Preseason Thread 2024

I couldn't sleep so ended up watching the Liverpool - Arsenal match last night. When the two sides were announced I wasn't expecting much considering how strong Arsenal's side was compared to ours however we played some really good football and could have easily been 2 or 3 goals up at HT. Second half, when we ended up with just a team of pretty much just kids, Arsenal took over but we defended pretty well and didn't allow Arsenal many chances.

It's clear we're going to be a lot more patient in our play than under Klopp and only time will tell whether that will be more effective for the side as a whole but I think the change in approach will suit a lot of our midfielders. Jones looked totally at home playing as the 6 last night and yes it was just a friendly but that was as influential as I've seen Harvey Elliott for us. The one player who is going to really suffer is Endo though. I didn't manage to watch the Betis game but I'm told he looked miles off it and he struggled again yesterday. He done well for us last season just breaking things up and keeping it simple but I'm not sure he's good enough technically to play how it looks like Slot wants his sitting midfielder(s) to play and I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up being moved on.
 
One of the bugbears of an international summer tournament is you just miss too many of your best players for preseason. Makes it hard to judge exactly where you are for the new season
 
robfosters said:
One of the bugbears of an international summer tournament is you just miss too many of your best players for preseason. Makes it hard to judge exactly where you are for the new season
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Tbf I don't think that changes much in non tournament summers. Teams are always at various stages of pre-season, you have no idea what sort of training session has been carried out on the morning of the game etc etc. One side could be full strength but be at the start of pre-season and just had an intense training session and another side could be half way through their pre-season and had no session prior to the game.
 
Watched the first half of last nights 3-0 win over Utd.

You can see it’s going to take a bit of time to adapt to the way Slot wants us to play out of the back. Although we always passed out from the back under Klopp, there’s a clear change in what Slot wants, similar to how Brighton played under De Zerbi where they really look to draw teams on to them and then play through the lines. A few times in the first half we nearly played ourselves into trouble with Ibou in particular not looking comfortable - it being his first appearance of pre-season and having to play on the left no doubt didn’t help. The flip side to those issues were that, like vs Arsenal, when we played through the press we looked really dangerous.
 
I watched the game. For Utd, they played pretty well. Certainly see what the style is meant to be. A little bit of young player error in a few situations but they show signs of promise. No real threat upfront with Sancho there. Rashford seems sharp. Not fussed on losing but impressed with Utd over all performance, certainly better than last year from what I have seen.
 
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Going to be an interesting start to the season that's for sure, going to be giving fans a few hearts attacks i think. Promising early signs for Slot though

I look forward to the massive meltdown as soon as someone makes an error at the back and we concede :cry:
 
I'd also add given we've had Szoboszlai and Gravenberch start as the '6' in the past 2 games people thinking we will be after a traditional cdm are going to be very dissapointed imo.
 
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I’m not sure the club don’t want a defensively minded 6 however their ability on the ball and in particular their press resistance is of greater importance.

Despite Slot shooting down the question in his opening press conference, we do appear to be playing more of a 4-2-3-1 than a 4-3-3, at least in defensive situations and just having a second midfielder in deeper positions alleviates the need for an out and out destroyer.
 
Watched the first half of Man United - Liverpool. Pretty disappointing to see a United team with at least 6 players who most fans don't see as part of the clubs future if they are to improve on last years 8th place. AWB, Lindelof, Evans, Casemiro, Sancho all started with Eriksen, Antony and McTominay coming off the bench.
Missing are Martinez, Shaw, Fernandes, Garnacho, Zirkzee, Dalot and Mainoo with Hojlund and Yoro crocked - so in essence we have played preseason with nothing like the team that ten Hag would ideally play as his first 11. It's farcical in many respects

Liverpool weren't really that impressive and perhaps 3-0 flattered them a little but they were comfortable and will take confidence from the win. All United can take from the US tour is that Amad looks like he is the best option on the right, Toby Colyer and Harry Amas have done well and might have a chance of some more first team game time. Mount has played three times and appears not to be injured again yet but coming into the Community Shield game next weekend I suspect ten Hag feels he starts this season in a groundhog day fashion. - missing key players, short of a striker and still messing around in the transfer market.

Ineos have a lot to do next week.
 
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