2013-14 'Blue-Print'- Discussion of Transfers, Tactical Changes etc.

Its not pure man marking. Only 4 players man mark, the rest is zonal.

alexjanosik wrote:Assuming you are right free(I dont think you are),how do you propose we defend effectively?
You dont want Messi to press.We sure as hell cant defend well in a conventional way with the players we have at the back and those in front in midfield.
So how should we defend?

My proposal would be to press only after losing the ball and throw ins. We shouldn't press the whole pitch in static situations and defend zonally and pressing in the middle of the pitch.
Also, even if I agreed that Messi should run more tiring himself more, making him less effective in attack and more injury prone, I don't agree that Messi not pressing is the reason of us not pressing well, as he didn't press since 09-10 and we pressed well. An example of Messi not pressing at in Arsenal's second goal in the 2-1 defeat in Champions League 2010-11:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mH41c5y-S7A
Minute 3:00, we lose the ball, Messi is one meter away and he doesn't move at all to win it back. It was even more noticeable if they didn't cut the begining of the play were messi was half meter away and in front of him.

And my position is that we dont have the players to play such a way.We dont have hustlers in midfield and that would only be inviting pressure into our half.Possibly more setpieces to defend and with our defense the way it is,the less pressure thats put on it,the better.
Which means,winning the ball as early as possible.
On why our pressing has deteriorated so much,we have been over it many times and wont agree.So lets not go there.

We don't really know if we have the players to do it or not, because we haven't done it like ever. We did in some sporadic games, like CL final 2009 (we only had 51% of posession and defended in our half more than usual) vs PSG in the second leg, or in the CL final 2011, and in this cases it went well. I don't think it can be any worse than our current terrible pressing, which is partly tactical mess up and other teams adapting to it and adopting our way of bringing the ball forward.

One month with Tata and messi hard pressing: 2 muscle injuries from messi. 4 years under Guardia with relaxed pressing from messi, 0 injuries.

Didnt he get a muscle injury just last season?

Yea he did. Free I don't know what you are on about.

With tito, not with Pep, and he got one injury in a season, not two every month.

He got a muscle injury and his pressing at that stage was the Ibrahimovic level.

I think its simply correlation, not causation.

He got injured with Tito then played injured vs PSG and was not allowed to rest for weeks instead playing halves consistently. His 'vacations' were pretty bad as far as lack of physical activity is concerned. I agree with Alex' view that most of his problems now stem from the poor injury management since April.

He was fully recovered from his injury months ago and has been training during summer. These two injuries have nothing to do with the one from last season.

If he was fully recovered how come he hasn't played a full game since?

Because he has got other injuries in different muscles, you know that