To be fair, his underlyings haven’t been great, I think. You’re more likely on the wrong end of variance.

What has impressed you the most about VK from a tactical perspective?

No one does complacency at this level, and certainly not a Liverpool team who’s lost out on two league titles to City by a single point. If they do end up falling off, it would be for different reasons.

Sometimes it’s as simple as “players are tactics.”

Ait-Nouri is a left footer, no?

Haha, can relate. It’s a nice feeling.

Do you rate him highly? And if so, can you elaborate on why?

Or the ‘highblockification’?

They understood him, and now they’re handling it in the same way he would have.

Hello, Adam. Could you kindly fb so I can DM?

There's a lot to like about it in a mid block/press. It allows you to exert measured aggression, especially if the little details are taken note of. But in a high press, not so much, but of course, there’s an element of subjectivity in this. It’s just personal preference for the stated reasons.

To elaborate further on this:

The general idea is to defend from the front but from a relatively lower position by using pressing angles and cover shadows despite the numerical inferiority in the last line, so naturally details like defensive access and support are of paramount importance.

And this mostly happens in pressing situations where the 4-1-4-1 OOP team tries to decompact and press high, which is why I personally don’t think it’s the optimal shape to use (all things considered equal) if the goal is to win the ball by pressing all the way through.

The reality is that they’re technically 4 lines, with the equal no. on both side, thus, if the 2nd line drops too deep it defeats the entire purpose of the setup, but otoh, if the timing of the jumps are not calculated or followed up, or the spacing in general is not right, the 4-1 will be exposed.

But it can get a bit tricky when teams sometimes get carried away by the sense of security provided by the central overloads because of how quickly that can change if not executed correctly given the reach and peculiarities of the structure.

Yeah, I think we saw an implementation of this in some of EtH’s opp-specific game plans during his stint at United where the partnership between the CB and 6 was key in acting swiftly to back up the pressing actions within the block.

Is it because of the theories about their implementation of relationism?