Style of play?

[marmite]

What is it exactly? What do opposing managers say to their team before they play us?

Do they say we play possession football, or high press football, or long ball football, or play it wide, or play it through the middle? 

I'd like to know what other managers see as our threat because under Manning, I can't work out the game plan. 

There are lots of analysts and junior coaches who post on here so can someone tell me what the f..k our gameplan is?

Lots of dissatisfied fans on here about Manning and the hierarchy.  I'm one of them and there is no way I can continue watching this painful output. We know the players can play well but not apparently to Mannings plan, whatever that is.

[Harvey86]

Just now, marmite said:

What is it exactly? What do opposing managers say to their team before they play us?

Do they say we play possession football, or high press football, or long ball football, or play it wide, or play it through the middle? 

I'd like to know what other managers see as our threat because under Manning, I can't work out the game plan. 

There are lots of analysts and junior coaches who post on here so can someone tell me what the f..k our gameplan is?

Lots of dissatisfied fans on here about Manning and the hierarchy.  I'm one of them and there is no way I can continue watching this painful output. We know the players can play well but not apparently to Mannings plan, whatever that is.

I keep seeing us have some sort of hybrid press/ block in place where one single player will press their central defender when they get about halfway up their own half. I don’t know if that’s intended to funnel the opposition out wide or something, as I’ve never seen them do anything other than pass it around that player and carry on. I don’t really see the value of pressing if it’s not being done by the team as a whole. 

[Glen hump]

5 minutes ago, marmite said:

What is it exactly? What do opposing managers say to their team before they play us?

Do they say we play possession football, or high press football, or long ball football, or play it wide, or play it through the middle? 

I'd like to know what other managers see as our threat because under Manning, I can't work out the game plan. 

There are lots of analysts and junior coaches who post on here so can someone tell me what the f..k our gameplan is?

Lots of dissatisfied fans on here about Manning and the hierarchy.  I'm one of them and there is no way I can continue watching this painful output. We know the players can play well but not apparently to Mannings plan, whatever that is.

We need to go back to basics, mannings trying to be to clever, we look completely lost and have zero character 

[bbew]

I was just about to post a similar thread. The people that know more about football than me - how are we supposed to be playing?

The high press, winning the ball back in dangerous positions? Keeping possession, so I suppose if we have he ball the other team can't score?  Eventually I suppose the plan is that if we have the ball all the time we will eventually create something?

As Manning has said himself though, it only takes a second to score a goal.  Other teamsbwho play a possession based game will move the opposition out of position, to create the opening, but I can't see how we will ever do this the way we play.

The centre backs have the ball, but pass to the full back when the opposition are half way between the two of them, the full back will then get the ball and a player will be on him.  Are we not supposed to draw the man so when the pass is made the player receiving will have time and space?

When we break, we seem to do so so slowly, or turn back, which then mean the opposition get back behind the ball, so any advantage is gone.

When we get high up into a crossing positions, we then turn and play the ball back, so the person crossing is doing so from a less favourable angle.

When the ball is crossed low into the box, there is never anyone attacking he near post (as Tammy was so good at), so the ball would have to be perfect to avoid the defender,  keeper, and our attacker be in perfect spot.

All these things seem so obvious I cannot work out what I am misunderstanding.  I cannot work out what, even if everyone was playing well, we are trying to achieve?

People have said we lack quality, but so do most teams in most leagues, but they manage to score.

[Coombsy]

 I understand the anger and people not going to attend again or buy a season ticket until the manager gone.

and will only come back when we’re winning  will achieve nothing 

all sounds plastic to me

we need to all turn out and support the club we all love 

 

[Davefevs]

I wrote this the other week for James Piercy:

If I can see this as a fan, I’m sure opposition analysts are all over it and not listening to soundbites from the Technical Director and the Chairman for their answers.

I summarised as follows:

 

Edited March 3 by Davefevs

[The Original OTIB]

4 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

I wrote this the other week for James Piercy:

If I can see this as a fan, I’m sure opposition analysts are all over it and not listening to soundbites from the Technical Director and the Chairman for their answers.

I summarised as follows:

 

Biggest problem for me is that we do not turn teams around. We spend so much time faffing about in the central third that any team has so much time to set in shape. A key factor is to move the ball quicker into space in behind, turn the opposition around quickly, and have willing runners in number attacking the box, with some withdrawn to confuse and create space. 

If that means laying up balls into the space behind the full backs, then so be it. A form of long ball, but it can be effective. Gives you the means to turn the opposition around, press them out of shape and win the ball back if need be. Key also is that pressing can create throw ins high up the pitch for which you need a plan. You can't just twirl the ball then drop it for another player to throw back down the line towards your own goal (as we do 90% of the time).  You need to get it back in play quickly, having a preconceived strategy that prevents the opposition falling into organisation and shape. 

 

[Davefevs]

15 minutes ago, The Original OTIB said:

Biggest problem for me is that we do not turn teams around. We spend so much time faffing about in the central third that any team has so much time to set in shape. A key factor is to move the ball quicker into space in behind, turn the opposition around quickly, and have willing runners in number attacking the box, with some withdrawn to confuse and create space. 

If that means laying up balls into the space behind the full backs, then so be it. A form of long ball, but it can be effective. Gives you the means to turn the opposition around, press them out of shape and win the ball back if need be. Key also is that pressing can create throw ins high up the pitch for which you need a plan. You can't just twirl the ball then drop it for another player to throw back down the line towards your own goal (as we do 90% of the time).  You need to get it back in play quickly, having a preconceived strategy that prevents the opposition falling into organisation and shape. 

 

I think there’s “turning teams around”, and “playing in the channels”.  This is my summary, I’m just a fan.

It isn’t Manningball though!

Last week we saw us play balls in behind their WBs, but all it did was concede possession and stretch the pitch.  That meant we then couldn’t play our way.  

If you’re gonna do that you have to squeeze everyone up the pitch behind it, so that you make it hard for them to get out.  We didn’t.

The way we did it was with TC being the runner, sometimes Sykes who was getting more and more knackered making 50 yard runs forward, then back again.

Had we structured our press properly, then we might’ve stopped them building out so easily.

Failed tactic.

What I’d prefer to see if players working in pairs.  Yesterday TC made some great runs to receive it short, but he needed someone to spin off of him and in behind.  How many times did Zak have the ball and have no options…when we are chasing the game.

I do think the head-coach is out if his depth.  The standard of opposing managers across the halfway line in the tech area is much higher, as are the players from what he has experienced so far.  He’s being schooled most weeks.

The one he did school, was Russell Martin. Quelle surprisé!

 

[robin_unreliant]

I was really impressed with the way we started the Boro away game. Lots of players pressing high up the pitch and repeatedly winning the ball and swarming forward. THAT is what I thought BT was talking about when describing how we want to play.

Unfortunately we only managed to keep it up for about 20 mins and haven't done it since then. 

[pongo88]

When I watch City I find it difficult to see a discernible style of play. My playing career was limited to Saturday parks football and Sunday morning pub teams (usually with 11 player suffering from a hangover). We were often poor but, no matter how bad we were, it was obvious what formation,  tactics etc we were using. With City I now see a set up of goalkeeper plus 10 outfield players just wandering around a bit. Often players in strange positions- eg Sykes on the left wing. It usually gets worse in the second half when the subs come on and what limited shape there was previously just disappears 

[bexhill reds]

2 minutes ago, The Original OTIB said:

Biggest problem for me is that we do not turn teams around. We spend so much time faffing about in the central third that any team has so much time to set in shape. A key factor is to move the ball quicker into space in behind, turn the opposition around quickly, and have willing runners in number attacking the box, with some withdrawn to confuse and create space. 

If that means laying up balls into the space behind the full backs, then so be it. A form of long ball, but it can be effective. Gives you the means to turn the opposition around, press them out of shape and win the ball back if need be. Key also is that pressing can create throw ins high up the pitch for which you need a plan. You can't just twirl the ball then drop it for another player to throw back down the line towards your own goal (as we do 90% of the time).  You need to get it back in play quickly, having a preconceived strategy that prevents the opposition falling into organisation and shape. 

 

It was noticeable that we upped our tempo in the last 10 mins yesterday and that brought about a bit more pressure and our offside goal. We do seem to be a better team if and when we play at a pace.

Are elements of the way he wants his teams to play is that we mix that up a bit by keeping the ball at the back to drag teams forward and to lose their shape and then to “pounce” with pace?

If that’s the case then the players are at fault and or are not capable of playing the way he wants them to, as evidently we are not doing that, there are no clever through-balls nor does anybody we put wide, apart from perhaps Pring and to lesser extent McCrorie, try to take their player on and get behind them.

Arguably Cornick’s goal against Southampton and Conway’s at the London Stadium might be the best example of what Mannings style could achieve.

My anger and frustration into where we are right now with the performances of late, the inability to adapt during games, and the evident removal of the unity that Pearson had instilled in this group of players (demonstrated by the finger point and arguing on the pitch yesterday) wants Manning unceremoniously kicked out of the door.

My Sunday morning pragmatic head says what if there is merit to the style he wants to play should he be given the time, the players he needs to implement that, and be given budget that we apparently didn’t have when Scott was sold.

The pragmatic me is not sure that sacking him now would have the desired effect, the toughest games we have remaining are bar Swansea the next 4 or 5, the club would struggle to get anyone else in of quality and they in turn would struggle to impose their style in that time frame which ultimately suggests we’d could have the same series of results, therefore why change now?

Let the season meander out, Manning has a summer window, a preseason and 10-12 games next year to demonstrate he’s got the ability to get a team that is moderately successful in his mould, if not then change and we start all over again….

[The turtle]

It's a great point, and a curious one.

That we are really good at pressing and have been for a more than this season, but now we want the ball, and slow build up football, waiting for the other team to fall a sleep/switch off

The best teams, don't really care, believe their best game beats ours. Which is why our best performances come against them when we usually have less of the ball, and maximising the press. I mean it's not just typical Bristol city, it happens for a reason.

Everyone else, it's play out if you can. But absolutely do not get picked off. Go long if you have to, let them have the ball.

Their final words going out would be something like, remember lads our best way of winning is the let city play the way they want to rather than what they are best at.

 

 

Edited March 3 by The turtle

[Sir Geoff]

I noticed a few times in the first half yesterday, Dickie turning  down the chance of a quick ball through the thirds to Williams and Conway, in favour of turning sideways and playing it safe to Vyner. Surely an instruction. Dickie has also stopped taking the ball forward into midfield and beyond.

[Davefevs]

14 minutes ago, robin_unreliant said:

I was really impressed with the way we started the Boro away game. Lots of players pressing high up the pitch and repeatedly winning the ball and swarming forward. THAT is what I thought BT was talking about when describing how we want to play.

Unfortunately we only managed to keep it up for about 20 mins and haven't done it since then. 

Some people (one in particular) excuses everything by saying “so what’s your solution” but then fails to listen / read.

In a hugely simplified Q&A:

Q: how do you beat a team in a low block with little ambition and quality (Cardiff)

A: you disrupt them, you don’t let them impose their way of playing 

Okay, so how do you disrupt them?  Good question.  One for LM really, but seeing as him and his coaches onky concern themselves with getting to the final third, perhaps I might offer some options / theories.

1. Actually high press, don’t block.  You may get picked off but Cardiff aren’t as likely to hurt you as Southampton if they do manage to play through you.  Likelihood is they bomb it long at the first sight of a press.  And then you squeeze them in.  When you do press and force the error, take you chances.

2. Don’t build-up from the 6 yard box.  That allows them structure, they aren’t ever gonna press you.  Maybe play direct, allow the game to become one of transition and loose balls, and breaking from the loose balls.

Its of course theoretical, but even crash it for 5 minutes and see what it does.

[Back of the Dolman]

15 minutes ago, Sir Geoff said:

I noticed a few times in the first half yesterday, Dickie turning  down the chance of a quick ball through the thirds to Williams and Conway, in favour of turning sideways and playing it safe to Vyner. Surely an instruction. Dickie has also stopped taking the ball forward into midfield and beyond.

Does seem to me that Dickie looks a lot less assured on the ball than he has previously.

Partly being on the left side doesn’t help him as much due to the angles he’s given when receiving the ball but he seems to be suffering a lack of confidence or is unsure of what the plan is at the moment 

[Cowshed]

1 minute ago, Davefevs said:

Some people (one in particular) excuses everything by saying “so what’s your solution” but then fails to listen / read.

In a hugely simplified Q&A:

Q: how do you beat a team in a low block with little ambition and quality (Cardiff)

A: you disrupt them, you don’t let them impose their way of playing 

Okay, so how do you disrupt them?  Good question.  One for LM really, but seeing as him and his coaches onky concern themselves with getting to the final third, perhaps I might offer some options / theories.

1. Actually high press, don’t block.  You may get picked off but Cardiff aren’t as likely to hurt you as Southampton if they do manage to play through you.  Likelihood is they bomb it long at the first sight of a press.  And then you squeeze them in.  When you do press and force the error, take you chances.

2. Don’t build-up from the 6 yard box.  That allows them structure, they aren’t ever gonna press you.  Maybe play direct, allow the game to become one of transition and loose balls, and breaking from the loose balls.

Its of course theoretical, but even crash it for 5 minutes and see what it does.

A third approach. Build from the back positionally with the intent of creating numerical advantage, and overload the opponents/ unbalance the opponents and when they change shape, switch swiftly play and isolate players 1v1 on the opposite side of the pitch.

The third approach requires players to be fluent at their task, not get dusty from their lack of movement, and for moss not to develop on the ball because its moving so slowly.

Fourth, Driving to release, committing opponents to penetrate. See point above. 

[Davefevs]

47 minutes ago, Cowshed said:

The third approach requires players to be fluent at their task, not get dusty from their lack of movement, and for moss not to develop on the ball because its moving so slowly.

[Spike]

2 hours ago, Davefevs said:

I summarised as follows:

 

Pressing - As Dave said but our press is a reactive press, we send a player to press the ball carrier and position our players within range of the passing options to the ball carrier. For example, if the opposition are playing 3 at the back and the central center back is in possession of the ball then Well/Conway would run down the ball carrier whilst our wide players would position themselves away from the other two center backs but close enough that they can close down the space at the right time. When the center back in possession chooses his pass and makes contact with the ball our player would then trigger his run to close down the receiving player as he receives the ball in an attempt to either directly take it from him on first touch or to force him into a position where he cannot get off a pass quickly causing him to clear or to make a mistake that we can close down on.
I'm not great at explaining it but I refer to it as bait pressing because you're essentially baiting a pass with intent to cause problems as it's received.

Attacking - What Dave said is spot on and to elaborate we've become very wide position dependent under Manning so far as we spread out our players far too much. One tactic that Manning has spelled out himself is that he likes us to switch the ball to create openings in for us to exploit, however in practice it is not working against teams who sit back in a compact manner with intent to counter attack and Manning's build-up passing is just not working.

I tried to mock up our attacking issue in an image, it's not the best but I hope it explains a little of where we are going wrong in our approach.

So this is an example of a position we found ourselves in countless times in the previous 3 matches. The ball carried (1) either tries to push the ball down the wing (orange) at which point we would find ourselves in a dead end as 5 and 3 on the opposition would double up to prevent us getting down the line and their 9 would cover the inside option against our 6 at which point we would play the ball back to 1 or 2 and take the green passing lane of trying to either play a cross field pass to our wide men on the other side of the pitch, or it would come back to our 3 where we would pass amongst the back line until we could get a pass back out to a wide position and thus the pattern repeats.

When we try to play out from the back line we tend to set up like so:

 

so when the green pass is triggered opposition 9 and 10 will attempt to press and our 6 has no viable option as opposition 6 and 10 have immediate pressure on our 7 forcing our 6 to play a pass straight back into the back line at which point we return to trying to push the wings.

When you consider Manning likes a build up play style of football we must be able to play through the middle as well as the wide positions so I don't understand why Manning isn't telling our players to do the following:

Our 9 and 10 should be told to come narrow and deeper so as the green pass is played 6 can turn with options to play to our 7, 9 or bypass directly to 10. If the ball moves to 9 or 10 then our 5 or 1 would be triggered into overlapping runs and 6 and 7 would offer passes back inside allowing us to move up the pitch in central positions but with options to transition into the wing play having already bypassed the doubling up on the wide men.

For a team who want to play the build up style of football this is what we lack, our 9 and 10 always stay out wide, our 8 (AM) barely gets involved in plays because the ball is pinned out wide but if we came narrow and compacted the opposition to cover these central passing options it would then create the space to use on the wings instead of our current move it around the back line and try to trigger a wide push from a deep position.

Right now we are currently failing to play enough football through the middle of the pitch meaning the opposition just needs to cover passing lanes and use a two man block to prevent us from pushing down the wings into the final third.

Defence - Agree with Dave again but would also add our defence is better partially because we tend to lose possession in the middle of the pitch but when we lose it in the opposition final third our back 3 are prone to being caught out with a long direct pass. This comes down to Vyners positioning and Dickies reading of a high ball over the top. Dickie struggles to read the long looping over-the-top passes at times and Vyner is prone to moving too far from his position forcing Dickie to have to come across and cover for him. Largely this seems to be a far bigger problem with teams with high quality, fast runners but as a whole I would say our defence is better, certainly on set pieces.

Overall - Dave summed it up perfectly. Southampton was very much a Pearson-like performance where we would soak up pressure, allowing the opposition to attack us and then punching back with fast, direct counters. The passing was not build up, it was with purpose and pace because Southampton were far more open when losing the ball, something QPR, Wednesday and Cardiff did not do, they attacked on the counter keeping their players in a position to defend upon losing the ball.

Our transition game is awful under Manning from my personal point of view, we focus far too much on trying to retain the ball rather than using it, so we go back, we move the ball from side to side, attempt the odd move through the middle but ultimately there is no directness at all and in open play we fail to have any bite to our attacks.


Summary

Manning football doesn't work for us because it's too "safe" which ironically has led us to 3 straight defeats and a reliance on luck or loose ball situations to trigger us into a direct attack which is where a lot of our best moments came from against Cardiff.

[Davefevs]

@Spike any chance we can play with 11 outfield players like above!

[trickytimes]

2 hours ago, Sir Geoff said:

I noticed a few times in the first half yesterday, Dickie turning  down the chance of a quick ball through the thirds to Williams and Conway, in favour of turning sideways and playing it safe to Vyner. Surely an instruction. Dickie has also stopped taking the ball forward into midfield and beyond.

I think Dickie would have had a problem getting any sort of pass to Conway in the 1st half.

[petehinton]

 

[Bazooka Joe]

Allegedly, we play something called "Front foot football".

If so, I don't like what I see and it's definitely not working.

Perhaps "Back Foot football" would be more attractive and effective.

[Capman]

I feel like this has been done to death already but one of the things which astonishes me is the ineptitude of the senior management at the club over our ‘style of play’. 
The board were clear, we have top end league players and are a top end league club. All that was needed was a new manager with the ability to coach ‘on the grass’ to get the best out of those players. And (for the first time ever they seemed to suggest) they knew exactly what that meant when looking for someone. 
So they go out and appoint someone who wants to change the style of play to one which does not suit the top end squad he has at his disposal. It is the kind of unthinking stupidity which should get any leader a quick trip to the job centre. Does that help answer the original question, sorry I don’t think it does. But in my view it is the basic reason we are in this mess. We have no idea what we are trying to do because we have a board which makes decisions based on non footballing criteria and then panics to try and fix the mess that creates generating more panic and confusion. Within that coalition of chaos any manager and squad would struggle to build anything. But a young inexperienced manager has no hope. 

[AppyDAZE]

They probably tell their goalkeeper to bring a good book with them.

[Spike]

3 hours ago, Davefevs said:

@Spike any chance we can play with 11 outfield players like above!

Yeah I realised after I chucked it all together, was very drunk after last night and hung over this morning, only something City can do to a man.

[Davefevs]

1 minute ago, Spike said:

Yeah I realised after I chucked it all together, was very drunk after last night and hung over this morning, only something City can do to a man.

The words made sense.  Put the dragons away though, eh!

[Shauntaylor85]

8 hours ago, marmite said:

What is it exactly? What do opposing managers say to their team before they play us?

Do they say we play possession football, or high press football, or long ball football, or play it wide, or play it through the middle? 

I'd like to know what other managers see as our threat because under Manning, I can't work out the game plan. 

There are lots of analysts and junior coaches who post on here so can someone tell me what the f..k our gameplan is?

Lots of dissatisfied fans on here about Manning and the hierarchy.  I'm one of them and there is no way I can continue watching this painful output. We know the players can play well but not apparently to Mannings plan, whatever that is.

The style is just so predictable and boring. Very reminiscent of SOD era, you know it’s a boring game when you find the Del Boy flats more interesting to look at and start googling the history. 

[Numero Uno]

3 hours ago, Bazooka Joe said:

Allegedly, we play something called "Front foot football".

If so, I don't like what I see and it's definitely not working.

Perhaps "Back Foot football" would be more attractive and effective.

Sid got his words mixed up again. He meant to say Club Foot Football.

[REDOXO]

8 hours ago, marmite said:

What is it exactly? What do opposing managers say to their team before they play us?

Do they say we play possession football, or high press football, or long ball football, or play it wide, or play it through the middle? 

I'd like to know what other managers see as our threat because under Manning, I can't work out the game plan. 

There are lots of analysts and junior coaches who post on here so can someone tell me what the f..k our gameplan is?

Lots of dissatisfied fans on here about Manning and the hierarchy.  I'm one of them and there is no way I can continue watching this painful output. We know the players can play well but not apparently to Mannings plan, whatever that is.

Exactly. He has possibly two maybe one game to get a tune out of these players.

They are good players. However I heard one guy today who shall remain nameless who was more than implying the players are all crap and it’s Pearson’s fault. 
 

Some people are just weird!!