started off as a 424 in effect.  I saw nothing from the coaching team in that 20 minutes telling Eliasson (in the main) and Palmer (who tried to get into the game) to come shorter, and not play so high up.  Why not?  No wonder Nagy and Massengo (and therefore Kalas and Moore) were exposed.  Not making excuses for them, it’s just what happened and what it caused.

Dave that’s exactly what I’m seeing, center back has ball plays ball into Nagy feet back to goal...we don’t see a secondary runner into space for a short first touch pass ...so what happens? Nagy passes back to center back and we go nowhere

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3 hours ago, Davefevs said:

Nagy was really poor today, Massengo was ok in what was a poor team performance overall.

For 21 minutes we played Eliasson, Watkins and Palmer in their wrong positions imho. Eliasson RW instead of LW. Watkins CF instead of RW. Palmer LW instead of CAM/10.

Eliasson always positions himself too far forward when he plays RW, and not in contact with his own RB.

Palmer too advanced too.

Nagy and Massengo isolated and also distant from our CBs. But where were the angles they created and looked so good in during their early games with us gone.

22 mins until 45 (h-t), magically Eliasson goes LW, Watkins RW, Palmer no10, in a 4411. Guess what?  We started to play better. Watkins linking with Pereira. Eliasson with Dasilva. Palmer on the ball being influential, importantly in the final third. We go 1-0 and look more in control. But brilliant but better.

Start of second half. Watkins then Weimann LW, Eliasson RW. It stays that way all half. Eliasson and Pereira look like strangers. Giles gets at Pedro because Eliasson is poor defending when RW (he knows where to go when LW).

We escape with a draw.  We were lucky

Im no coach, but if you play players out of position you get the kind of performance we saw today.

Sitting on the fence became very painful today.

I wish I was in earshot of the coaching team today, unfortunately my shouting fell in deaf ears in section A4.

Players at fault too, but you can see their confidence ebbing away.

Well played Shrewsbury by the way. 

Wasn’t there today Dave so would like your opinion. It’s been baffling for quite a while why he seems to set up poorly from the start. When I saw the team today I thought it would be 4231 but it seems it wasn’t . In your opinion , do you think he over complicates things thinking he’s better than he is? 
I only played local football and am no means qualified but it baffles me with some of his formations= team selections.

I may have it wrong , but v Brentford we didn’t seem to match them in midfield which created problems in other areas and that was before the sending off. 

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1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

I agree with a lot of that.  But....I only feel panicked when I see little to no angles made by other players.  You have to look at high Eliasson positions himself when playing RW.  He can’t receive a pass from RB, CM or CB.  It’s that in part that is making all of our CM’s job more difficult.  It would be very little different if Pack was there either imho.  Pack became more used to receiving it alongside him CBs rather than forward from his CBs.

The mistakes I’m talking about Dave are not ones where other players haven’t made angles. It’s pure and simple lack of awareness and then onset of panic. 
My best and very recent example is Brownhill vs Brentford - an error on the edge of his own box which led to their corner from which came the first goal. 
Brownhill received a pass from JD. A composed and aware player would let the ball roll across his body, turn and play a simple square ball to his CB. Instead, he panics and his first touch takes him in between 3 Brentford players, and a corner results. 
It’s these little things that impact our play. JB, AN & HNM have all been guilty of this numerous times this season. 
These type of errors are not to do with other players not offering angles, they are ill-composure and unawareness. Traits which are hard to coach into a player if he doesn’t naturally have them. 
 

 

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12 minutes ago, steviestevieneville said:

Wasn’t there today Dave so would like your opinion. It’s been baffling for quite a while why he seems to set up poorly from the start. When I saw the team today I thought it would be 4231 but it seems it wasn’t .

I thought it would be 4411 or 4231 depending on how you look at it, but expected Palmer off of Diedhiou, Eliasson LW, Watkins RW.  I was mildly excited (okay, maybe not, but was keen to see if Palmer and Diedhiou could work).  I was not expecting Palmer to be LW, Eliasson RW and Marley up-top alongside Fam.  We started shit, and could easily have been 1-0 down, if not 2-0.  I moaned about it to those around me (what a nause I am) for 21 minutes, when hurrah, he moved them to their proper positions.  Guess what?  We started to get a bit of control.  Eliasson and Dasilva started to link.  Palmer started getting free, breaking forward into dangerous positions.  We scored from a left wing cross from Eliasson...his left wing crosses are far more dangerous than his right wing ones (but they look better aesthetically).  Nice header from Fam...it’s easier to attack an outswinger than an inswinger imho.  I went into h-t thinking, we are on top here, we are 1-0 up, we should kick on from here.  Second half, starts Eliasson RW, Watkins LW.  I’ve posted elsewhere that this didn’t work.  But it’s ok, Weimann coming on, he’ll go RW, Eliasson will go LW.  Not if you’re LJ!!!  I left AG absolutely fuming!

In your opinion , do you think he over complicates things thinking he’s better than he is?

in a word, yes.  But he’s the pro, surrounded by other pros, so my opinion is only an OTIB forum opinion.  Would love to be a fly on the wall when that line-up was selected.  He hasn’t the experience to challenge his own thinking.  In my world of work, I’m often the “poo-Pooh‘ee” of ideas, because I’ve experienced similar things not working, so we rule out those ideas quickly.  LJ doesn’t seem to have that person / quality in himself / his team.
I only played local football and am no means qualified but it baffles me with some of his formations= team selections.

You are no less qualified than me.  I played Western League, but only because I played with good players who made me look better.  I was an average CB.  But I grew up reading tactical / coaching books rather than Shoot and Match (I did read them as well).  I always felt my football brain was far better than my football feet ???

I may have it wrong , but v Brentford we didn’t seem to match them in midfield which created problems in other areas and that was before the sending off.

Personally I thought trying to match Brentford at their own game was futile, they are better at their game than we are!  I wanted to see us impose ours on them....but it kinda went out the window by 1) going 1-0 down and 2) Williams getting red carded inside 13 minutes.

 

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10 minutes ago, Harry said:

The mistakes I’m talking about Dave are not ones where other players haven’t made angles. It’s pure and simple lack of awareness and then onset of panic. 
My best and very recent example is Brownhill vs Brentford - an error on the edge of his own box which led to their corner from which came the first goal. 
Brownhill received a pass from JD. A composed and aware player would let the ball roll across his body, turn and play a simple square ball to his CB. Instead, he panics and his first touch takes him in between 3 Brentford players, and a corner results. 
It’s these little things that impact our play. JB, AN & HNM have all been guilty of this numerous times this season. 
These type of errors are not to do with other players not offering angles, they are ill-composure and unawareness. Traits which are hard to coach into a player if he doesn’t naturally have them. 
 

 

B0CCF125-DC45-4824-8F6A-51EB57688CE2.jpeg

40164B39-5ED2-45AF-A025-22C46D936C62.jpeg

You couldn’t have picked a better example.  In our seats in LS A4 it played out beneath us.  I shuddered.  I didn’t think if you at that moment ? but I did expect you to notice it. ???

Its what often shout as “don’t go back from where you’ve just come”....it’s the easiest thing to close down.

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3 hours ago, Kibs said:

Nagy (who I do like btw) was just unbelievably bad today. He looks completely shot in terms of mentality and confidence. He doesn’t want the ball and he’s taking twice as long to try and get it under control as he was earlier in the season. 
 

Morrell would be a far better option.

I can’t believe what’s happened to the player we saw in the first game. He was completely outstanding. Clearly struggled with coming back from injury but you also have to wonder whether Johnson’s continuous snide comments about him around his injury and international duty have taken their toll. It’s something he also did with Kalas. Totally get that the club pay the wages but frankly if I were Kalas or Nagy it would mean far more to play for Czech/Hungary respectively rather than City - the club would do well to recognise that and keep some of the criticism private (if needed at all).

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6 minutes ago, windmillhillred said:

I can’t believe what’s happened to the player we saw in the first game. He was completely outstanding. Clearly struggled with coming back from injury but you also have to wonder whether Johnson’s continuous snide comments about him around his injury and international duty have taken their toll. It’s something he also did with Kalas. Totally get that the club pay the wages but frankly if I were Kalas or Nagy it would mean far more to play for Czech/Hungary respectively rather than City - the club would do well to recognise that and keep some of the criticism private (if needed at all).

Forgot that he had a little dig at Czech team and Kalas re ‘rest day’

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3 hours ago, Gratz260689 said:

I have stated on here numerous times and been shot down, Nagy is no better than smith, FACT!! 

I genuinely think he's a better player, just totally lacking in confidence, support, understanding of what is expected of him, and as another poster commented, looks like he'd rather be anywhere else than here at the moment.

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Both were awful today, but let’s not forget that Massengo is just 18, and Nagy will take time to adjust, being new to English football and not having played too many games in 3 years. A lot of work to do, but I wouldn’t write them off just yet. Maybe initial expectations were way too high for this season. Other thoughts, Perreira was not very good, Dasilva struggling, Palmer anonymous second half (Another player who is still developing).

We have the basis of a very good team next season, hence why I’m not enthused about making many January signings.

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