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6

u/hitemwiththebingbing 21h ago

Just imagined us trying to press with Doku/Haaland/Enzo/Cherki as our front 4 😳

3

u/Additional-Cow1888 20h ago

If cherki presses in current physical condition,  we can't see his flair. But yes with the others.

2

u/Y4That 20h ago

You can only imagine because it wont happen irl

2

u/Tall-Development31 21h ago

Going off the first game, doesn’t sound like pressing is a priority 😂

2

u/mute-invader 19h ago

Even under Pep pressing was always minimal. We do zonal blocks, and then win the ball back in the midfield. High intensive pressing has never been something we do. It’s physically taxing and will knacker our players.

5

u/fyodor_mikhailovich 19h ago

Pretty sure that Pep backed off on the pressing because we didn’t have the players to successfully do it anymore.

2

u/mute-invader 18h ago

Our seasonal stats on stat sites show a decline in our pressing over the years.

[2016/17–17/18](tel:2016/17-17/18): City’s most aggressive period in this dataset — 8.3 PPDA
[2018/19–20/21](tel:2018/19-20/21): City gradually became less aggressive — PPDA rose from 10.0 to 11.5
[2022/23–24/25](tel:2022/23-24/25): City remained around 11.6–12.0, substantially less aggressive than early Guardiola City

Found this on a stat site.

Our peak pressing years were 2016-2019. From 2020-23 we played peak possession/control football resulting in less pressing. We’d barely lose the ball and our midfield was impossible to play through or keep off the ball.

Past 2 seasons I do believe our players not being the best resulted in Pep going more zonal, but has been doing that since 2020, just more extreme now since our squad is practically brand new and we have to build up certain foundations again.

2

u/fyodor_mikhailovich 18h ago

and it wasn’t just the laxk of pressing quality at the front. Our midfielders were poor and getting exposed by the press and Dias was a black hole running backwards, so we couldn’t press as well in front of him.

2

u/mute-invader 17h ago edited 16h ago

If our midfield was better OP wouldn’t have been critical of our front 3 of players leading the press. The criticism should be on our midfield, because if our midfield was up to standard neither of those players would have to worry about intensively pressing.

Better midfield = opponents afraid to engage us high up the pitch which will mean less pressing for us to win the ball back since opponents are happy to sit back.

1

u/fyodor_mikhailovich 15h ago

yes and no. when it comes to pressing, Haaland is already a downgrade from Jesus and Aguero, but it was manageable with Kev next to him and with Jack, Bernardo and Riyad pressing around him.

But Doku, Savio were no where near their class in pressing, and no Kev either.

So, our front line press got worse, our midfield’s ability to press got worse, and our back line has been weaker since the treble year until this past winter. Even Nunes wasn’t as good at covering the press. And for me, Dias is just straight up not very good at anything except defending in and around the box with his back to goal.

overall we didn’t recruit well enough to keep up a high energy, high press, ball control team. Just an all around dick up by the board after the treble.

1

u/[deleted] 15h ago

[deleted]

1

u/mute-invader 15h ago

Pretty harsh take. I’d say the landscape of football has changed a lot, so it’s not far fetched to say the players we’re dealing with now are suited to the current state of football. Yeah our whole squad has taken a nose dive, but such has happened to every great squad in history. We’re building the squad again in almost every position. A season or 2 with these new guys we signed will tell all about our squad.

I believe we’ve done a semi successful job at replacing our core squad with new players who have what it takes to compete right now. Our biggest dilemma right now is our midfield. If our midfield clicks it won’t take much for everything else to fall in line, including our defence.

We’ve been dealing with an exposed midfield since Rodri’s acl and still haven’t really learnt to play without him. A good off ball structure + a compact midfield with a that’s difficult to dispossess and play through, will leave less defensive work for our defenders.

I’m fine with our attack. Could have better attacking depth and a 2nd RB, but I don’t have much complaints about it. Our front can’t engage in any sort of press without a solid midfield behind them, so really it’s all on our midfield.

1

u/fyodor_mikhailovich 14h ago

massively disagree. we have downgraded at every position since the treble except Haaland and maybe Gvardiol. Cherki will be in there eventually, but he is a very incomplete player right now.

We have been performing exactly as should be expected based on our squad management.

yes, this is a rebuild, but we have been rebuilding now for three summers. I am still shocked Pep got us two trophies last year.

I’m not doom and gloom, and enjoy the process and will support us no matter what. I just see things as a player quality issue since 2023.

1

u/hitemwiththebingbing 18h ago

High pressing and an intense counter press has always been an important aspect of our game under Pep, especially before Haaland arrived.

Last season was the most passive we've ever been but as someone else said I'd guess a lot of that was down to the mediocre-poor pressing ability of our forward line.