Bayern Munich vs Manchester United discussion

VivaStPauli wrote:Well of course they have difficulties with teams that park the bus, but I feel they've lost a bit of an edge in favor of keeping more possession as compared to last season.

I think they are better tbh. Teams are sitting very deep against them in every game. That didn't happen that much last year. Any teams that plays them openly would get torn to shreds.

jibers wrote:

VivaStPauli wrote:Well of course they have difficulties with teams that park the bus, but I feel they've lost a bit of an edge in favor of keeping more possession as compared to last season.

I think they are better tbh. Teams are sitting very deep against them in every game. That didn't happen that much last year. Any teams that plays them openly would get torn to shreds.

For me there's no doubt we lost edge in the last couple of months, but not necessarily compared to last season, but also to October/November last year.

I have to say both Utd legs, to a lesser extent the Arsenal games, were gruesome watching.
Just terrible, really.
It seemed like our players can't find each other in the box anymore.
Either we play too slow and there's no space, or the few times we played fast we lacked accuracy and coordination.
When Ribery/Alaba for example are through on the byline they used to find players by laying back passes etc.
Now it's clueless aimless crosses or squandering the ball by 2 meter passes without gaining advantage. Slowing down play when you're in the opponents box!

And since we won the league in record time, in four games we haven't managed to score first.
We always have to concede to get urgency. Against Hoffenheim we went from 0:1 to 3:1 in a matter of 15 minutes similar to the Utd game, but once we've done just what's about necessarily the players get lazy again.
Even in the league-winning game at Hertha we won it in the first 20 minutes, playing fantastic and scoring quickly, then went down a couple of gears.

That's why I think severals factors are contributing, and it's not just so much a matter of system/philosophy:
- our players are more lazy, which is not very surprising after a treble win and a record league win.
What they did in the league week in week out so far was pretty astonishing given the inevitable danger of complacency, but now it seems complacency has taken over a bit.
Add to that the constant thing with the 'best team' etc pp, and it's bound to leave some trace in their heads. Hence they run less and are less aggressive.

-Pep has changed a lot from last season, and even during the season he's changing a lot. Against Utd again, the so called fullbacks played even more infield then they did in some games in the first season half, then sometimes a single pivot, a double pivot etc.
So the players are busy converting the instructions and it seems to slow them down a bit, as they try to err on the safe side. Which is not bad in the situation, as we win everything, but at the moment it doesn't look very souvereign that often.

-since we press immediately, sit crazy high and heve 70-80% possession, teams dig in and defend, so we'd need extra accuracy and geniality sometimes to break them down more often, which we lack at the moment.
All players in form will help, Ribery will get stronger again, Götze should improve, Thiago will return.
Still, I have the feeling Pep needs to realize we don't have Messi, so we seriously need to think about ways to score more goals.

Because controlling possession, even slowly and boringly, is fantastic if we win the games 2:0, 3:0 as we did most of the season.
That's the best dominance you can get.
Now, when we don't really score a lot, it starts to look pretty stupid, especially when we make a shit team like Moysie's Utd look dangerous on the counter and tactically astute.

Our only consolation is that this was the best goal of the night. What a hit

humble Evra

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