1964white wrote: ↑Thu Dec 26, 2019 11:12 pm
Preston were only in the game because we were constantly passing the ball to them & losing possession in vital areas so much so I could have sworn Ayling, Cooper & Phillips had signed for them over Christmas
With Bielsa's system it is all based on players moving into positions on the pitch so that their teammates can almost play 'blind' passes into areas where they know our players will be moving to. Our players didn't suddenly go from players who probably had 60% pass ratios pre-Bielsa to suddenly becoming much better passers of the ball, what they had was a place to pass to without having to look up, without having to make the pass pinpoint etc. Preston obviously worked really hard on getting players into the areas to intercept our passes by working out where they needed to be on the pitch when our players had the ball as the passes would invariably be going to a certain position. As such Preston pressed two-fold they pressed the man on the ball but were also making their other players move into positions to intercept or pressurise the player receiving the ball.
Players like Pablo have that extra bit of class to be able to hold onto the ball longer, the composure to retain the ball and wait that extra second before passing the ball, to be able to ignore the routine pass and then the ability to play the killer pass. The rest of the team are almost to some degree like robots, able to play on autopilot, following Bielsa's instructions and play the passes into the right area to keep us in possession, but lacking the creative flair of a player like Pablo. But then 99.9% of footballers don't have the ability that Pablo has.
An example of the 'blind' passes into areas are Cooper's long balls. They aren't played to land at someone's feet but played into an area where it gives our wingers, or Bamford the advantage as the opposition have to turn and when Bamford moves across to the wing when the ball is played it can give us 2v1 against their full back. The ball doesn't have to land on a sixpence but just to land in a quite a big area of the pitch roughly 30 yards from goal but out wide so that the opposition just has their fullback in that area as the centreback won't want to go that wide and it is not central enough for the keeper to come out to clear. But all over the pitch we play the same way we get the ball and know players are moving into areas so the players know what their option are. To some degree every player is then like a quarterback in american football with 3 options that he can quickly play the ball towards. He knows his teammates are going to be trying to get into that area so he doesn't need to keep the ball for ages. Preston today had studied our playbook and got their players into the right area to cut off those passes. They did it superbly for 25 minutes but after that they weren't able to keep doing it as they tired and spent the rest of the match time-wasting and hanging on.
