Agree that Arne has shown his tactical chops in these initial matches. Nice to see him improve our attacking tactics against a side w a plan similar to Forest (press us infrequently; 10 behind the ball; create on the counter). Very excited to watch this next batch of 7 matches
Another good read, Josh. Agree with your view that AS seems to be tactically astute. Would be interested to know your thoughts on why it took some time to address the revised threat from Palace once Mateta came on that gave Palace a 10-15 min spell when they might have equalised.
General feeling seems to be that this season‘s performances are better than last season up to this point. Does the xG difference compared to the same fixtures (also considering home/away) last season back up that feeling? My feeling is we are actually slightly worse in that metric, but there is significantly less peril.
equation. Compared to the equivalent fixtures last season we have dialled down the attack about 10-15% but improved the defence by 10-15%
2) the game state when we are conceding the XG is significantly better this season. Very little when the game is in the balance versus quite a lot when 3-0 up vs United and Bournemouth
Agree that Arne has shown his tactical chops in these initial matches. Nice to see him improve our attacking tactics against a side w a plan similar to Forest (press us infrequently; 10 behind the ball; create on the counter). Very excited to watch this next batch of 7 matches
Another good read, Josh. Agree with your view that AS seems to be tactically astute. Would be interested to know your thoughts on why it took some time to address the revised threat from Palace once Mateta came on that gave Palace a 10-15 min spell when they might have equalised.
Hope he has enuf time now during this international break to study upcoming opponents.
General feeling seems to be that this season‘s performances are better than last season up to this point. Does the xG difference compared to the same fixtures (also considering home/away) last season back up that feeling? My feeling is we are actually slightly worse in that metric, but there is significantly less peril.
There's 2 stories in the XG so far:
1) a rebalancing of our XG difference
equation. Compared to the equivalent fixtures last season we have dialled down the attack about 10-15% but improved the defence by 10-15%
2) the game state when we are conceding the XG is significantly better this season. Very little when the game is in the balance versus quite a lot when 3-0 up vs United and Bournemouth
Thanks Dan. Looking forward to see how our new approach fares in the upcoming fixtures and in situations when the game state is against us.
Another excellent article Josh. Thank you. So … I’ll take the bait … almost ? What’s the gap ?
I still haven’t moved past that Nottingham Forest game yet. Almost perfect, but not quite.