Monday 11 January 2016

THIS IS MY TAKE ON GARY NEVILLE'S VALENCIA VS REAL SOCIEDAD .

yesterday valencia played real sociedad in their home . valencia were looking after there first win and most of the eyes were on gary neville and the team taking shape under him . the style he adopts and the formation he prefers . after watching the game i can only say that gary neville if he cannot turn things around in the next couple of games then not only is his coaching carrer but also his pundit carrer will also be in jeopardy because people like to listen to coaches who have done something on the pitch not the ones who are poor and devoid of ideas .
before i start with the game let me tell you that i was watching real sociedad for the first time so it was difficult to know and track their players . off the sociedad players i knew only vela . about the game now sociedad started the game with a 4-3-3 formation with jonathas uptop with bruma and vela supporting him . while prado,prieto and bergara were the middle three . the back four consisted of carlos martinez,inigo martinez ,elustondo and yuri . valencia played with a typical english 4-4-2 formation with rodrigo and alcacer uptop while rodrigo de paul and santi mina on the wings . perejo and perez were in the middle in front of the back four . the back four consisted of barragan,mustafi,abdenour and cancello .
the game started at a very decent pace with sociedad pressing valencia as soon as the ball came in to the midfield and countering them . sociedad played a very high line compared to valencia who played quite deep . now for any good coach three to four weeks is enough to put up his ideas and what he expects from the team . yes the results matter but the fans expects theteam to  play well .they like to see their team playing well and play with a plan . now every coach needs to have a plan but most importantly he should be able to improvise it because that what is expected of him . the opposition will always try to stop him and he needs to improvise it to open the oppostion .
now yesterday in the game gary neville played a very english game . he played alcacer and rodrigo up top but also he played santi mina and de paul very high as if to play four forwards . they were all in the same line . now in the last few game every thing and anything that valencia were creating or starting it was going through perejo . there was quite a load on him and at times he was criticized for spending time on the ball and not being quick enough in his distribution but also that on the defensive end he was also quite explosed since he was asked to cover  quite a lot of space . so gary neville brought enzo perez to play along side perejo to give more cover to the back four but also reduce load on perejo where on he was getting closed down by opposition and valencia's having problems . now the front four played very high on the pitch since socidad would start with a very high line . they would drop back as soon as the ball came in the midfield and were trying to keep rodrigo alcacer in front of them rather than letting them play on the shoulder . the first basic flaw in valencia's play was that they didnt moved the ball fast enough .valencia started the game by trying to move the ball on the flanks since they had numbers inferiority in the middle of the park and didnt want to get exploited . the real trouble with valencia was that the players were too rigid with their positions . i never saw paul and santi mina coming inside or changing zones . the second flaw was that they move the ball very slow and this is ufcourse nevillle's fault who should have asked his team to move the ball faster .
now let me explain why as i had said earlier sociedad started by playing a very high line and had valencia moved the ball faster then they could have exploited that high line . secondly there needs to cohesion between players . as soon as the player have the ball the players surrounding him should make themselves available for the pass and the one who has the ball should get his head early and choose the correct pass . unfortunately for valencia there is a lack of cohesion in the team . now neville played two strikers and it is said that strikers hunt in pairs . but there was no cohsion between rodrigo and alcacer . this was evident even in the game against villareal where alcacer and negredo were never on the same wavelength . thirdly there was no no.10 for valencia a player which they very much require someone around who the offense would revolve and one who would control the tempo of the game . the most frustrating thing about valencia was the ball movement they moved it very slow . they allowed sociedad to close them down . the most frustrating and the annoying statistics would be the number of touches that alcacer had . he was literally left frustrated by the amount of service that he received . valencia played a couple of high balls behind the defense but were not good . by playing two strikers with same pedigree he killed the aerial battle . he sould had asked alcacer or rodrigo to come deep and play in tandem . neville just couldnt improvise . the other bad thing about valencia's play was that because they moved the ball slowly the fullbacks didnt found the space or time to move forward and join the attack . they couldnt stretch the game and affect the game and provide another dimension to the game . another thing was that even though sociedad had a good back four and there was a cover from prieto but there was enough space in front of the back four which could be exploited . valencia just didnt kept the ball enough and didnt move enough and never tried to work out a zone and improvise .
now sociedad were playing on the counter but there game had a plan all the three attackers tried to have positioned themselves in such a way that they would work out a single zone . vela would come into bruma's zone when the ball would move from his zone while bruma will move over to vela's zone when he had the ball . this was a tactics made famous by the 2012 bayern munich team who would  have ribery and robben coming into each other zones .  they were very nicely supported by prado who was very good . bruma gave scare to barragan all through the match but he lacked the final product . the other good performer for martinez the right back who was good on both ends and his crosses were the creator for both the goals .
the worse thing was that neville made me remember mancini who would get up from the bench thinking something but would forget that ones he came into the technical area . neville is there on the touch line because he needs to spot or direct players as to what he sees which the player cannot spot since he has a much clearer view of the game and that is his job . there is one other thing that he needs to taught is the better decision making by the players . in the first half cancello took a card for stopping vela or bruma who were going nowhere or atleast he was going away from the goal and cancello could have recovered even after getting beaten in the first battle and close the player . but he stupidly bought the player down and got the card and gave neville an headache . the second is how to uplift players like danny perejo who seem to be lost in the game . he needs to teach better game reading and how make himself useful on the pitch .

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