True, you're asking a hell of a lot to do that job with Mount and Bruno ahead of you. Which is what a lot of us wondered in the summer.
The Casemiro/Mount/Bruno midfield
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True, you're asking a hell of a lot to do that job with Mount and Bruno ahead of you. Which is what a lot of us wondered in the summer.
In the first round of matches, we are the most defensively dribbled past team(22), next is Brentford(16). Bruno(5) and Casemiro(4) were the main culprits. Mount(2) stat could also have been worse had be not been hauled off before Wolves last quarter onslaught. Maybe it is down to our pressing not working well. Its easy for Teams to dribble past our midfield to get the final third and make incisive passes. In another day, we could have let half a dozen goals.
Best it comes before the window closes. Annoying as until we have our number 9 fit and playing it’s hard to know how that impacts things if at all.
Eh because he will get sacked if this blows up in his face and he has no fall back plan to effectively use a 4-2-3-1. The players in question don't take care of the ball well enough which is prerequisite in this system and Casemiro is no deeplying playmaker then you compound those issues by our press not being effective because we lack intensity.
Another big issue is that Casemiro looks spent, he might pick up in form and fitness but he won't be the one to play 3 times a week for six months. We need his cover/competition and hopefully Mainoo comes back to play the 8. If we persist with this and lose ground in the rush for CL places ETH is gone by November and it's back to square one.
There is no other option ffs
So my question reading everyone : Is it a matter of Mount and Bruno playing too high, the team being too stretched, and them needing to alternate pushing up ? Or another player coming in to slot in support of Casemiro ? Another thing (wingers not backtracking enough) ?
Is it just lack of automatism / familiarity with the set up ?
Is it just lack of automatism / familiarity with the set up ?
Problem is, Mount and Bruno are not midfielders. Certainly not ones with any control element in their game.
I think our midfield is crying out for an Eriksen but with legs - and Mount isn't that.
Despite Eriksen's lack of physicality, I still believe the team had a better shape and control when he came on. There was more attempted coherence and purpose, rather than seeing players running around the field like headless chickens.
Last night's performance was very concerning.
Despite Eriksen's lack of physicality, I still believe the team had a better shape and control when he came on. There was more attempted coherence and purpose, rather than seeing players running around the field like headless chickens.
Last night's performance was very concerning.
Agreed.
I think its very difficult to say Mount wasn't one of the problems just purely on the amount of challenges he lost or pulled out of completely. That on its own was completely unacceptable regardless of what role he's played in, and in addition he was really poor (well, pointless) on the ball. I struggle to think of a single thing he did in 90 minutes to help the team, ad can think of endless things he did that caused us problems. Some of it made a lot worse by the terrible system we played, granted.
The worrying thing is this is o Mount always plays for England and whenever I've watched him at Chelsea, so I'm completely lost as to what the plan is from ETH. None of the midfield 3 are going to magically change the type of player the are and all 3 would have to for it to even have a chance to not be a disaster. The other two you can keep where they are if you replace Mount with an actual midfielder. Mont only fits in our midfield as a sub standard stand in for Fernandes.
I'm pretty much lost on how ETH has gone from signing two midfielders last season and then playing them in every single game until one died and the other kept getting sent off (which uncoincidentally coincided with us becoming a bit rubbish), to coming to the conclusion we can just not have a midfield.
I want to give Mount a chance but I can't work out why we signed him. If it was for this he's going to bomb spectacularly because he's being asked to do something he obviously can't do. To me he's another option for the front 3 or a stand in for Bruno. Otherwise its just ETH creating a massive problem of his own making.
It's about the players in the attacking half giving a shite, putting a shift in and start working with and for each other instead of thinking "i'll just stay in my comfort zone and do my thing".
All are sort of viable options.
We could compact the play so that Bruno, Mount and Casemiro are a more compact unit. We just need to play a much higher defensive line to do this.
Or we could drop Mount deeper to act as the link between defence and attack, as Eriksen did for us last season.
If had a better left wing option, then Shaw could spend more time tucked inside to sit alongside Casemiro in a box midfield, which would give him cover there. Last night Garnacho was dreadful, and Shaw kept getting sucked out left to try and cover when he lost the ball.
I see these as different solutions to the same problem - Mount and Bruno getting stuck up the pitch, while the defence sits deep, leaving Casemiro alone in a sea of grass, watching as 2 or 3 runners come at him from deep positions.
Why didn’t we buy Tonali? Casemiro/Tonali/Bruno is such a more balansed midfield. Horrible, horrible scouting as usual.
We have scouts?
It didn't work last night, that isn't even up for debate.
However, after years of watching a conservative midfield approach, I thought it was refreshing to at least try a fairly attack minded midfield at home, against what was last season a very poor Wolves side.
However, after years of watching a conservative midfield approach, I thought it was refreshing to at least try a fairly attack minded midfield at home, against what was last season a very poor Wolves side.
It was attack minded on paper, but if it creates barely anything and doesn’t look very attacking in reality, at home, to what should have been one of the least orgainsed teams in the league, it’s a massive failure.
The problem yesterday was that none of the players were prepared to run, that none of the players were in a position they were supposed to be - so Wolves could run straight through our midfield. I am not saying Mount, Bruno and Casemiro is the ideal midfield - but no midfield will work if they are not doing what they are supposed to do.
He always starts slow. Remember last season? He didn't get going until 4th-5th match into the season
Still cannot believe how bad this was yesterday. Jesus, absolute horrendous from start to finish.
Gary Neville saying last night that it’s s midfield you ‘can’t play in certain games. In some games he’ll want an extra player in there’. If those some games include Wolverhampton Wanderers at Old Trafford then you might as well say ‘every game’ and scrap this nonsense.
You also need really superb flank play in able to have the remainder of the side follow in to the assumed positions to begin the supposed onslaught and implement these ultra high engagements that oppress the opposition and turn the ball back over before they can get their bearings.
Do we have the flanks for that?
Do we have the flanks for that?
Worth noting though that we splashed some 150m on a couple of players after that start last season. Had we continued with the same squad, we wouldn't have made top 4.
Same quite possibly applies this season: if we don't get a midfielder who can actually pass the ball, we can probably expect a long, tedious, horrible season.
Exactly.
We've got 50+ players on the books....
Having Rashford at CF is detrimental for two reasons. He's a horrible CF. He's our best AML.
Managers can make mistakes. No other big club is playing with such a lightweight midfield and with players who have no clue on how to play CM role except for Casemiro. Horrifyingly naive from ETH. He really believes that he can make it work with just 1 midfielder.
I wont be surprised if we get thumped once or twice again this season.
Anyone who raised this concern when we were signing Mount was called an idiot and an armchair poster. As if the manager can fo whatever he wants and uts guaranteed to work.Oh no what a surprise, we had a massive gaping hole in the middle of the field playing two number 10's. And some people on here couldn't see this coming.
Agree completely. Not many holding midfielders with the legs to do the role ETH wants. Rice, Caicedo, Rodri could. But with Casemiro, unfortunately its never going to work.
Not sure I get the whole Casemiro is finished talk, he was literally trying to do 2 players jobs and then at half time lost the CB who was trying to step on and help him out.
As people have said, that should of been fine against a poor Wolves side and actually think it was more to do with poor player performances than tactics.
i think the Spurs game will tell us more, if we go the same again then we will have big problems for the season.
As people have said, that should of been fine against a poor Wolves side and actually think it was more to do with poor player performances than tactics.
i think the Spurs game will tell us more, if we go the same again then we will have big problems for the season.
We are supposed to be pressing high, forcing turnovers, but were poor doing it, letting players bypass the press too easily which gave them acres of space to run in to.
We also gave the ball away too much, needlessly.
Calling Casemiro spent is premature I hope, he needed several games to get up to speed last season.
Getting cover/competition for him is a priority and we have not done that yet. Amrabat in soon please.
We also gave the ball away too much, needlessly.
Calling Casemiro spent is premature I hope, he needed several games to get up to speed last season.
Getting cover/competition for him is a priority and we have not done that yet. Amrabat in soon please.
True, but you wouldn't scrap an idea after 1 match...especially if that match was the first game of the season.
If we had the flanks to do that, he would not have needed to experiment with this attacking midfield overkill in the first place.
Casemiro works in a 4231 but can't work in a 433 with a 6 and two 8's. He gets forward to often leaving us exposed. We need someone who sits back and dictates tempo.
Imo this midfield can only work as a box, with Bruno and Mount as the advanced duo and Cas with either Shaw or Martinez as the defensive duo. When we have to defend Shaw or Martinez drop back into a back four and either Bruno or Mount help pressure opposition defenders, while the other one drops into midfield next to Cas. Bruno and Mount in a triangle in midfield won't work, we too risky and defensively too weak.
The flanks are used to enable everyone to shuffle up the yards in behind and entrench themselves before then venturing into all those open spaces. The flanks are extremely important components in the midfield being able to steal lots of yards without doing much until the ball comes infield again. You can’t set your stall without them, which is part of the reason we were so massively disjointed.
There was a reason we chased FDJ so hard...
Did he not win 5 champions leagues in a 433 with two 8's?
Well City have played this way for a while with Silva and KDB in front of Fernandinho and even last year with Gundogan and KDB ahead of Rodri. Arsenal the same with Xhaka and Odegaard ahead of Partey, and now with the plan of Havertz and Odegaard ahead of Rice.
The fundamental difference is both their pressing is miles, miles better, while City ball possession is best in world, while Arsenal have an amazing transition defense ( Saliba)
There were actual 8s and world class ones at that. Mount and Bruno are number 10s with no element of control.
