Nah what drama? There’s a high caliber manager in charge now….

Ok we disagree but even in this 3-2-2-3 shape, the wide CBs are the ones with the most space so they need to run into that space with the ball to attract pressure and create space. They rarely done that.

The press has been broken every game we played so far under Poch.

Yea so we weren’t really overloading Panama’s back 5. That’s how you beat these teams in a mid/low block. If we overloaded them with 6, we could create more issues and have more combos. Can even play in behind a lot more effectively. If a mid marks the extra man, there’s more space in the middle.

But you need to create dynamic movements against these teams. For most of the game, we’ve been very static. These overlaps and underlaps will create space.

Scally overlapping more now. Just created a dangerous moment in Panama’s box. Need more of that.

We could overload them with 3 players in between the lines with movement. Look at how Germany were able to manipulate 5-4-1s. Maybe overlaps from the far side CB. It’s too static from us. Also our pressing has not been good enough again.

Even when they tried to press afterwards there was a lack of intensity. They are literally just jogging.

Panama are dominating us with their OOP if anything. Their chances came when the game opened up. We need to overload their back line. Saw this in the 2nd part of half where Tesserman pushed higher up (3 players in btl vs 2 cms) but we need more movement and the outside CB needs to be higher.

Agree with the in possession. Not sure who’s in the left or right half space tho. But out of possession I still think it’ll be a 4-4-2 with Weah at LB.

Ok will have to watch it back then haha

Was Walker actually? Don’t remember. I just remember that when asked in the treble winning season, Pep said Walker can’t play there haha

these replies are getting so disorganized…. haha. Normally, the players would mostly be in ideal areas. In these rotations, Pulisic wasn’t because we are trying to optimize Jedi. So when Jedi bombs forward, we are basically limiting Pulisic from occupying forward positions which isn’t ideal.

Mix of both personal and instruction. Jedi would’ve been wasted in that position if he didn’t have license to make those runs. For me, the problem lies on who is covering that position when Jedi vacates it. In the Jamaica game, it was mostly Pulisic I think, which isn’t optimal.

I’d say the biggest difference is Jedi inverting and Weah’s starting position is high and wide. That enhances our build up because it ensures that the LW spot is occupied quickly. In the previous games, Jedi would start at FB and would then have to push up and occupy the LW spot.

lol walker never plays there either for the same reason why Jedi shouldn’t play there. Again, we’ll see in the future games I guess. Another thought: If I remember correctly, I don’t even think Jedi had that many touches in the 6 bc Pulisic dropped deeper (Do we want Pulisic to be dropping so deep?)

At Chelsea, he played a 3-1-6 for most of the season which was terrible because Caicedo was isolated. Then, in the final 5 matches, Poch moved to a 3-2-4-1 with Cucurela inverting, which worked really well. It’s not like Poch changed his tactics drastically game to game to be unpredictable.

Poch being unpredictable tactically would be be unprecedented for him as well. He’s not a Potter type manager and that’s a good thing in my opinion. Need stability.

I don’t think we will be that unpredictable tactically. I think Poch wants this set up in the long-term. There’ll be minor changes in terms of the 10s positioning and when Jedi inverts or goes wide given how the opponents set up. But nothing major. We’ll see over time tho.

This set up is fantastic don’t get me wrong. I’m just not sure if we have the profile in FB to play it and I think more organized, prepared teams will try to exploit that. Otherwise I think GGG would’ve done it. For example, he tried Adams there early on in his tenure.

There will still have to be a go-to set up for the players to adapt to. Changing the set up drastically like how we did against Jamaica (I know it’s still a 3-2-4-1 but playing an inverted FB is a big change.) There’ll be wrinkles in terms of personal and movements/rotations but nothing drastic.

I think it’s both. He’s athletic to counterpress and be in position to prevent counters. That’s important within the 3-2. In possession, I’d say he was good bc JAM was all over the place defensively, which gave Jedi space. Understandable bc this is the 1st time we had an inverted FB under Poch.

For rest defense, Jedi is great there. Problem is in build up because Jedi isn’t used to playing in tight spaces, which is what an inverted FB needs to do because he’s inside the opposition block. I think it didn’t cause us problems yesterday because Jamaica weren’t expecting Jedi to invert.

If we decide to invert our FB long-term, it should be Dest. I guess Jedi is the best option we have (I mean the other option is Scally…..) but he’s not suited to playing inside the opponent’s block. When we play more organized teams, they’ll try to funnel the ball to Robinson and then press him.