The Left-Sided Problem

New article 🚨How Alex Ferguson and Man Utd learnt to play in Europe #MUFC #ManchesterUnited #ManUtd #Oldtrafford #UCL theleft-sidedproblem.com/articles/from-…

Simultaneously one of the most harrowing (for much of the game) and one of the best footballing experiences of my life All I know is Palace on their way…

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@Zonal_Marking @EmmetGates Kind of like a reverse Argentina in the 1950s thinking their beautiful football would beat everyone.

@Zonal_Marking @EmmetGates The PL thing is a bit more interesting, as I hope it’s an ideological failing, the idea that it’s impossible to beat/score against Chelsea/Newcastle etc without resorting to set pieces and terrible football…

Serie A got pilloried a few weeks back — and rightly so — for awful performances in Europe. But when it was the undisputed best league in the world in the 80s, 90s and early '00s, it never produced a series of results like the Premier League has done in the last week. Never.

@eaglemmoomin @jimbo2556 @BobbyManzi We have players that would easily be and Eze/Olise equivalent in the leagues of some of the teams we’ve struggled with (not that we were much better at this when we had Eze anyway)

@leftsidedprob @jimbo2556 @BobbyManzi Hmm and those clubs have players like Ebs and Michael all over their squad. We don't so we need to use overloads and set pieces. Right now we can't do either down to missing players and capability. So our conversion has to improve. We'll get a couple of chances have to take them

Asked Oliver Glasner about Crystal Palace's tradition of having maverick attackers: “I’m sitting here because Crystal Palace were playing against getting relegated. "Roy Hodgson was sitting here because one year before, Crystal Palace were playing against getting relegated. "If all these top stars you are talking about have been here, why are they always playing against getting relegated?” #CPFC

@eaglemmoomin @jimbo2556 @BobbyManzi Not prepared to compromise that maybe is at least partly tactics/coaching?

@leftsidedprob @jimbo2556 @BobbyManzi No you look at both XG and XGOT as that factors the goalkeeper and defence in. XG is pre shot, XGOT is post shot. Our XGOT is crap, which tells you where we need to fix up.

@eaglemmoomin @jimbo2556 @BobbyManzi Yeah but they face that all the time and still manage to win most of their games (actually including against us). The difference between us and Larnaca is much bigger than between us and City.

@leftsidedprob @jimbo2556 @BobbyManzi and how do we play against them. Park the bus.

@eaglemmoomin @jimbo2556 @BobbyManzi So xG isn’t a very good measure for this if a 2.5 xG is different for facing a high and deep defence

@leftsidedprob @jimbo2556 @BobbyManzi When we have space to play into we don't have 11 men packed into the box, blocking, tackling and hoofing the ball away. Of course the conversion is better. We have a great record at the Ethiad by doing exactly that.

@eaglemmoomin @jimbo2556 @BobbyManzi He played in loads of the games I’ve mentioned

@leftsidedprob @jimbo2556 @BobbyManzi When the only one we have is injured YES. You're living in fantasy land if you think losing one of our fastest players, goal/assist maker and a big source of width isn't a problem. When we have no one else that can do that. We're having to play Sarr or Johnson in his position

@eaglemmoomin @jimbo2556 @BobbyManzi Yeah we’re good in those games (well Newcastle, Chelsea and Arsenal aside) those teams do also always win the league so they cope.

@leftsidedprob @jimbo2556 @BobbyManzi How many goals should Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal, City and Newcastle smash us by every season?

@eaglemmoomin @jimbo2556 @BobbyManzi How many goals do you think Strand Larsen, Brennan, Sarr, Pino, Guessand, Mateta would score in the NL North or Cypriot, Norwegian, Bosnian, Finnish leagues?

@leftsidedprob @jimbo2556 @BobbyManzi We have lost 65 odd G+A out of our squad in the last two seasons through sales or injuries. We've replaced It with about 30 or so. Doesn't take a genius to see that's a huge impact. There's quite a lot of free kicks in there that we've lost.

@eaglemmoomin @jimbo2556 @BobbyManzi It happens every time we play a game like this! You can’t possibly think it’s bad luck. Our conversion is mysteriously ok when we have space to play into?

@leftsidedprob @jimbo2556 @BobbyManzi They've conceded ONE goal in about 8 UECL matches. They literally park the bus and crowd everything out. We had 6 big chances against them last Thursday. Their keeper made 4 stops and 1 goal saving stop. Our XG was 2.23, theirs 0.2. Problem as it has been all season is conversion

@eaglemmoomin @jimbo2556 @BobbyManzi Again, you think a backup RWBis more relevant than the coaching/tactics?

@leftsidedprob @jimbo2556 @BobbyManzi An Eze, Olise, Wilf those players cost £60M+ we can't spend that and we haven't. So one of the other options is needed. A setpiece taker and a backup RWB is not expensive compared to an Ebs, Wilf or Michael.

@eaglemmoomin @jimbo2556 @BobbyManzi Unless I have two full backs on the bench how on earth do you expect me to coach one of the richest teams to score against the 4th best team in Cyprus!

@eaglemmoomin @jimbo2556 @BobbyManzi Nothing further Glasner could do with his resources to reliably score against those teams then?

@eaglemmoomin @jimbo2556 @BobbyManzi I think that's fine and has done well for us. I also think we could do better in these games like Laranca, Fredreikstad, Millwall, Mostar, Macclesfield, KuPs etc etc. I don't think that's an outlandish ask

@eaglemmoomin @jimbo2556 @BobbyManzi Because we are good against teams where we can break into space and bad against teams where we can't. Simple. You can't say money isn't the be all and end all, while saying Glasner can't do any better because of our lack of spending!

@eaglemmoomin @jimbo2556 @BobbyManzi Funded for 12th in the Premier League does mean there is a realistic expectation to be able to score against teams we have ten times the budget of though.

@jimbo2556 @BobbyManzi We've had 2 periods where we've scored decently a period under Pardew and a period under Glasner with Ebs and Michael or Ebs and Sarr. Apart from that we've always been a low scoring team. Fans expectations have gone up while we only funded for 12th in the summer.

@PaulRomainCPFC @OneMorePoint1 @BobbyManzi We've never really been in serious relegation trouble since we've come up, certainly not since 16/17.

@OneMorePoint1 @BobbyManzi What’s he said there that isn’t spot on? We have been looking over our shoulders until late in every season until Glasner arrived. We haven’t since. Well, unless you count people ridiculously suggesting we were in danger this season which we never realistically were