[Albion] Hürzeler’s (Brighton) Tactics

[Surf's Up]

If we lose to Chelsea I predict a tsunami of bed wetting (I know, mixed metaphor) on here, totally failing to take any of the above into account!!

 

[AstroSloth]

Offsides against for each team in the league this season:

 

[Flounce]

WHEN we lose to Chelsea I predict a tsunami of bed wetting (I know, mixed metaphor) on here, totally failing to take any of the above into account!!

Corrected for you

 

[Machiavelli]

Yes, agree with the more recent comments, and the stats posted by @AstroSloth are the best argument.
The thing with goals like Forest's equaliser is that they're very, very clear and stark. They illustrate an easily identifiable 'problem': play a high line and this is what happens. But what also happens is that you catch teams offside a lot (see above), you concede fewer goals (four in five PL games), and you compress the space and get to press higher up the pitch.
It's much the same as when you concede through playing out from the back: it's easy to fixate on that, but it ignores the benefits that this strategy brings -- there's a reason that all PL teams do it, bar Dycheball Everton (and how are they getting on?).

 

[Mancgull]

Interesting thoughts here. I agree that if you have a strategy then you need to stick at it, make sure you are very well drilled at getting it right far more often than not, and constantly try to improve.
RDZ had his in terms of playing out from the back. Make sure players know where to pass, practice patterns non stop. It worked usually but then occasionally it did go wrong and we were punished.
Forest had a week’s preparation time to look at ways of trying to break our high defensive line and they did it a handful of times.

What I’m a little concerned about is that we seem to lack a bit of attacking intensity early in home games and not be sure about how we should build up attacks. With RDZ we seemed to play a lot of small triangles which led to overloads on the wings. I haven’t really seen that under FH.

What I did notice though was that the Hinshelwood goal on Sunday was similar to St Pauli goals last season in that a midfielder stole into the box and that the midfielder almost hid behind the striker on the line of delivery, so was hard to track.

 

[Papa Lazarou]

Chelsea strike me as the ultimate test for the high line. They are in fine form, scoring for fun and have pace to burn all across front line. It feels like the game where we get found out ... but ... if it's that obvious to me, someone who's never managed a football team, then I have to hope that FH is well aware of Chelsea's strengths and puts in place a plan to counter them, perhaps involving Baleba playing deeper with the CBs.

 

[Seagull58]

Had Veltman held the position he should have done, Forest would have been easily offside.

Not chewing the fella out who has had a terrific start to the season.

But these are the things we need to improve on if we're going to make this work

In the interview with Hürzeler posted above he highlighted two aspects of the tactice:
Our counterpressing, which he is quite happy with and which is, statistically, the best in the league,
and our rest defence (how we set up defensively when out of possession and trying to win the ball back), which he says has room for improvement. He believes that our defensive players are not always in the best positions in these situations. This is obviously an area he will focus on to make us less susceptible to the fast counterattack. The high line is here to stay.

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

Chelsea strike me as the ultimate test for the high line. They are in fine form, scoring for fun and have pace to burn all across front line. It feels like the game where we get found out ... but ... if it's that obvious to me, someone who's never managed a football team, then I have to hope that FH is well aware of Chelsea's strengths and puts in place a plan to counter them, perhaps involving Baleba playing deeper with the CBs.

Just think that whoever we put in central midfield, however fast they are or however deep they play, they would not have stopped the Forest breakaway goal, nor Utd's.

They are better off forward pressing the ball to prevent it coming through in the first place

 

[sussex_guy2k2]

In the interview with Hürzeler posted above he highlighted two aspects of the tactice:
Our counterpressing, which he is quite happy with and which is, statistically, the best in the league,
and our rest defence (how we set up defensively when out of possession and trying to win the ball back), which he says has room for improvement. He believes that our defensive players are not always in the best positions in these situations. This is obviously an area he will focus on to make us less susceptible to the fast counterattack. The high line is here to stay.

Any idea where the counter pressing numbers are from?

 

[sussex_guy2k2]

Just think that whoever we put in central midfield, however fast they are or however deep they play, they would not have stopped the Forest breakaway goal, nor Utd's.

They are better off forward pressing the ball to prevent it coming through in the first place

I totally agree with this, I just think there needs to be some question mark about how high the CMers are. There’s such a huge gap between them and the defensive midfielder on transition that it often only takes 2 passes and teams are in behind.

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

I totally agree with this, I just think there needs to be some question mark about how high the CMers are. There’s such a huge gap between them and the defensive midfielder on transition that it often only takes 2 passes and teams are in behind.

In my understanding of it they are high because they are pressing the opposition to win the ball. If they stand off and take a position, more how they would have under GP or RDZ, the opposing midfielder can turn, pick a pass, then the whole team is backpedalling

 

[deletebeepbeepbeep]

The Hurzeler cam makes his sending off look even more bizarre. Not sure what he did TBH.

 

[giveusfalmerplease]

if FH insists on the high line then we need Lamptey playing again. maybe (just kidding) we should put Mitoma at left back lol.

 

[Justice]

The Hurzeler cam makes his sending off look even more bizarre. Not sure what he did TBH.

Antony Taylor not happy until at least 15 cards have been shown. Shit ref useless.

 

[Jim in the West]

Chelsea strike me as the ultimate test for the high line. They are in fine form, scoring for fun and have pace to burn all across front line. It feels like the game where we get found out ... but ... if it's that obvious to me, someone who's never managed a football team, then I have to hope that FH is well aware of Chelsea's strengths and puts in place a plan to counter them, perhaps involving Baleba playing deeper with the CBs.

It’s funny - for the Arsenal game I was thinking “surely Fab won’t play Hinsh at left back - Saka will have him on toast. It’s so obvious.”
Lo and behold, Hinsh *did* play LB, and Saka went past him for fun! Amazingly - through good luck and poor finishing - we survived.
So maybe we’ll let Chelsea play their game and maybe we’ll be lucky….

 

[sussex_guy2k2]

In my understanding of it they are high because they are pressing the opposition to win the ball. If they stand off and take a position, more how they would have under GP or RDZ, the opposing midfielder can turn, pick a pass, then the whole team is backpedalling

Which is fine, but they’re often next to Welbeck, Mitoma and whoever is at RW. It makes sense to a degree, when you’re Man City and your technical players are so good that they can keep the ball on the edge of the opposition area, but for us, with our higher turnover of the ball in these areas, it means there’s then a huge gap between them and the 6, who’s often isolated against 2-3 runners from deep, as well as the wide men who teams are keeping high against us, and it leaves the 8s out of position on the turnover to put real pressure on, unless the ball is lost in very specific areas. Early season, with Hinsh at LB, he was often inverting to nullify this issue, but it meant he was often out of position if the ball was switched quickly to the right back, which is why Amad had so much success against him.

There’s pluses and minuses to what we’re doing, I just think there are times in a game, such as being 2-1 up at home to Forest, where pragmatism should win as the result becomes key. And dropping the two 8s 10 yards would’ve given us more solidity. It probably would’ve enabled them to make better late runs into the box when we transitioned too, but that’s not really what we’re discussing.

 

[Dave the hatosaurus]

It’s funny - for the Arsenal game I was thinking “surely Fab won’t play Hinsh at left back - Saka will have him on toast. It’s so obvious.”
Lo and behold, Hinsh *did* play LB, and Saka went past him for fun! Amazingly - through good luck and poor finishing - we survived.
So maybe we’ll let Chelsea play their game and maybe we’ll be lucky….

Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good.

 

[dejavuatbtn]

Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good.

If we play percentage football it’s very unlikely we will be top 6.

 

[oldboyroy]

It’s a head scratcher the season we retain our best players and add £200m worth of talent is the season we hire an equivalent league one manager or am I being harsh?

I have no idea how far down the list he was but by recent reports he wasn’t near the top.

Give him time. Its too early to judge so far. I do hope Bloom hasn't made a huge mistake with the 200 million he's spent this summer all to be undone with a manager who isn't up to the task?

 

[Bakero]

Never mind his tactics. Let's get him on the pitch: