Quique Setien

[snowy]

..
Let alone his love for RM and hate for Barca that is well documented in the past, in January he was indirectly approached by third parties on behalf of the board about the possibility of taking over. Rumor is he requested a ludicrous contract, so ludicrous that it was kind of obvious he was politely trying to refuse the offer.

I see GM Poch is not acquainted with our Barca ways. Here is MG Bart's accepting it

'Cause baby,
There ain't no contract high enough
Ain't no valley low enough
Ain't no river wide enough
To keep me from getting to you​

 

[Porque]

That came late in his tenure, after he finished 2nd with Tottenham in the year Leicester had that freak season. Imo, it's classic case of building up a team to unreasonable standards.

Tottenham punched above their weight with Pochettino.

Klopp was near the relegation places with Dortmund after half a season in 2014-15, and finished his last season with 14 defeats, 7 draws, and only 13 wins.

True. Klopp did have a longer tenure at Dortmund with greater peaks and Championships, 2 CL finals though.

I take on board your points though and concede Pochettino is more than a slight upgrade over Setien.

 

[Slevinn]

What do you guys think about a 3-4-2-1 system? But the way Belgium NT plays it (if anyone has seen that )

I think that would cover some of our weaknesses and it would also suit some of strengths.

No system will be perfect with the squad we have now tho.

 

[mc_lovin]

Three at the back is always a recipe for disaster. I hate it.

 

[Slevinn]

Three at the back is always a recipe for disaster. I hate it.

Why is that? You don?t defend with 3 at the back in those systems.

 

[mc_lovin]

Why is that? You don?t defend with 3 at the back in those systems.

Positionally four at the back just makes much more sense to me. And I guess its clearer for the players as well. The stuff Setien played at the beginning of his Barcelona career was nightmarish. And whats the defensive transition with 3 at the back anyway? 5 men defense with the wingbacks falling back? For what?

Heck, who was the last successful team in Europe with a setup like that? But to be fair maybe thats just my trauma from watching quite a bit of Inter games this season.

 

[vinni]

Positionally four at the back just makes much more sense to me. And I guess its clearer for the players as well. The stuff Setien played at the beginning of his Barcelona career was nightmarish. And whats the defensive transition with 3 at the back anyway? 5 men defense with the wingbacks falling back? For what?

Heck, who was the last successful team in Europe with a setup like that? But to be fair maybe thats just my trauma from watching quite a bit of Inter games this season.

I agree based on the few matches we played 3-5-2. We looked so damn heavy at the back. With the 4-3-3 we usally camp outside the opponents box if they let us, but with 3-5-2 It kinda moved the game to the midfield. Thats not necessarily a bad thing but from what i saw we couldnt really exploit the space that opened up behind their defence. We barely had any penetration at all.
I think that could be fixed with different forwards or practicing more but i dont think this is the time to experiment.

I would prefer 433 with Fati on the left or the 4312 with Griez instead of Fati. Its hard to say which of these two are the best.

 

[Slevinn]

Positionally four at the back just makes much more sense to me. And I guess its clearer for the players as well. The stuff Setien played at the beginning of his Barcelona career was nightmarish. And whats the defensive transition with 3 at the back anyway? 5 men defense with the wingbacks falling back? For what?

Heck, who was the last successful team in Europe with a setup like that? But to be fair maybe thats just my trauma from watching quite a bit of Inter games this season.

You still defend with 4 at the back. And Inter plays nothing like what I am suggesting tho. I have watched them a lot too this season and Jesus no man deserves to watch that a whole season.

But you are right about the start under Setien but to be fair he didn?t have the time to implement a new system. The players have been playing 433 all their life so that will always be the easy way but its not working anymore with the current squad.

 

[El Gato]

Positionally four at the back just makes much more sense to me. And I guess its clearer for the players as well. The stuff Setien played at the beginning of his Barcelona career was nightmarish. And whats the defensive transition with 3 at the back anyway? 5 men defense with the wingbacks falling back? For what?

Heck, who was the last successful team in Europe with a setup like that? But to be fair maybe thats just my trauma from watching quite a bit of Inter games this season.

In Europe as in CL? Not many. Poch, Conte, Allegri, now even Dortmund are sorta toying with it, but it's always gonna be exposed vs teams with well cooperating wide players that will double up the wingback and force the midfield to collapse to the sides for help.

I don't see the beef with 3-5-2 other than the fact that it seemingly doesn't work against 4-3-3s and doesn't make recruitment easy these days. In fact, bar a diamond for which you need absolutely top3 fullbacks in the world, it's the best formation for a consistent 2 striker system.

 

[mc_lovin]

You still defend with 4 at the back. And Inter plays nothing like what I am suggesting tho. I have watched them a lot too this season and Jesus no man deserves to watch that a whole season.

But you are right about the start under Setien but to be fair he didn?t have the time to implement a new system. The players have been playing 433 all their life so that will always be the easy way but its not working anymore with the current squad.

I ahve to idea how Belgium operates to be fair. But lets say sport/MD are right and we play with Lenglet-Pique-Semedo at the back and Roberto and Alba as wingbacks.

You either complete the 4 men backline with Alba, and play more or less a standard 4-3-3, or Roberto falls back and you get Semedo in a weird, unnatural CB position. And thats probably my main gripe with 3-5-2 (or 3-4-3), you either have the CBs playing far too wide (good luck with Lenglet and Pique) or the wingbacks drifting inside. Not to mention that Roberto in front of Semedo is kind of terrible (I have read some awful statistics recently). For me it just sounds like an excuse to try to play it safe.

And as Wolfe pointed out, you need certain player types to make it work. We have none of them.


Edit: For me its simple: have some balls and play Puig and/or Fati in a 433. No excuses.

 

[snowy]

4 2 3 1 could work well

One of the FB makes the run whilst the other holds the fort. Frenkie - Busi/Raki in double pivot

Ansu - Messi - ? Scoobyboooz where r u

and upfront, one of Griez/Colg/Sua

If Griez, can inter-switch with Leo between set-up guy and target man.

 

[Birdy]

I agree based on the few matches we played 3-5-2. We looked so damn heavy at the back. With the 4-3-3 we usally camp outside the opponents box if they let us, but with 3-5-2 It kinda moved the game to the midfield. Thats not necessarily a bad thing but from what i saw we couldnt really exploit the space that opened up behind their defence. We barely had any penetration at all.
I think that could be fixed with different forwards or practicing more but i dont think this is the time to experiment.

I would prefer 433 with Fati on the left or the 4312 with Griez instead of Fati. Its hard to say which of these two are the best.

It might not be the perfect system to play against dynamic, technical sides or the sides you are describing that would leave space behind.
It's not also a system the team is used to, as we have been playing 4-3-3 for ages.

BUT,
it's a good system to break down parked buses, especially the ones that sit in two low blocks in a 4-4-2, and be safe against their counters.
What a 3-5-2 or 3-4-3 gives you is a spare man at the back (out of the 3) to always outnumber the two nominal attackers that usually are the ones on which any counter would be built from those teams.
Then the wing-backs camp on both flanks (as becomes indeed the case in a 4-3-3 when going all out to attack but with massive gaps at the back), and if you have creative md penetrative passes can be made.

Remember Setien's first game against Granada. Granada was very disciplined and hard to break. Despite being the first game that such a system was applied, the team showed for the first time in a long while some good behavior in suffocating the opponent and letting them minimal chances to break. Execution in the final 3rd was lacking that day, but the whole image was promising.
Consider facing the same Granada during June/July the way we played at the end, and you would have the frustrating Osasuna, Atleti, or Bilbao home games all over again.

Setien had good ideas, he quickly realized he cannot rely on the personnel he has to employ them

 

[Andresito]

In a 3-5-2 you basically sacrifice an offensive player for a CB. A 4-3-3 can easily transition into a back 3 with the DM dropping down.

 

[FC B]

Well, it's not that hard to reach semis if you draw easier teams.

Madrid made a CL semis by playing CSKA Moscow and APOEL Nicosia. You could have the worst manager in La Liga, if you get that lucky with draws you're almost certain to reach semis in CL.

Imo it wasn't about luck when season after season they've got the easiest opponents possible, year after year season after season. Then they turned to refs that favored them blatantly for the last three remaining years without VAR. Just rm classical ways to win.

 

[Messigician]

Imo it wasn't about luck when season after season they've got the easiest opponents possible, year after year season after season. Then they turned to refs that favored them blatantly for the last three remaining years without VAR. Just rm classical ways to win.

True