Areas of Improvement for our Players

Skills

Snitch
Joined
Jan 17, 2012
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What do you think a few of our players need to be working on to get them to the next level? This especially applies to some of our younger players to get them to step up.

Martial - movement. Only bug I've got with him, needs to be more aware of runs he can make and be a genuine terror for defenders eveb when he doesn't have the ball. Shooting is another thing - good finisher but he needs more of a threat from outside the box.

Baily - aerial balls. Needs to be much more dominant in the air - he's got the size to do it, but his timing/movement to aerial challenges I find to be lacking.
 
Darmian - Shaving.
 
Martial - Off the ball movement
Rashford - decision making, when to take on defender and when to keep it simple.
Lindelof/Bailly - Heading.
All the CBs - more courage on the ball and carrying the ball.
 
Generally, pass and move. We don't do the move part. No player who is infront of the ball when we are in posession should be stood still. How many times have we seen people not making the run ahead of the ball, or there only being 1 runner making the pass easy to guess for the opposition.

When we are in posession we should be pressing forwards as a team and everyone in front of the ball should be in space or moving into space.
 
Zlatattack said:
Generally, pass and move. We don't do the move part. No player who is infront of the ball when we are in posession should be stood still. How many times have we seen people not making the run ahead of the ball, or there only being 1 runner making the pass easy to guess for the opposition.

When we are in posession we should be pressing forwards as a team and everyone in front of the ball should be in space or moving into space.
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Well that's the managers job really if it's a team wide issue. Set patterns of runs, creating passing angles, all players moving to create space and an open man - that needs the direction of the coach and have the entire team in harmony.
 
Attack
Lukaku ~ hold-up play.
Rashford ~ decision making and consistency.
Martial ~ off the ball movements and urgency.
Mata ~ scoring (worse this season unlike usual).

Midfielder
Herrera ~ form consistency (1st half of this season reference).
Pogba ~ pressing, defensive awareness and following runners (improving).
McTominay ~ passing, dictating play and aerial threat.

Defense
Valencia ~ beating past players and defensive line (played many opposing players onside).
Shaw ~ urgency and defensive awareness (improving already).
Young ~ overlapping runs.
Darmian ~ sideburn and well.. overall performance.
Blind ~ form consistency and pressing timing (he loves to press so much so he gets caught out of position often).
Bailly ~ heading and consistency.
Rojo ~ fitness.
Lindelof ~ heading and defensive awareness.

Keeper
De Gea ~ kicking consistency.

*Only including players whom I'm sure can improve.*
 
Skills said:
Well that's the managers job really if it's a team wide issue. Set patterns of runs, creating passing angles, all players moving to create space and an open man - that needs the direction of the coach and have the entire team in harmony.
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I'd rather we coached our players to develop the skills to naturally know when pass and move is on and decide to play it rather than be robots. I'm pretty sure we weren't so routined under Sir Alex and we did okay.

Where have all you people picked up 'patterns of play' from anyway? We had it under LvG where some read his book then bored us all parroting his terminology, is this still an LvG thing?
 
Rashford - Finishing
Sanchez - Hold up/keeping possession play
Pogba - Defensive workrate/need higher effort levels from him with regards to this aspect
Darmian - Everything and shaving
De Gea - Passing out from the back (its above average but its the one area where he still can improve a bit)
Jones - Removal of poor mistakes
Smalling - Stop shirt grabbing
Martial - Work on his left (weaker) foot a bit more to add a bit more unpredictability
Valencia - Crossing!!!
Herrera - Either stop taking silly long shots or practice the hell out of them
Lukaku - First touch still needs work
Lingard - Creativity
Young - Man marking
Lindelof - 1 on 1s vs attackers
Rojo - Needs to be a little less rash
Bailly - Potentially becoming more of a threat from attacking set pieces
Mata - Become more of a set piece specialist, ie: better free kick delivery (passing not going for goal), etc
Matic - Maybe could be a greater set piece threat with his size, tough to defend a tall lad like him
Romero - Kicking
Fellaini - Goalscoring
McTominay - Don't know, dribbling?
Carrick - N/A, retiring soon
 
Smores said:
I'd rather we coached our players to develop the skills to naturally know when pass and move is on and decide to play it rather than be robots. I'm pretty sure we weren't so routined under Sir Alex and we did okay.

Where have all you people picked up 'patterns of play' from anyway? We had it under LvG where some read his book then bored us all parroting his terminology, is this still an LvG thing?
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The thing that annoys me more than most about this is that everyone loves cities attacking play, yet if you listened to Henry's interview about Pep a while ago he mentioned that Pep allows them the freedom to do what they want in the final 3rd and doesn't coach it.

He claims pep says it's his job to get them to the final 3rd and then it's down to the attackers to do their thing. When Mourinho does the same it's lack of coaching though.
 
P-Nut0712 said:
The thing that annoys me more than most about this is that everyone loves cities attacking play, yet if you listened to Henry's interview about Pep a while ago he mentioned that Pep allows them the freedom to do what they want in the final 3rd and doesn't coach it.

He claims pep says it's his job to get them to the final 3rd and then it's down to the attackers to do their thing. When Mourinho does the same it's lack of coaching though.
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If you can't tell that there is a massive difference in how to get to the final 3rd, then no one is going to help you...
 
P-Nut0712 said:
The thing that annoys me more than most about this is that everyone loves cities attacking play, yet if you listened to Henry's interview about Pep a while ago he mentioned that Pep allows them the freedom to do what they want in the final 3rd and doesn't coach it.

He claims pep says it's his job to get them to the final 3rd and then it's down to the attackers to do their thing. When Mourinho does the same it's lack of coaching though.
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There is a big difference though. Pep's players are way more positionally disciplined. Especially the wide players. You never see City's wingers drifting inside. They hold position and stay wide. Right on the touchline. With their shirt number facing the crowd. Henry even spoke about how Pep took him off after 1 half because he wasn't following that instruction even though Barcelona were winning comfortably. By staying high and wide the wingers take advantage of the space inbetween the RB/LB and CB thus freezing four players in the process when both wingers do it. Yes it's true that Pep also gives his attackers freedom in the final third but there's a big difference in how he coaches them compared to Mourinho who doesn't give the same attention to detail. Why do our wingers drift all over the place? Clogging up the midfield. And then it's compounded by fullbacks who don't want to go forward.

See this: http://www.skysports.com/football/n...ow-to-play-football-again-under-pep-guardiola
 
Passing, movement and first touch. Apply to all.
 
abdo99 said:
Henry even spoke about how Pep took him off after 1 half because he wasn't following that instruction even though Barcelona were winning comfortably.
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As I remember this specific story was about Henry drifting over to the opposite flank in order to get more involved in the play and score a goal. Not about hugging the touchline.
 
Akshay said:
As I remember this specific story was about Henry drifting over to the opposite flank in order to get more involved in the play and score a goal. Not about hugging the touchline.
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Yes your right. He moved over to right flank when he was supposed to be on the left but he scored anyway and was subbed off. I found this article on it and it's interesting to get an insight on what the instructions were. Importance of keeping hold of your position and trusting your team mates. He says that the wide players stay high and wide but after that they have the freedom to do anything. The hugging of the touchline was mentioned by Sane I think in a recent interview with Sky Sports but yeah it's the same.

http://www.goal.com/en/news/722/la-...explains-pep-guardiolas-secret-tactic-formula
 
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