Tactical rigidity

[Redlife]

It seems that although Agger was on the bench he wasn't properly fit. He's having some sort of scan today.



I don't think our bad performance was anything to do with tactical rigidity. Out of the top four, Rafa's the manager with the most flexible approach to the game with different players and different ideas to face different opponents.


Now whether we agree with that, well that's another argument (I do, as it happens ), but compare that approach with that of Maureen, Wenger, and Ferguson.


Arsenal play great football at times, but they have no 'plan B'.


Last night Maureen had Terry playing up front for a good spell apparently. People complain we're too 'route one' at times, but we're nothing compared to that lot.


I admire the way Ferguson's teams attack, but he's hardly tactically astute. I'm not sure many Scum fans would even argue that. That's not his talent as a manager. Some of his tactics, particularly in the CL, have been hilarious over the years.



Last night was a crap performance, but a good result. ( overall)

[carlton]

The reason is that Hyypia played.

When he plays then we have no other option than to play with a very low defensive line and that rules out any quick attacks and a good distribution from our central defenders. Instead of Agger passing the ball when he plays the opposition knows that they can pressure Hyypia and Carra so they will have to hoof away the ball. When Agger plays he can pass the ball out of a tight situation, Hyypia and Carra can't do that.

That makes the whole team unbalanced. Pennant and Babel needs to defend a lot more and they are not good enough doing that.

It was a big mistake by Rafa to play Hyypia. Just to accept it and move on.

Hyypia has been fantastic for us but he is to slow now and we need to replace him with a central defender that will allow us to play our normal game with a higher defensive line.

Agreed, yet he did provide the header for Kuyt to score.

[Chiccada]

We were woeful last night, but I can't help thinking the ref had something to do with it. He set a preciedent early on in the game by making sure the flair players got protection. Anyone who went in with a sliding tackle more often than not conceeded a freekick. We couldnt get stuck in as much as we usually do in a Prem game for fear of giving away freekicks and getting cards in bad areas of the field.

In short we were treading on eggshells for most of the match and it done us mentally.

[flyboy]

we just had to answer to porto in the middle. lucho gonzalez ,assuncao ..cant remember who the other guy was gave absolutely no space at all to either gerrard or mascherano.hence starving any sort of service to kuyt and torres.if the opposition has 3 in the middle do we need to have 3 as well to match them????? 3 central midfielders that is

[Woobus]

I think for once we were to weak in central midfield. Gerrard clearly isnt 100% fit yet and Mascher looked well below par due to the silly amount of travelling in the last week. Real pity Alonso got injured as could have really used him last night instead of Mascher.

[flyboy]

i really hope this is all down to international duty

[kev776]

I think in the cold light of day, a below par team effort was beaten by better tactics and a team up for the match.
Both at Pompey and last night we were below par and that was with 6 changes, I hope this is not as a result of Paco leaving.

[Joe King]

We played with 10 men for the last half hour, we were playing away on what is our most difficult game in the group stages. I don't understand this crisis talk. Its absolutely absurd.

If we created more chances it would have felt like two points dropped however from our point of view, its a gained point and a point away from home to our rivals for top spot. Porto aren't no mugs in this competition, they have plenty of experience at this sort of level.

Rafa knows it was a ****e performance from the off and he probably expected a better start from us and probably better ball retention however we didn't neither. Rafa will want to take the lads back to Melwood, assess what went wrong and rectify it for the game against the Brummies.

It's time we moved forward, forget about it and most of all learn from the experience.

[cobain]

We played with 10 men for the last half hour, we were playing away on what is our most difficult game in the group stages. I don't understand this crisis talk. Its absolutely absurd.

If we created more chances it would have felt like two points dropped however from our point of view, its a gained point and a point away from home to our rivals for top spot. Porto aren't no mugs in this competition, they have plenty of experience at this sort of level.

Rafa knows it was a ****e performance from the off and he probably expected a better start from us and probably better ball retention however we didn't neither. Rafa will want to take the lads back to Melwood, assess what went wrong and rectify it for the game against the Brummies.

It's time we moved forward, forget about it and most of all learn from the experience.

If we forget about it, we wont learn from the experience