hjperdeath

That's how people usually uh , analyze games ? Read my report and you'll understand .

Read Bayern's scouting report here - http://forum.talkchelsea.net/topic/16712-dissecting-pep-guardiolas-bayern-munich/

Dennis Wise is on twitter now - https://twitter.com/11denniswise

Ah yeah . I just spoke about what they try to do , not about how they are failing to do so . One of these days , you'll find me outside your place .

Munich 2012, demands a replay. A match made in heaven as Chelsea look towards having a chance at grabbing their first silver-ware under Jose Mourinho while Bayern Munich seek revenge over their loss last time around. While Chelsea have gone on to re-enstate Jose Mourinho, Bayern have appointed Pep Guardiola, after a largely successful year under Jupp Heynckes. Since his appointment, Guardiola has revamped the Bayern philosophy, giving it a Spanish touch. The 4-1-4-1 is what the players position themselves to. To clear things up, one must first and fore-most know that it is not the 4-3-3. In a 4-3-3, there is usually a false 9 upfront and two fake or not fake wingers beside him. In Bayern’s 4-1-4-1 though, the two wingers play on the same level as that of the midfielders, which makes it much easier to keep possession in the middle, and slowly build your attacks intelligently. The philosophy is to keep the ball, have lightning fast counter-attacks, high pressing while at the same time being responsible at the back and avoid creating holes. Let’s have a look at Bayern’s squad and how Guardiola’s philosophy revolves around it. At the back two solid center-backs, Boateng and Dante who play quite a decent line. Offside trap isn’t necessarily the first thing in their mind, but if a possibility, then they do exploit it. We have Lahm and Alaba as full-backs. Peculiarity of them is that they both can play as defensive midfielders. A very rare attribute for a full-back, unless you count our own Essien and Bosingwa *cough* . They both push forward, and have the ability to link up with the wingers. The two wingers on the other hand, Robben and Ribery have an extremely high work-rate. They push forward, cut inside at times, but are also willing to track-back and defend. In the middle, we have a defensive midfielder. Schweinsteiger looks set to shake of the mild ankle sprain, and Javi Martinez is reportedly back. This is by far the most vital part of this philosophy. The man in front of the center-backs and behind the 4 midfielders is one of the two connectors, which we shall see later. Moving on , the two midfielders in front of the holding or defensive midfielder are two players who can play flexible and versatile roles. Up front, the striker, Pizarro or Mandzukic. Looking in-depth into their roles, let’s move onto another diagram. Let’s first look at the rectangle behind the defensive midfielder. This is the area where the player is most likely to drop into, to connect the center-backs or goalkeeper to the midfield in front of him. He forms the first ‘connection’. Schweinsteiger is one of the best in the world today, to play such a role. He’ll cover when the full-backs are pushing forward, so that counter-attacks can be prevented. Apart from that, he need’s to make sure he is always open. Though Chelsea have just started using triangles, Guardiola has been using them from the start. The defensive midfielder need’s to make sure that he is always open for the full-backs and plays forward passes rather than taking the ball back or side-ways Here we can give a good pat on the back for our double pivot. A double pivot can have it’s hands on both attack and defense. They don’t have to be too concerned about roaming out of position, because they can assure themselves of the fact that they are being covered well. However in a single pivot, it’s tough. Your role is restricted, and you always have to put others before yourself and have really smart movement. Then we have the second connector, that is the one that connects central midfield to the front-line. There have been variety of combinations in the four games Bayern have played. They are Shaqiri-Kroos, Gotze-Thiago, Mueller-Kroos and Gotze-Kroos. Seeing that Thiago is injured, Kroos is 110% going to start. The reason shall be explained later on. The other midfielder can be either Shaqiri, Mueller or Gotze. Whoever is to start will be entrusted with the responsibility to jump into the final third, or join alongside the striker. He will have to play as an attacking midfielder, a second striker or as a partnering striker. Moving on to the flanks. This is another important feature of Bayern’s new philosophy. The wingers unlike in Jupp’s era where they were positioned high on the pitch, are playing much deeper and almost on the same level as that of two central midfielders. Bertrand was last time used to nullify the threat of Lahm and Robben. There’s a high chance he could be used again, IF we didn’t have Schurrle. There I made my first prediction. I might have just sparked 10 debates, but it is the truth. Like Schurrle disrupted Evra and Welbeck , he’ll have to disrupt Lahm, and Robben. The reason the wingers are so deep is so that they are much closer to the central midfielders and to the full-backs. They need to be close to the CM’s so that they can combine with them and slowly build-up each attack into the final third. It’s much more intelligent and slower than just rushing in, with intelligent movement and creating havoc. They also need to be close to the full-backs because this philosophy relies on unity. You attack as a unit, you defend as a unit. When the opposition has the ball, you press high and track back to defend for your partner. Now having a look at transitions - When they need to move from defense to attack , the full-backs push up really high. This is where unit play comes in. They push up to make sure that the total distance between them and the wingers remain the exact same. Now we can also explain why Kroos will be chosen. Kroos (the one encircled in red) despite being a pure attacking midfielder, does have the tendency to drop back and hold the midfield along with Schweinsteiger in a double pivot. This however doesn’t mean that he’ll completely reject the role of pushing forward. This is why intelligent players are required, and Guardiola’s extremely lucky. The second central midfielder (encircled in blue) always pushes forward to take up the #10 area. Once again, not exactly be the #10, but stay around that area. Gotze and Shaqiri are more likely to either stay here, or drift towards the flanks. Mueller however, pushes up and plays either as a second striker or as the lone forward himself due to Mandzukic’s excellent ability of dragging defenders to the flanks. The transition from attack to defense however, shows much more unity. The wingers are back to defend, the central midfielder joins the holding or defensive midfielder and the full-backs close up with the center-backs. However the second central midfielder (encircled in red) remains upfront. For simple reasons that, he facilitates or is the medium which the rest of the players use to initiate counter-attacks. With very fast wingers such as Robben and Ribery, it isn’t really hard for them. The best part about this, is that its ideal for a strategy that involves high pressing. While pressing high there is the negative side of leaving holes to be exploited, but with having what looks like two defensive banks of four, you always have someone covering for you. Flexibility is another key attribute of the 4-1-4-1. Here are the diagrams - 4-2-4 4-1-2-3 or the holding 4-3-3 Click here to view the article

Almost as true as , "Don't believe everything you read on the internet." - Abraham Lincoln.

Nope there are 5 sheets , one Bayern's aggregate sheet, Chelsea's aggregate sheet, one showing their offensive transition, one showing their defensive transition and one showing their positional depth. then 4 sheets of Bayern's team sheet, and about 4 pages of their statistics. but obviously I know you wouldn't understand...

Don't we do that always ?

more like my girlfriend's away.

Nice to see that while I was away working, you guys derailed the topic beautifully. If anyone's interested though -

alright mate .

personal opinion then buddy. it's cool.

After telling that it's Mourinho's favorite , I barely think so. And on the stretching tactic. Ronaldo plays on the wings, Schurrle played up front. While playing on the wings he cuts inside. if its Higuain or Benzema , they shift towards the right to avoid an overload. Ozil takes up the left, and Di Maria moves into the #10 area with full-backs pushing up in both sides. That's barely stretching. Mourinho has not once used the idea of having his forwards or in this case a winger drag away defenders to allow others to penetrate. Their tactics are built around, good movement, fast counter-attacks and perfect role-switching. There is barely an stretching of opposition involved in their play.

I have been for 5 years now. 16 years old as of this date. Done part-time scouting for various low league clubs. Don't say something you don't know about. That is Mourinho's favorite? WOW. So done. Definitely. People always think they know more than they actually do.

And in my opinion, I've been analyzing for a much longer time.not just English, but multiple leagues at the same time. You're wrong. You've said your piece, I've said mine. fine then, lets leave it at that.

hmm, that was 2009. Lukaku's much faster. Having followed him all the way from Anderlecht to having watched more than half of WBA's game, anyone would clearly say Lukaku's faster.

Did watch the game. 10 times, 11, if you count only the second half. no one knows what Mourinho had in his mind. As you said Hazard to drop into pockets, could be far from correct. Schurrle doesn't need to do that. That's what a false 9 usually does. Just cause he's a midfielder, people tend to believe he is a false 9 cause he started in the #9 role. He did absolutely nothing a false 9 does. If there's anything about stretching defense done by Chelsea, then it was against Juventus. Hazard did to some extent, but we failed miserably. In the Bundesliga, whenever Schurrle's played as the forward, he's mainly used to disrupt play, especially in the flanks due to his immense work-rate. That's why he was chosen against United, to break down what happened on either flanks. If he was indeed used to stretch the defense, then it would be stretched inward, not towards the sides. However his action area's point to the opposite. Welbeck and Evra had problems dealing with him on their left.

^ completely disagree . He was one of the main reasons along with the defense due to which United couldn't score.

Didn;t say anything about his performance. just clarifying that we did offer a new contract , but Drogba didn't accept it.

hmm, but Lampard didn't want to sign a new contract. It was offered, he refused cause he wanted to leave on a high.

From CF I referred to as the one who started up front. From what I remember, Schurrle did. The role he was given out, he did perfectly well. He wasn't meant to attack and cause United's defense problems, but was meant to break down United's wing play and be able to link up with the three who were behind him on paper. I didn't mean that. When we need to face a team where we need a forward who can cause opposition problems, rather than trying to counter the philosophy they apply, we need Lukaku or any kind off striker. Like we did against Villa. When we face a team, that is on par or if not better than us, then we need to make sure that we keep their strategy in control as well. Imagine Lukaku starts, our midfield won't be able to link up with him, he'll be all alone pressing on the two center-backs, while Robben combines with Lahm, and Ribery combines with Alaba, and they blow our defense apart to kingdom come. But hey, we started Lukaku. Let him score a hat-trick, and let Robben and Ribery score a brace each. 4-3. Makes sense, nay? That kind of football, we won't see. The Stoke kind of way of punting balls forward, is Jose experimenting. He even once put Di Maria up front, against either Getafe or Levante upfront, in his first year, IIRC. And yeah, I think Torres will start. He has a good relationship with finals.

When they visited Sparta Prague, I heard the fans stayed in Yasmin or something hotel. Not sure though.

So you want the wingers to penetrate our wings and cause problems for our full-backs who are providing width? calm down. Schurrle has played as a second striker and as a central striker for Leverkusen. Yes in the Bundesliga. And yes scored goals as well. He isn't shit at CF. It depends on what your definition of CF is. Against United we didn't have a CF, we didn't have a false 9 either. We had a player who played the role of covering the flanks and coming deep to link the play. Your definition of absolutely shit might also be just scoring goals. He's played one game there, give him a break. New role, and he tried fitting in. Did everything perfectly well except scoring a goal or setting up one. Lukaku didn't score against Villa when he came on either. Anyway it depends on what Jose wants to do. If he wants to play smart and nullify the threat provided by Robben and Ribery, then Schurrle starts. Simple as that. if Jose is confident and cocky, he'll play an out-and-out striker to grab goals.

Schurrle could stop Robben and Ribery from causing problems on the flanks. Maybe he should start on the wing instead of CF, but even as CF he did a very good job causing problems for United's wingers and full-backs.