DrunkenSaint

should of gone for Schmidt least we would be playing attacking high intense pressing football which we all liked under poch.

Agree, if u are to play 352 u need someone with that creative spark in the centre of the park, out of those 3 midfielders Davis needs to be dropped. I wouldnt start Austin either, we need pace in the team so it would have to be either Long or play Boufal or Redmond upfront, Austin then would come on in the 2nd half.

that's why we should of done our transfers early doors to test things in pre season, I think the shape is fine its the players that don't fit it.

Italians don't seem to rate him, on Twitter done are saying he's not worth 5m, I've not heard of him so I have no idea if that's good business or a panic buy. anyone know anything about him?

He normally got hold of the ball in a central position and ran with it causing problems for the oppositions defence in which created chances for us, we have no one like that now.

tbh I would like us to try a 343 formation, he used it at his previous club and Chelsea and Spurs played very well when they used it and I wouldn't be surprised if a few more clubs start using that formation. That will allow us to offload a few of our defensive midfielders ( which we have far to many of ) and get in a good box-box type. After last season we needed new blood and a new style/formation, we are still that team from last season who looked lost.

Not sure i've known a pre season like this, we have been dreadful each game. High pressing Poch style my ass! We needed a clearout all we have is the same **** from last season playing like last season.

id go 3 at the back also, he did play it last season with some success so I wouldn't be surprised if he goes with it with us. Still a big ? on boufal so I might be tempted with Sims instead of him but that team does look good.

Really cant see Austin playing in a high pressing style, he could barely last 60 mins under Puels style, long is pretty useless infront of goal but he has the pace and fitness to do the pressing stuff. For me jrod and Austin should be offloaded, keep what we have left and get in a decent ACM who can assist with goals.

i would rather have his assistants he knows best, Carlos Campagnucci and Xavi Tamarit.

There seems to be 2 Schmidt's both play high pressing football interesting, maybe Schmidt is back in the running but Martin not Roger.

All I can find on him is how he beat Barca 2-1 using a very defensive tactic, got any other read ups on him? AvB, FdB all these new names don't excite me at all, i still think we should of gone for Schmidt.

Damn he was my choice, best be Tochel then otherwise it will be another of those "we took to long" moments.

Hope not, I personally would go with Schmidt and bring the high pressing football back, he might even stay a bit longer than 2 years where as Touchal will probably only stay 2 years.

None of us probably thought the same when poch changed our teams fitness, its all about the training they receive, under puel our fitness has decreased a lot so I would imagine lots of double fitness sessions to bring the players fitness up the that standard. Also he would have the pre season to get rid of dead wood who cant adapt or have the fitness levels needed ( jrod and Austin for sure) and get in players who know the system.

Why sell him this season? he's on a long contract and his value will not drop after next season, infact it may even go up. I know from someone who works at the club that shops at my work, when asked about the VVD situation, he said he truly believed he would end up at either Barca or Real as they were both sniffing around, so why the hell would we sell them to Liverpool? wouldn't it be best to offload players to clubs that we do not face every year?

Ah ok, I stand corrected, I only heard from a good friend that Mane's name was on koemans list before we bought him ( I was delighted as I had heard of him before and thought he was a good player), if he was on the "black box" then cool beanz

Sorry but Koeman told them to sign him, he was on koemans list of potential players when he came here as he saw him in action in a friendly against Bayern Munich, koeman I believe was a guest commentator for some Dutch Tv channel. I also feel that mane was worth a lot more money than what he went for same goes for Lallana.

3-4-3 attacking/counter attacking style. ---------------Forster------ ---------Yoshi--VVD---Bertrand Cedric-----Hojbjerg---Romeu-----McQueen -----------Boufal--------Sims------------ ------------------Gabbi-------------

Eduardo Berizzo - Poch like, uses high pressing at Celta vigo or the master himself Marcelo Bielsa. Love to see the high press style back, was probably the best ive seen us play while under Poch.

yes cause Les Reed thinks he can sneak another academy product into the team who he thinks is just as good, but isn't. 343 is the best formation you can play IF you have a manager and the players who can play it right, we don't but it might stop as many goals being leaked. I highly rate the formation and was glad that Conte has stuck with it as it shows if played right its very very good. The wingbacks must be very attacking and that would suit Mcqueen as he is a winger really, just like Moses for Chelsea and he's having a great season.

yep, been waiting for a front 3 without Pelle for a while, it works much better imo...yes i know its weaker opposition but still.

I'm glad the Koeman has now seen we can score goals without Pelle in the mix, maybe just maybe he will drop him in the future. Not saying he shouldnt never play, i think with a front 3 of Mane, Jrod and Juanmi we would cause more problems with pace and the fact all 3 of them would press much better.

Pretty much agree with you apart from Tadic, thought he was pretty crap tbh, tried too hard lost the ball quite a few times when an easy pass was on, got very lazy. Now Pelle, he scored 2 goals thats good, his first 20 or so mins were also very good but from around the 30min mark all the way up to the 85 mins mark he was utter dog ****e. Time after time he was standing about 2 yards away from the ball and he just stood there, if the ball didnt go to his feet he just stood there. I never really noticed this til my friend pointed out that he gets very lazy when things don't go his way so i decided to act like a scout and watched him, i was quite amazed really. Now take a look at Mane, he was everywhere, always closing down defenders running his socks off, now if the other 2 fwd players were doing the same i think the whole game would of been completely different. Pelle and Tadic seem to go in strop mode when things are not going to plan. In my conclusion, we had no width at all, the one time we did get a good cross in Pelle scored, now if we were to play with width most of the time and get those crosses in, im sure Pelle will score a bucket load of goals and with that he wont go into lazy mode. We gave them far too much time to play the ball from the back, we needed all 3 fwd players closing them down for 90 mins not just the first quarter. I would drop Tadic for Juamni.

The 352 is a very good, attacking formation but we don't have the players to do it right. Two of the 3 midfielders are suppose to be attacking midfielders, JWP and Davis are average at best, they don't support the attackers and they don't offer any attacking abilities at all. The full backs are suppose to be up there when attacking also, look at the Brazilian team when they had Carlos and Cafu down the wings, they were always up there in the attack. The whole idea of the 352 formation is you attack in numbers knowing you have 3 CB's covering so why pick this formation if we don't have the right players? Even in the 433 formation, it's all wrong in the middle, you are still meant to play a more attacking midfielder to support the striker, we always play Davis, he aint attacking enough! we need someone in there who can attack, who can run at the defence and create stuff in the middle of the park. We got away with it last season as we had a very tight defence and a midfield general in Morgan, but its all gone and we aint replaced the ones who have gone with equal quality players. In all honesty all we have is a bunch of average squad type players now with no backbone and no spirit but its ok the board are sitting on a huge pile of cash and will think everything will be fine and it will turn out good in the the end....