Javi Gracia- Issues statement

[weasel]

Thought h got his tactics pretty much spot on today and a draw was a fair result. We failed to capitalise on the parts of the match when we were on top but then showed good pateince and resilience to hang in and hit back. Got the balance of when to press fairly much spot on.

I have been impressed with him so far and hopefully now we have more attacking options we can eke out a few wins.

[BGwhite]

TBF gung-ho pressing under another manager too. The all -out pressing game experiment since we got back to the PL is hopefully over now.

Hope so, gung-ho pressing is nothing but schoolboy stuff .

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[CHAPELALLMAN]

Hope so, gung-ho pressing is nothing but schoolboy stuff .

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[Mountain]

Hope so, gung-ho pressing is nothing but schoolboy stuff .

Apart from promotion back to the top flight and finishing 9th with some if the most exciting football we've ever seen, it did absolutely nothing for us...

[Cjay]

Apart from promotion back to the top flight and finishing 9th with some if the most exciting football we've ever seen, it did absolutely nothing for us...

And seen us flirting with relegation for the last 18months

Was nice to see a manager sacrifice his style to try and help the team once he identified something in the opposition that may make his style struggle

And Gracia was spot on to the point Brighton fans on there forum hoped we would press pre match

We'd have been battered if we had adopted the pressing principles of our 2 previous managers.

Endless Pressing isn't the only way I'd think is the point rather than a dig at he who shall not be named and Marsch

Selective pressing was the right way today and it worked at times

Just didn't make the most of the chances it generated.

[Irish Ian]

4 points from 9 isn't the worst.


Keep that up and we have just about enough.

[Irish Ian]

TBF gung-ho pressing under another manager too. The all -out pressing game experiment since we got back to the PL is hopefully over now.

This post shows just how little you actually know about the game.

All out pressing

[weasel]

4 points from 9 isn't the worst.


Keep that up and we have just about enough.

Results so far, under Javi, are as I predicted but performances have been better and the team has a bit of fight about them - they didn't lack fight before but the way we played saw us being ripped open too easily. We now know we can be fairly strong defensively and also be able to get in good positions to create chances. We seem to have a good shape about us and Javi seems able to make subtle changes. Only gripe is him not starting Gnonto but perhaps he likes the idea of having really good options available from the bench so as to be able to impact the game by using subs.

[Mountain]

And seen us flirting with relegation for the last 18months .

I'd say the last year was more down to a bad manager rather than saying gung ho pressing can't work. It can. And we know that for certain because, done well, it worked better than anything else we did in 2 decades.

[1964white]

Results so far, under Javi, are as I predicted but performances have been better and the team has a bit of fight about them - they didn't lack fight before but the way we played saw us being ripped open too easily. We now know we can be fairly strong defensively and also be able to get in good positions to create chances. We seem to have a good shape about us and Javi seems able to make subtle changes. Only gripe is him not starting Gnonto but perhaps he likes the idea of having really good options available from the bench so as to be able to impact the game by using subs.

We didn't have a good shape today, we were all over the place at times!

And yes, Gnonto should start, more down the middle.

[weasel]

We didn't have a good shape today, we were all over the place at times!

And yes, Gnonto should start, more down the middle.

We had the shape where it matters and that is key. We were flexible and as you say at times Brighton were passing it around us etc but we had people in the right areas and that was the big difference to earlier in the season. Even for Brighton's goals we had players to be able to stop the goals. For the first goal Wober chose to go to the goal line anticipating a header towards goal instead of the header accross goal to MacAllister. For the second goal Harrison had got back into position. Yes Brighton had a couple of other chances but it wasn't like earlier in the season when opponents were simply queuing up to score.

The defensive structure was decent. Brighton have decent players and were able to hurt us but generally we looked secure.

[BGwhite]

Apart from promotion back to the top flight and finishing 9th with some if the most exciting football we've ever seen, it did absolutely nothing for us...

I dread to think what the result would have been today had we pressed like school kids. It was obvious what they wanted and also so obvious what they'd do to us if we fell into their trap but unlike what's gone previously Gracia saw sense .

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[Mountain]

I dread to think what the result would have been today had we pressed like school kids.

Well obviously if we had pressed "like school kids" it would have gone badly. That's pretty much the same for any tactics or system in the PL. If you do it badly, like "school kids" you get punished.

[BGwhite]

Well obviously if we had pressed "like school kids" it would have gone badly. That's pretty much the same for any tactics or system in the PL. If you do it badly, like "school kids" you get punished.

Exactly.

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[1964white]

We had the shape where it matters and that is key. We were flexible and as you say at times Brighton were passing it around us etc but we had people in the right areas and that was the big difference to earlier in the season. Even for Brighton's goals we had players to be able to stop the goals. For the first goal Wober chose to go to the goal line anticipating a header towards goal instead of the header accross goal to MacAllister. For the second goal Harrison had got back into position. Yes Brighton had a couple of other chances but it wasn't like earlier in the season when opponents were simply queuing up to score.

The defensive structure was decent. Brighton have decent players and were able to hurt us but generally we looked secure.

A better side brimming with confidence, imo!

[1964white]

What’s the verdict after 3 PL games on Gracia?
W1 D1 L1
GF 3 GA 3
His brief was to beat the teams in the bottom 9. Something Marsch couldn’t do regularly.
So far he’s 100% on that.

12 games to play

4 points from each set of 3 games would see us safe.

[Aussieleeds]

The main thing in any relegation battle is that at some point luck is going to play a part. So you have to stay competitive in every game for the full 90. No point getting a dodgy pen, a lucky goal or a worldy in the 90th minute if you’re already 3-0 down,
JG gets this and his first objective is that we don’t get blown away for the sake of staying true to some personal philosophy. I like that.

[VinnysTattoo]

On things a certainty, we’d have had a new hole torn in us if Marsch had still been here.

[SG90]

How much did Caicedo, Mac Allister and Mitoma cost combined? Probably less than Llorente did on his own. Yet Orta is raved over for finding bargains lol.

[weasel]

How much did Caicedo, Mac Allister and Mitoma cost combined? Probably less than Llorente did on his own. Yet Orta is raved over for finding bargains lol.

I would say the only bargains we have signed were Struyjk, Glehardt and Gnonto. The trest of our signings haven't exactly been cheap. Messlier and Raphinha are both good signings but at £7m Messlier wasn't cheap as a fairly untested goalkeeper, paying £7m for a keeper of that age and experience you would be expecting him to be decent and similarly Raphinha wasn't bought for peanuts.