Championship Results - Week 3

Ebbsfleet (home):

v

Vancouver (away):

I'm not keen on Azzy's defensive set up tbh, a 3 man centreback team is one that I personally believe struggles against a fast striker that's looking to capitalize on beating the offside which Aubameyang is exceptional at. If I had 3 at the back I'd be wanting a 3some that is used to playing in that setup week in week out in real life, none of them play for teams that do so. I'd have probably had Dante as the man marker of the three as well being that he knows Aubameyang's better than the others.
The midfield for both teams with the style of play sounds error strewn with neither teams given much time to impose themselves, mixed messages somewhat from Bam instructing the CMs to get the ball to the forwards ASAP but also telling them to run with the ball at the defence themselves. Seen a few people do this tactically to cover all bases before and not a fan.
I struggle to see where Vancouver's goals are coming from, Tevez playing deep can often end up with him running about like a cat with a laser pen and he needs a strike partner to bring out the best in him, I'm not an Ibe fan and I'd have played Fischer from the start IMHO.

Ebbsfleet 3-1 Vancouver
(Aubameyang x2, Kondogbia - Fischer)


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Real Madrid (home):

v

Crawley Town (away):

First things first, 100 words for the subs from Marky, to me that's overstretching the rules somewhat.
Tactically I can see goals in this game despite the damaging injury to Lewandowski for Marky, can Totti last 90 minutes playing as a wide forward though? Just can't see that at all, he's not managed to play more than 31 minutes in a game since September so I can see him badly fading as the game goes on, the same has to be said for Ribery, again a wonderful player but it's a big ask on him with his injuries over the past two seasons.
Midfield wise I prefer Vidal in a deeper role, biting away at the opposition and generally disrupting them.
Have to say for both sides that there were a few sentences that weren't really tactics but just glaringly obviously statements 'Aguero to use world class ability to score goals' 'Schmeichel and back four to defend solidly' for example. Overall I see Marky's team building up an early lead and dominating the midfield but then hitting the gas as the game goes on with Nadz's team doubling up down the wings as Marky's attack peters out.

Real Madrid 2 - 2 Crawley
(Aguero, Deulofeu - Ribery, Vidal)

Hero I can take the result on the chin, but not the reasons. Ashley Williams is the best man-marker in the Premier League, bar maybe Winston Reid. And if we can only play formations which our pretend online managerial players play in real life, this entire league would be playing 4-2-3-1. That's utter nonsense. Kondogbia and Tielemans don't normally play in midfield threes. Mascherano, Vidal, Cazorla and Cataldi don't play in midfield fours. As reasons go, that's right up there with my Morgan Schneiderlin gaffe.

I think I deserve an apology.

Apology denied.

Then why not mark other teams down for the exact same reasons? The managers in the Premier League are not going to like my Hero-style voting when it's next my turn. A single player out of place, a single formation that's not 4-2-3-1, and they're losing a goal.

Say you don't like the team, say you think the CBs are crap, say the three wouldn't play well together - any of those things is better than an inconsistent throwaway comment about real-life formations. You're better than that.

It wasn't a throwaway comment, I actually researched back through each players history as to the formations they normally played as I felt Aubameyang would particularly punish a 3 man defence based on his speed compared to a standard one, unless the men in question were well versed in that set up, so I wanted to see if that was the case.

So why not pick out others who have similar issues? Tielemans for example? Never plays that far forward, and doesn't play in a 3. Schlupp hasn't played LB all season. There has to come a point where we're not real managers playing a real team - it's like Football Manager, where you can play 3-4-3 without the PC saying 'sorry mate, John Terry's never played in a back 3 before so you've automatically lost, Jermain Defoe would kill them with his pace'. As comments go, this for me is the biggest joke in all the seasons of these leagues.

Schlupp has played 10 games this season as a LB.
Tielemans has played as high up as an AM this season (v both Spurs and Monaco in the Europa league and a number of games in the Pro League)

Both of which I researched as well.

Next time perhaps I'll not bother reading up on players, post two lines of results and not have sore losers complaining?

Hero wrote:Schlupp has played 10 games this season as a LB.
Tielemans has played as high up as an AM this season (v both Spurs and Monaco in the Europa league and a number of games in the Pro League)

Both of which I researched as well.

Next time perhaps I'll not bother reading up on players, post two lines of results and not have sore losers complaining?

Like I said, it's not the result that bothers me. My team will never get promotion, and I am absolutely fine with that. It's the inconsistent reasoning.

Fuchs has been Leicester's LB in all but 6 league games this season. Schlupp played LB in all 6 of those games. In the other 4 games, Schlupp started 2 but moved further forward when Fuchs came on as a sub; in the remaining two, Fuchs played the 90mins at LB and Schlupp was the LM (TM is wrong sometimes).

Schlupp has played just 41% of Leicester's season. 26% at LB, 15% at LM. The only reason he played so much at LB is because Fuchs was injured, and they had no-one else to play there. Since Fuchs returned from injury, Fuchs has started 19 consecutive games at LB - Schlupp has played 11mins at LB since the start of November.

Give me all the stats you want, if you're marking my three CB system down for players being unfamiliar with the role (which is utterly absurd btw), then you have to look at Schlupp too. 11mins at LB in 4.5 months, when you're criticising Francesco Totti for the same thing in the other game?

Pfft.

Want to raise issue though with my comments about Tevez being a lone striker? The 1 of a 3-3-3-1? No because that's a given that Tevez benefits from a strike partner, therefore people to a degree do take into account formations and the players in them when voting.

It wasn't a 3-3-3-1. It was a 3-6-1, becoming a 3-7-1. I just couldn't fit them all on one line. Who on earth plays a 3-3-3-1?

Bilbao did under Bielsa, Bayern have under Pep as well at times.

Azzy wrote:It wasn't a 3-3-3-1. It was a 3-6-1, becoming a 3-7-1. I just couldn't fit them all on one line. Who on earth plays a 3-3-3-1?

Cheating or sweeper keeper?

3-7-0 even

I love how azzy uses my player as an example the smelly smeghead. Your just jelly cuz I got the best lb in the epl.

I don't think your chairman would approve of calling Jeffrey Schlupp a 'smelly smeghead'.