[Albion] De Zerbi Thoughts?

[Barnet Seagull]

The speed of transition and vertical progression is something i've been critisising for what seems years. Really enjoying the RDZ way.

 

[dazzer6666]

Players already looking more comfortable passing out from deeper positions but the key difference for me is the speed we are now moving the ball from box to box once the press has been beaten. Gone are the multiple touches and it’s now three first time passes and we are in the box. It pulls the opposition all over the place.

RDZ already feels like an upgrade to me and the players seem to be responding to his style, really excited to see this evolve and only shame is there is a shit World Cup nobody wants robbing us of watching more of this in the run up to Xmas

Some of our fans aren’t quite with the program yet…..lots of shouts of ‘hang on to it’ yesterday as we pinged it forward with a succession of one-touch passes. Got to accept it’ll go wrong quite a bit because of the speed of action but when it works it’s fantastic. Brilliant at times at City last week (a lot of City fns picked up on it) and brilliant yesterday.

 

[Paulie Gualtieri]

My thoughts on De Zerbi so far:

• We play a very bold style of football, where we dominate for certain periods of a match, and if we had more clinical players would smash the opposition. Potter was similar but RDZ's style seems to be waaay more intense. The fact that we were able to dominate the strongest team (Man City) with one of the greatest managers (Guardiola) the opening 25 or so minutes of the match vs Man City last week is a testament to RDZ as a coach and a tactician.
• Defensively we play out the back, again similar to Potter, but taken up another level. Much more riskier than Potterball, but it also draws the opposition in and we can counter attack. Against Chelsea, despite the risks of this style of defending, they created very little. I felt we could have beaten Chelsea by more than 4-1, which is something unthinkable before RDZ took over.
• RDZ was able to impose his style of football vs Chelsea and comfortably won the battle of the managers with Potter. Again this is a testament to RDZ when you consider it's us vs a Big Six club and all that.
• With RDZ's style of football and record at Sassuolo, I am very surprised a bigger Serie A club didn't try to pick him up.

Good assessment

The only positive is it’s unlikely an Italian club will stump up a £20m (assumed) release clause for a manager.

We remain more at risk from those in the premier league

 

[Perkino]

Incredibly positive football, this is the third goal, 6 players up in open play.

View attachment 153222

Including our LB & RB

 

[dejavuatbtn]

Good assessment

The only positive is it’s unlikely an Italian club will stump up a £20m (assumed) release clause for a manager.

We remain more at risk from those in the premier league

And that is going to be the one distraction from enjoying the ride we are on - forever at the mercy of the money men and hoping that they stay the f*** away.

 

[dazzer6666]

Including our LB & RB

Caicedo is only just out of that shot as well, behind Lallana

 

[Cheeky Monkey]

Love his ‘I won’t be celebrating the result tonight because of the one goal we conceded’ answer in his post-match interview.
Legendary stuff, although possibly him misinterpreting the question a little. Love the guy.

 

[B-right-on]

Players already looking more comfortable passing out from deeper positions but the key difference for me is the speed we are now moving the ball from box to box once the press has been beaten. Gone are the multiple touches and it’s now three first time passes and we are in the box. It pulls the opposition all over the place.

RDZ already feels like an upgrade to me and the players seem to be responding to his style, really excited to see this evolve and only shame is there is a shit World Cup nobody wants robbing us of watching more of this in the run up to Xmas

This. Love Veltz but he drives us mad as he will more often than not play the ball inside or back to Dunk rather than release Solly on one of his runs. Gross and Webbo (I think it was) both released the Solly down the flank with balls that Veltman would never have played. Totally changed the pace of our attacks.

 

[A1X]

I am in Kyiv this weekend, and last night I wore my Brighton shirt when I watched the match on my laptop in the hotel bar.

So many Shakhtar Donetsk fans came up and asked if they could watch the match due to their old manager De Zerbi, and we had about fifty people watching, so at half-time, we linked my laptop to the TV, and even more people started watching, and we had about 100 people cheering and shouting for Brighton by the end of the match.

There were support workers, doctors, nurses, soldiers and even war reporters, and it was a fantastic afternoon, one of the best I have had here, and we celebrated afterwards in the dark as there was a blackout with vodka and singing patriotic war songs by candlelight.

Finally got to bed around 10.30, and Brighton has a whole new but small passionate supporter base in Ukraine now – good times.

Absolutely love this

 

[willalbion]

I am in Kyiv this weekend, and last night I wore my Brighton shirt when I watched the match on my laptop in the hotel bar.

So many Shakhtar Donetsk fans came up and asked if they could watch the match due to their old manager De Zerbi, and we had about fifty people watching, so at half-time, we linked my laptop to the TV, and even more people started watching, and we had about 100 people cheering and shouting for Brighton by the end of the match.

There were support workers, doctors, nurses, soldiers and even war reporters, and it was a fantastic afternoon, one of the best I have had here, and we celebrated afterwards in the dark as there was a blackout with vodka and singing patriotic war songs by candlelight.

Finally got to bed around 10.30, and Brighton has a whole new but small passionate supporter base in Ukraine now – good times.

That’s amazing, thanks for sharing

 

[willalbion]

I was inebriated yesterday, still am a bit this morning.
I was singing Roberto Di Zerbi to the tune of Delilah at the top of my lungs at 1am this morning, I’m keeping away from the neighbours today

 

[HAILSHAM SEAGULL]

I am in Kyiv this weekend, and last night I wore my Brighton shirt when I watched the match on my laptop in the hotel bar.

So many Shakhtar Donetsk fans came up and asked if they could watch the match due to their old manager De Zerbi, and we had about fifty people watching, so at half-time, we linked my laptop to the TV, and even more people started watching, and we had about 100 people cheering and shouting for Brighton by the end of the match.

There were support workers, doctors, nurses, soldiers and even war reporters, and it was a fantastic afternoon, one of the best I have had here, and we celebrated afterwards in the dark as there was a blackout with vodka and singing patriotic war songs by candlelight.

Finally got to bed around 10.30, and Brighton has a whole new but small passionate supporter base in Ukraine now – good times.

What an absolutely brilliant story. Must have been a fantastic experience,
Post of the day.

 

[LamieRobertson]

Watching the bench is more interesting

 

[Wozza]

I am in Kyiv this weekend, and last night I wore my Brighton shirt when I watched the match on my laptop in the hotel bar.

So many Shakhtar Donetsk fans came up and asked if they could watch the match due to their old manager De Zerbi, and we had about fifty people watching, so at half-time, we linked my laptop to the TV, and even more people started watching, and we had about 100 people cheering and shouting for Brighton by the end of the match.

There were support workers, doctors, nurses, soldiers and even war reporters, and it was a fantastic afternoon, one of the best I have had here, and we celebrated afterwards in the dark as there was a blackout with vodka and singing patriotic war songs by candlelight.

Finally got to bed around 10.30, and Brighton has a whole new but small passionate supporter base in Ukraine now – good times.

This is BEAUTIFUL.

(Have to say, though, only "one of the best"?! Must be having an amazing time there!)

 

[Jim in the West]

My thoughts on De Zerbi so far:

• We play a very bold style of football, where we dominate for certain periods of a match, and if we had more clinical players would smash the opposition. Potter was similar but RDZ's style seems to be waaay more intense. The fact that we were able to dominate the strongest team (Man City) with one of the greatest managers (Guardiola) the opening 25 or so minutes of the match vs Man City last week is a testament to RDZ as a coach and a tactician.
• Defensively we play out the back, again similar to Potter, but taken up another level. Much more riskier than Potterball, but it also draws the opposition in and we can counter attack. Against Chelsea, despite the risks of this style of defending, they created very little. I felt we could have beaten Chelsea by more than 4-1, which is something unthinkable before RDZ took over.
• RDZ was able to impose his style of football vs Chelsea and comfortably won the battle of the managers with Potter. Again this is a testament to RDZ when you consider it's us vs a Big Six club and all that.
• With RDZ's style of football and record at Sassuolo, I am very surprised a bigger Serie A club didn't try to pick him up.

It was fascinating to watch us play out from the back yesterday....which we did virtually the whole match (until the last 5 mins or so, when Sanchez started kicking long). This is actually quite a change from Potterball - especially in the second half of last season and the early part of this. If you look at the stats, we played far more long balls from defence under Potter in that period - mainly Sanchez and Dunk pinging the ball to the opposite wing. RDZ definitely has us playing the ball out more, and in a very different way. Chelsea really pushed up on us yesterday - generally having SIX players around our box trying to force an error. It rarely worked, and left acres of space in the middle of the pitch for the ball to transition quickly to Trossard or Llalana.

A couple of other differences - our corners are much more dangerous - Solly has obviously been practicing, but both he and Gross were taking much flatter corners which were more difficult to defend against (eg: our second goal). And we seem much more willing to shoot....I think under Potter the preference was to work the ball into a position where the odds of scoring were higher, which (from a fan's perspective could be frustrating).

 

[studio150]

I am in Kyiv this weekend, and last night I wore my Brighton shirt when I watched the match on my laptop in the hotel bar.

So many Shakhtar Donetsk fans came up and asked if they could watch the match due to their old manager De Zerbi, and we had about fifty people watching, so at half-time, we linked my laptop to the TV, and even more people started watching, and we had about 100 people cheering and shouting for Brighton by the end of the match.

There were support workers, doctors, nurses, soldiers and even war reporters, and it was a fantastic afternoon, one of the best I have had here, and we celebrated afterwards in the dark as there was a blackout with vodka and singing patriotic war songs by candlelight.

Finally got to bed around 10.30, and Brighton has a whole new but small passionate supporter base in Ukraine now – good times.

I had a tear in my eye reading this. Thankfully something as normal as football can bring an all too short break from the hardship of war.

Hopefully in the not too distant future when Russia has been repelled Brighton can visit and play a friendly against Shakhtar Donetsk.

 

[deslynhamsmoustache1]

It was fascinating to watch us play out from the back yesterday....which we did virtually the whole match (until the last 5 mins or so, when Sanchez started kicking long). This is actually quite a change from Potterball - especially in the second half of last season and the early part of this. If you look at the stats, we played far more long balls from defence under Potter in that period - mainly Sanchez and Dunk pinging the ball to the opposite wing. RDZ definitely has us playing the ball out more, and in a very different way. Chelsea really pushed up on us yesterday - generally having SIX players around our box trying to force an error. It rarely worked, and left acres of space in the middle of the pitch for the ball to transition quickly to Trossard or Llalana.

A couple of other differences - our corners are much more dangerous - Solly has obviously been practicing, but both he and Gross were taking much flatter corners which were more difficult to defend against (eg: our second goal). And we seem much more willing to shoot....I think under Potter the preference was to work the ball into a position where the odds of scoring were higher, which (from a fan's perspective could be frustrating).

"A couple of other differences - our corners are much more dangerous". This all day long. The floaty out swinger which usually does more harm to us than the opposition
is hopefully gone. The other big difference for me is out of the two principles that Potterball hinged around, Possession and passing, RDZ has now added the additional powerful ingredients: Pace and Purpose.

 

[LANGDON SEAGULL]

The players definitely seem more relaxed , less prone to panic and are playing with a smile on their face. Enjoying it so far

 

[Paulie Gualtieri]

The players definitely seem more relaxed , less prone to panic and are playing with a smile on their face. Enjoying it so far

Apart from Big Bob, who doesn’t give much away!

 

[Machiavelli]

My thoughts on De Zerbi so far:

• We play a very bold style of football, where we dominate for certain periods of a match, and if we had more clinical players would smash the opposition. Potter was similar but RDZ's style seems to be waaay more intense. The fact that we were able to dominate the strongest team (Man City) with one of the greatest managers (Guardiola) the opening 25 or so minutes of the match vs Man City last week is a testament to RDZ as a coach and a tactician.
• Defensively we play out the back, again similar to Potter, but taken up another level. Much more riskier than Potterball, but it also draws the opposition in and we can counter attack. Against Chelsea, despite the risks of this style of defending, they created very little. I felt we could have beaten Chelsea by more than 4-1, which is something unthinkable before RDZ took over.
• RDZ was able to impose his style of football vs Chelsea and comfortably won the battle of the managers with Potter. Again this is a testament to RDZ when you consider it's us vs a Big Six club and all that.
• With RDZ's style of football and record at Sassuolo, I am very surprised a bigger Serie A club didn't try to pick him up.

Good post, and fully behind most of it, but:
-- as to your second point, I thought Chelsea created especially in the first half (Gallagherx2, Pulisic) and, in addition, had numerous good situations which they failed to capitalise on (Sterling and, even more so, Havertz were particularly guilty here). We thought we were a little fortunate to go in at half time with an opposition nil on the scoreboard.
-- and the final one, Juve were considering. On this, prior to the Spurs game, a few of us were having a quick lunch in Barolo before getting on to the more serious business, and the waiter said he was a Juventus fan, and was extremely disappointed that we'd got RDZ before they could.