Will Lack of Creativity Hurt Us This Season? (6 Viewers)

[Bjerknes]

After watching Juventus last night it struck me that Capello will set our boys out on the pitch to play the same, boring, uninspiring style as we did last year. Our tactics going forward seem to include long balls up to our forwards, not much movement between the midfield and attack, and seemingly the inability to string a few difficult passes together. We were able to win the Scudetto last season with these one-dimensional attacking displays and solidity at back....will this type of football work again this year? Even in the Champions League?

As I have stated time and time again Capello's Juventus is like a result machine that churns out results with not much variance in level of output and production. This Juventus always seems to play at the same pace, never changing our forward motion and seemingly having trouble imagining what we should do with the ball at a given instant. The reason we are sometimes not able to penetrate difficult defenses is because we lack creativity in midfield and a player who can make the most difficult of passes inside to our forwards in traffic, a la Pirlo or David Pizarro. As we saw last year against Sampdoria and Palermo we struggled to break down their defenses because Novellino and Guidolin respectively put almost all players behind the ball at all times. Due to our repititive play, consisiting of long balls to our forwards, we could not make a break through and the defense was always waiting to hault our progression. The same happened with Liverpool at the Delle Alpi last season.

Solidity at the back can only get us so far.....you need to be able to change gears in attack to keep the opposition defense guessing. SURPRISE is sometimes one of the best ways to throw off strong defenses, and without creativity we lack that key element in our attacks. I think it's pretty obvious how to beat Juventus as seen last year, and I wonder how many games we will lose this season because we just cannot crack the opposition's safe box around their penalty area. Perhaps our lack of creativity will not hurt us that much in Serie A, however I can't help but feel that once again we will fall short in the Champions League because we just don't have the ability to make a breakthrough in tight matches against defenses as strong as ours.

 

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[SobatPadi]

wait til cassano play in juve

 

[Menace]

Sure it will, Capello won't change his ways but still two days left and we'll know.

 

[mikhail]

It never bothered us before!

 

[Menace]

yep but some want this team to win everything in one season!

 

[- vOnAm -]

I think our main problem at the momment is finishing moves at the last 1/3 or 1/4 of the field. Although I think we severely lack creativity, we make sufficient chances in our games to win and we don't let our opponents get many chances.

The main weakness is in the finishing moves (not only the finishing kicks), Ibrahimovic has improved alot but still very weak in his instinct for goal. Trezeguet has the composure yet often I dont see him make enough good killer runs.

I think Finishing will be our biggest weakness. And following that closely, is creativity. With Emerson and Vieira in midfield, we will control the midfield about 80% of the time, and that will break down opponents attacks especially from the center. Pushing opponents to go wide. It will be our strenght but because we have no creative midfielder (even on our bench), this strenght might well become our weakness as we have not enough thrust to get back into a game when we're behind.

 

[Dominic]

Actually, yesterday only Nedved and Camoranesi were the ones playing long balls- crosses. The rest mainly used short passing, the passing play in the first half was very fluent.

 

[Lawnchair Bes]

whats going on with camo and nedved ?

 

[Dominic]

Nothing at all Bes, Camo was good as always. Even Nedved had a good game yesterday, though barely anyone seems to agree.

 

[Bjerknes]

++ [ originally posted by - vOnAm - ] ++

I think Finishing will be our biggest weakness. And following that closely, is creativity. With Emerson and Vieira in midfield, we will control the midfield about 80% of the time, and that will break down opponents attacks especially from the center. Pushing opponents to go wide. It will be our strenght but because we have no creative midfielder (even on our bench), this strenght might well become our weakness as we have not enough thrust to get back into a game when we're behind.

I do not agree at all about finishing off moves. Last season I don't ever recall a spell in which we could not score goals, only struggling to actually create chances to score from. Once we had the chance to score last season we took our chances very nicely most of the time, even with Trezeguet out of the lineup. Now that David is back in action, I extremely doubt we will have a problem with finishing. We didn't have one last year...why would we have one this year?

The only problem I see is breaking down difficult defenses that stack players in front of their own goal. Liverpool, Inter, Sampdoria, Palermo, and a couple others played very defensively against us in some matches and they succeeded in shutting us down. Over the duration of these matches we became flustered and resorted to playing even more long balls up to our forwards and that clearly did not work. We might be solid defensively and can create chances from crosses from the wings, however that can only go so far against teams who are solid defensively. Nobody ever likes to admit that lacking creativity is a problem in football.

 

[Bjerknes]

++ [ originally posted by Dominic ] ++
Actually, yesterday only Nedved and Camoranesi were the ones playing long balls- crosses. The rest mainly used short passing, the passing play in the first half was very fluent.

Again Dominic, I do not agree. Perhaps we were watching different matches.

 

[Dominic]

Yes Ofcourse.

 

[tassard]

was the sale of maresca so necessary?He would be a great bench player

 

[A_LAcki]

Andy, I expected better from you! Playing the drama queen after one game...........I didn't expect that.

- With a very possible trident, we will play a lot better and not with so many long balls as usually.

- IMO we played a great first half time, and would Fontana have had a usual day, Trez could have scored the 2-0 or 30 easily. In the second half, I recognized tiredness in the team, and thats why we maybe gave 50 %. Still we were solid, and Chievo seemed like a bunch of headless chicken.

- I am sure, we will play a more attacking and better football than last year, cause we have Vieira not Blasi in midfield. Wait untill he arrives at top-form. He is a quite creative player and can be very dangerous. Last year we had a Olivera and a Kapo on the bench as creative options. This year we will have Olivera a long with Del Piero and Mutu (or) Cassano. Much more creativity.

IMO its senseless to talk about our style of play this season after one game. Laughable. Wait untill the 1st September (transfer deadline), till every player has some more games in his legs and untill Capello will use a trident. Then we can continue this thread!

 

[Bjerknes]

Lacki, I'm not judging anything after one match. I am gathering my opinions after watching Capello's Juventus for the past year.

The fact of the matter is we did not invest in any creative midfielders this summer and we have basically the same formation and mindset out on the pitch as we did last year. Now if you remember correctly we did get the job done in the Serie A last season, however fell short in the Champions League and our overall play was rather shakey at times going forward. The purpose of this thread is to pose the question if our tactics stay the same as last year, which right now is seemingly the truth, will we be able to cause problems for very tight defenses of other clubs with our lack of creativity.

This thread isn't "senseless" at all....especially when this is basically a preseason thread and important issues have already been raised...

 

[JCK]

What we lacked last year was definitely the pass before the finish. Acquiring Vieira did not solve that, but on the contrary Mutu CAN solve this problem. Del Piero is capable of doing it as well, when he's on form.

Considering that arizes another problem, Capello's formation. As I said Mutu or Del Piero can solve the problem but not in a 2-man forward, the trident has to be implemented for this to succeed. And here I wonder again about Capello's decision. Is it the love of Nedved that forces him to play a flat 4 man midfield with Nedved out wide? or is it the formation that he likes?

Last year we saw the best performance in the season (my own personal opinion) against Real in Torino. There was proper build up of the game, there were chances and that pass that I mentioned in the beginning was almost always there. What was the key to the game? Was it Nedved's absence or was it the 4-3-3? I think it was the latter and definitely it was Camoranesi's free role.

I do think that the flat 4-4-2 is needed during certain games, but what I would like to see, especially in Europe, the 4-3-3 with Mutu or Del Piero or maybe both upfront.

 

[djleli]

i think that it is not a problem

 

[ZhiXin]

Andy and Jeeks, personally I think that Capello's 4-4-2 system is meant for the scedutto, not for the CL. It is the same old Juve for me every game I watch, sturggling to attack against a water tight defence and scoring only 1 - 0. This is actually the same problem in denco's thread in which y we can't win the CL. We really need 1 person, a playmaker whose ability to pass the ball to make the whole difference, and this guy happens to be Mutu. If he is played for more games, he will definitely make quite a significant difference for us. But the main problem for me is that Mutu doesn't play as the same position as Veron, which is to say, the partner of a DM.

As for ur 4-4-2 and 4-3-3 system Jeeks, I agree with u.

 

[Stu]

++ [ originally posted by Andy ] ++
After watching Juventus last night it struck me that Capello will set our boys out on the pitch to play the same, boring, uninspiring style as we did last year. Our tactics going forward seem to include long balls up to our forwards, not much movement between the midfield and attack, and seemingly the inability to string a few difficult passes together. We were able to win the Scudetto last season with these one-dimensional attacking displays and solidity at back....will this type of football work again this year? Even in the Champions League?

As I have stated time and time again Capello's Juventus is like a result machine that churns out results with not much variance in level of output and production. This Juventus always seems to play at the same pace, never changing our forward motion and seemingly having trouble imagining what we should do with the ball at a given instant. The reason we are sometimes not able to penetrate difficult defenses is because we lack creativity in midfield and a player who can make the most difficult of passes inside to our forwards in traffic, a la Pirlo or David Pizarro. As we saw last year against Sampdoria and Palermo we struggled to break down their defenses because Novellino and Guidolin respectively put almost all players behind the ball at all times. Due to our repititive play, consisiting of long balls to our forwards, we could not make a break through and the defense was always waiting to hault our progression. The same happened with Liverpool at the Delle Alpi last season.

Solidity at the back can only get us so far.....you need to be able to change gears in attack to keep the opposition defense guessing. SURPRISE is sometimes one of the best ways to throw off strong defenses, and without creativity we lack that key element in our attacks. I think it's pretty obvious how to beat Juventus as seen last year, and I wonder how many games we will lose this season because we just cannot crack the opposition's safe box around their penalty area. Perhaps our lack of creativity will not hurt us that much in Serie A, however I can't help but feel that once again we will fall short in the Champions League because we just don't have the ability to make a breakthrough in tight matches against defenses as strong as ours.

I agree with every single word of your post which is why I say hell yeah it'll hurt us. It screwed us a number of times last season such as against Palermo and Liverpool but people tend to forget this because we won the Scudetto. If we fail in the CL it will most probably be down to Capello's negativity and/or our lack of creativity in midfield.

A creative central midfielder with good passing skills a la Pizarro would have been ideal for us but even at present Capello's squad is capable of playing good attacking football but I'm afraid that isn't quite what he intends for this Juventus team. Seeing as Nedved's level of performance has been decreasing for a while now and the likes of Adrian Mutu and Alex Del Piero are in the squad, I as coach would definitely be tempted to play with three upfront. Del Piero's performances when deployed in a trident attack last term were generally very good and I have no doubt in my mind that Mutu has the necessary qualities to excel in such a role as well. Having two players further forward in Ibrahimovic and Trezeguet allowed Del Piero the freedom of dropping deeper to pick up the ball and get more involved in the build-up play towards the end of last season and that was definitely a positive. In Capello's 4-4-2 where the wide players are expected to do their fair share of defending, the centre forward became far too isolated when the support striker dropped deep but this wouldn't be the case in a 4-3-3 system.

Cassano could well make the difference but will Cap shelve his 4-4-2 in order to play Antonio, Zlatan and Trez at the same time? I hope that's what happens because otherwise we will find breaking down teams with decent defences and a counter-attacking mind set very difficult. The verdict? If we don't switch to 4-3-3 our lack of creativity in midfield will certainly hurt us.

 

[Stu]

++ [ originally posted by Jeeks ] ++
What we lacked last year was definitely the pass before the finish. Acquiring Vieira did not solve that, but on the contrary Mutu CAN solve this problem. Del Piero is capable of doing it as well, when he's on form.

Considering that arizes another problem, Capello's formation. As I said Mutu or Del Piero can solve the problem but not in a 2-man forward, the trident has to be implemented for this to succeed. And here I wonder again about Capello's decision. Is it the love of Nedved that forces him to play a flat 4 man midfield with Nedved out wide? or is it the formation that he likes?

Last year we saw the best performance in the season (my own personal opinion) against Real in Torino. There was proper build up of the game, there were chances and that pass that I mentioned in the beginning was almost always there. What was the key to the game? Was it Nedved's absence or was it the 4-3-3? I think it was the latter and definitely it was Camoranesi's free role.

I do think that the flat 4-4-2 is needed during certain games, but what I would like to see, especially in Europe, the 4-3-3 with Mutu or Del Piero or maybe both upfront.

Agreed 100%. The trident attack saw us produce our best performances last season, absolutely no doubt about that. We looked so much more dangerous when we played 4-3-3 and with Vieira here now we wouldn't lose a great deal defensively by switching to this system. IMHO this is what we should play most of the time:

Abbiati
Zebina - Thuram - Cannavaro - Zambrotta
Camoranesi - Emerson - Vieira
Ibrahimovic - Trezeguet - Creative forward*

or

Abbiati
Thuram - Kovac - Cannavaro
Camoranesi - Emerson - Vieira - Zambrotta
Ibrahimovic - Trezeguet - Creative forward*

*= Del Piero/Mutu/Cassano

In both formations Zambrotta and the creative forward would cover the left flank and that shouldn't be too much of a problem as Del Piero, Mutu and Cassano are all capable of taking up wider roles. Of course the creative forward would be encouraged to drift central and push up a lot. The two formations are very similar, the second one is just for those of you who prefer Kovac to Zebina. When defending Zamboy would drop back to left back and Thuram would push out to right back but when attacking it would be a 3-4-3, so no people, Camoranesi is not operating as an attacking wing back. A great deal of defensive responsibility would not fall on his shoulders.