Hans-Dieter Flick

Windhook said:

The failure of offside traps can be attributed to Araujo. He was less featured in games last season and now he's starting every game.

Inigo understood the concept much better.

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Inigo had also the advantage of the perfect pressing, that forced the opponent for long and inaccurate passes that were easier to defend. Now even opponents on Brugge's level have all the time in the world in the midfield to play the accurate through passes that are much more difficult to anticipate. Every professional player can play accurate through passes, if he has the time and space.
The solution is way more about the pressing than Inigo.

delancey said:

At this point last season, we still had TS, didn’t we? Now we have an old semi-retired GK who smokes as the last line of defense. Plus one great defender down without a proper replacement.

But I also agree with @jamrock that opposition teams are figuring us out.

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This "figuring out" trope needs to go. There's no figuring, when you play great football, which is what Barca did last season at their peak. Yeah, there are issues that can and should be corrected, but it's not like teams had suddenly opened up some magick remedy towards our attack that was simply too good most of the time. Flicks style is no rocket science and it was already "figured out" in his Bayern days.

Gnidrologist said:

This "figuring out" trope needs to go. There's no figuring, when you play great football, which is what Barca did last season at their peak. Yeah, there are issues that can and should be corrected, but it's not like teams had suddenly opened up some magick remedy towards our attack that was simply too good most of the time. Flicks style is no rocket science and it was already "figured out" in his Bayern days.

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That’s why Flick is so good. Preparing for blitzkrieg isn’t always an easy task when you’re on the receiving end of it. Now Imagine what he’d do if he actually had any semblance of a proper transfer fund.

Btw, was Flick figured out by LL before or after Hansi Flick crushed FC Barcelona 8-2? 😏

delancey said:

That’s why Flick is so good. Preparing for blitzkrieg isn’t always an easy task when you’re on the receiving end of it. Now Imagine what he’d do if he actually had any semblance of a proper transfer fund.

Btw, was Flick figured out by LL before or after Hansi Flick crushed FC Barcelona 8-2? 😏

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Well he did concede 2 goals in that game, to THAT Barça team. Some experts would probably call him out for that, if they didn't score 8

The most dominant sports teams and individuals have a plan and even if you know what's coming and prepare for it, you still can't deal with it.
They execute the same game plan consistently and rarely get found out.

Everyone knows what a Khabib, Makachev or Chimaev are going to do but it's damn hard to stop them. Football is harder because there are 11 individuals and they have to be in synch. However when our team implements the game plan, we are near unstoppable.

MonteCuler said:

Well he did concede 2 goals in that game, to THAT Barça team. Some experts would probably call him out for that, if they didn't score 8

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Even the lousiest of experts understand that Flick’s philosophy is… if they score one, Flick scores two. The tolerance for goals conceded is higher for Flick’s offense is his defense.

Anyhow, the 8-2 defeat was like Pforzheim during WW2. Total destruction and humiliation… with the best player in history.

Any system is down to the quality of your players at the end of the day. And Hansi doesn't have any of HIS players. Our best First Xi contain none of his signings bar the goalkeeper.

People praise Klopp, but I wonder how his gegenpress would have turned out if he wasn't able to buy players specifically suited to it.

Sometimes I think it would have been better for Flick if he just had an 'okay' season last season and then he wouldn't be getting the criticism he is this.

How hard is it to realise that Hansi was the best manager in the world for performing the miracles he did last season and now we are just reverting back to our median?

There are simply no grounds to be moaning at Flick. In fact, given our transfer market situation, it's Flick who should be the one who is disgruntled.

Any manager benefits from having top players signed, not just Flick. There's several managers out there that if you build them a great enough squad they would get the team into the top 3-4 sides.

Flick's difficult job at this point is bring the squad he has to play to the maximum of their ability or prefferably above. He did it last season, but so far this season we've retured to type and very much playing at our expected squad level (if you factor in the abysmal defending part). Probably slightly under since you'd not expect this squad to get outplayed by Brugges and Sevilla level teams.

That's basically the managerial job at current Barca and it's been like that ever since Barto went away and left us to clean his mess. Try to take the players you have, make them consistently overperform so the club can aim high season by season with minimal spending, often against rivals who spend far more than us and have more valuable squads.

The current squad only had 1 out of 7-8 transfer windows or so operating at similar power to rivals like Madrid domestically, or PSG, EPL sides etc. on European stage. The summer of 2022, and that only because of levers. Not much else apart from that in terms of squad building. We've had to rely on subpar players for years and years on multiple starting positions.

There is no such thing as figuring it out. There is only Flick making players work as hard as last season or even harder, or adjusting if they can't. There's nothing to figure out.

Sevilla and Brugges don't have peak Xavi, Messi, and Iniesta to resist pressing and find ways to pass through it with sublime technical control. If you press them well, you beat them to bits. The only reason they had it easy vs us and scored a lot of goals is because we didn't do our part at a level that is anywhere near good enough.

This system is basically all press. Press ruthlessly upfront and in midfield, and you have a chance to win against anyone. Press anything less than that, and you can get stuffed by anyone. It was like that from day one, and it is like that today. The difference is our level has dropped.

This system is not some fancy high-complexity juego de posicion like under Pep. But it's good enough to win with it against the current lot of teams, if we do our job and tweak a few things on tactical level.