Is having too much possession a problem?

Maybe sounds a bit daft but it's a problem especially when we aren't clinical enough and teams have 9 men behind the ball.

They just won't come out and, unless we get an early goal, they'll continue to defend heavily for the full match. Even though we've scored plenty of goals this season, we still have that issue with teams defending so deeply and us playing tippy tappy stuff and not scoring when we have so much pressure.

I think if we're playing this possession style, our wingers have to beat their man and score or create a goal. We just can't keep passing it around waiting for an opening can we?

Remember one time yesterday when only Sergio was in the box, on the edge, and no other City player was there. He must have had 4 Everton defenders in the box at that time.

I dunno. Maybe I'm being overly critical. Again.

If I told you we had 73% possession, had 2 penalties and Nolito scored a header...you'd probably expect to us win the game.

If we'd have won the game 3-1, the press would be writing about how Pep out thought Koeman using a back 3.
Small margins between success and failure.
Pep knows we should have won that game yesterday...not sure he can do much more. Some players let him down.

Yeah, when you waste the best chances to score (penalties), then you get what you deserve. Pep was different yesterday and that blew Everton away, especially in the 1st half.

Who was a let down yesterday? Itchy and Sergio?

Both weren't at their best. I know Sergio came on for 40 mins, but apart from winning the penalty, he really didn't do a great deal....maybe that's a bit harsh, who knows. Kelechi's touch and movement was poor yesterday - I don't think he did himself justice.

The thing that worried me yesterday was their goal. I said at half time, the way they were pumping big balls up the pitch, when you play with 3 at the back, you can't dive in (which Otamendi did an awful lot in the first half) and try and win every ball, because if you miss it, the player or another player can easily be in. Different with a back 4, as you'll always have that extra man, but with 3, you need to be cautious....and for their goal, there wasn't just one, but 3 pieces of poor defending all in one move - and that's a big worry for me.

Firstly, it started with Otamendi. It was 3 defenders marking Lukaku and Bolasie on the half way line. When we had the ball out wide and then it broke down, Otamendi allowed Lukaku to wander past him and get 10 yards in front of him. Lukaku then received the ball with Otamendi chasing to close him down. He played a little ball inside and then turned and got behind Otamendi, who then ball-watched and didn't bother to to turn and follow Lukaku who was now 15-20 yards beyond him and out wide on his own.

Then the ball is played high out of defence and that's when the next piece of poor defending happened. Stones tried to dive in and win a ball that wasn't probably there to win. He could have stood Bolasie up as he was facing his own goal, giving Clichy time and Otamendi time to get back. He didn't, he dived in and Bolasie got a flick to Lukaku who was now free.

The final bit of poor defending was from Clichy....Lukaku did everything right, he raced forward and as Clichy came across, he just checked his run to straighten up Clichy. Clichy fell for it and allowed Lukaku to get past him onto his left foot. If Clichy would forced him to come inside, his whole momentum would have stopped and Stones was now on the edge of the area where Lukaku would have had to go.

So all in all, playing a 3 gave us far more central possession, which allowed us to dominate the game - even though our final ball wasn't great again, we still had 2 pens which we should have scored at least one of them...but that doesn't matter if our defenders make 3 glaring defensive mistakes in one single attack.

Lukaku's goal was possibly, one of those that Hart was so good at saving - but I'm not blaming Bravo.

Topdawg wrote:Yeah, when you waste the best chances to score (penalties), then you get what you deserve. Pep was different yesterday and that blew Everton away, especially in the 1st half.

Who was a let down yesterday? Itchy and Sergio?

Not sure Pep was too pleased with Kelechi. His post match interview he said "Kelechi played nice in the build up, but when we got to the byline, he wasn't in the area where he should be".

The thing about Itchy is, he's usually in the right place to get a goal. I'm not sure we always had enough bodies in the box when it mattered and maybe they didn't have the same appetite, desire and conviction that Sergio has when he's attacking a ball crossed low into the box. 

Good assessment on a poor goal to concede.

Given we had seven of our ten outfield players in a midfield or higher role, I thought our inability to get into the box was hugely disappointing. I've seen us drive forward in such numbers in previous games that we had an embarrassment of players on goal. But yesterday we had very few and I though it was very odd. It was almost a Pellegrini style of cautious that didn't match the formation.

Having 2 players hugging the touchline should in theory give more space in the box but as they had 9 behind the ball & the keeper all it did was congest the penalty area so to find space it appeared that we came short trying to drag them out but they stuck rigid.

Hull, Stoke, West Brom,Sunderland, Wigan, Everton etc have all played the same way against us in the PL. Defend deep and play counter attack football, not pretty and very frustrating but i had hoped that Pep's teams would not play against this style in the same way that the previous 2 managers did.
That style is all the more frustrating to play against when we have defenders that defend so badly against dangerous strikers like Lukaku, Deeny or Vardy et al who are targets for long balls that we fail to deal with.
Having the ball is key to Pep's style of play but having the ball for 73 minutes in a game without being able to score more than one goal from open play suggests that the system is not yet working as he had hoped.
I am not wringing my hands in despair just yet, truth be told, i was not convinced that we would be stonewall certainties for the title this season despite what the experts and the press say.
It takes time to introduce a new style of playing and new training techniques etc and the PL does not give teams a chance to adapt immediately. Yes, we hit the ground running and got off to a flier with a string of wins but i think that gave a false view of where we are.
I would have been happy this season with a top 3 and give Pep this season to get established, the great start to the season should not be taken as a collapse now that we have lost one and drawn 2 we should have won.
I am convinced that we will only get better if key players stay injury free and some others are replaced with better and younger players in their position i.e. Kolarov, cliche, and sadly Zab. I still think Hart is a better option than Bravo but i dont expect that situation  to change any time soon.

I think before the season, if we knew after 8 PL games we'd be top of the PL, losing one and drawing one, unbeaten in the CL at this stage, we'd all of took that.

I'm not too downhearted as I said on Saturday. This isn't Pep's fault. We should have won that game at least 3-1 on Saturday - we missed 2 penalties. Pep isn't the one taking them and you'd expect one of the two, at least, to have been scored. 3-1, 3 points, 2 points clear at the top....what more could we have wished for after 8 games?

These things are going to happen. On Saturday, I think we all thought "wtf" when we saw the 3 at the back, but over 90 mins, it worked. We were in and around their box for 80 mins of the game, but the final ball was lacking. On other days, the cut backs would have found the man and a goal would have been scored...it just didn't happen and Everton defended really well.

The breakaway goal by Lukaku, I mentioned earlier in this thread....3 mistakes in 3 passages of the same play for the goal....one, fair enough, but all 3 defenders were culpable in that attack - which was the only real time they got beyond us - they came close, but rarely threatened.

If KDB or Aguero had scored those pens, we'd be pretty pleased with what we saw...and against Everton, we were far better with the ball than against Spurs or Celtic.

Tomorrow will see us come up against the best team in Europe. It'll be a test, but I wouldn't say, regardless of the result, it'll be a marker of where we are....because we've only played 12/13 games. We'll know where we are come Feb, March and then again after next summer.

So I'm happy to go along with the Pep ride - whether we win, lose or draw this season.

Totally agree Blue. I was talking to one of my customers today, Who is an Everton fan. He said "I didn't think you'd show up today after the game on Saturday" I asked him why not when we played so well & had it not been for the Keeper the score could have been 5-1.

It really is early days yet & the squad is still in it's infancy regarding peps style of play. Yes we have seen some mistakes but on the whole the signs are very encouraging and as there is still room for a lot of improvement it is exciting times ahead, albeit with the odd setback here & there as we perfect our style.

I think wed take this after 9 games before the season started. We had utd, spurs and Stoke away and Everton and west ham at home. It's still down to bring lethal in front of goal. Play that game again 10 times and we win them all. It really does take an early goal to open teams up for the kill. But at least wecwantef it more than the spurs game and, make no mistake, we played very well against Everton.

Just look at Liverpool last night. Over 60% possession and they hardly got a shot on target.