Time To Gel

[john68]

BlueMoonAwoken,
It was more of a generalanswer regarding what I thought gelling was. It wasn'rt specifically meant as a reply concerning City.
Regarding City, Ballotelli, Siva, Kollarov and Boateng are in that bracket of being new and havibf to cope with what I posted.

[razor400]

I keep hearing it but could somebody help with 2 questions:
1) How long should it take for a team to gel and bearing in mind how long a large part of them have already been together? Perhaps also taking into account the high quality of the new players and thus arguably that they should settle in more quickly than the avarage player.
2) What really does the term gel mean? Is it more about the players getting used to each other or the manager's tactics? Does it only apply to a significant group of new players or would it apply to an individual, say Van Der Vaart?

1, About 17 fucking years at this rate.

2, it means for them to stop being a bunch of cunts and start playing as a team with some guile.

[markhughes]

Time to gel?
Mancini looks like a man who has just run clean out of ideas! Cheque book out again in january me thinks.A fare chance of Abu Dhabi running out of oil before this fella will win anything with us.

[Blue Noodle]

Time to gel?
Mancini looks like a man who has just run clean out of ideas! Cheque book out again in january me thinks.A fare chance of Abu Dhabi running out of oil before this fella will win anything with us.

Nice on Sparky. I see your one man man assault on the King of Draws title is coming along nicely.
Back on topic, I reckon we could all name the first eleven of every title wining team of the last 20ish years, including Blackburn. Those of us of a certain age anyway. I think I could safely name the Chelsea team for the weekend now. The only person on here who could guess at Citys team for any given match is Doug, and he's usually seen it beforehand!
It hasn't been an ideal situation for Mancini so far. Injuries/world cup/players in/players out/4 games in ten days situations. It doesn't help at all.
When the waffa cup is out of the way 'till Feb and the squad is relatively injury free, I think Mancini will put out a consistent first 11. If not, we're up shit creek.
As for gelling, I think a back four and goalie need at least 25+ games playing consistently week in week out before they can be completely solid and assured. Same with central midfield I reckon. It's all about repitition and pattern recognition you know!
Attack wise I think there's a measure of horses for courses and form to consider too.

[dazby]

Mrm as per usual has come up with a brilliant post. All I would add to it is the central defence is a triangle including the keeper.

[DoomMerchant]

Mrm as per usual has come up with a brilliant post. All I would add to it is the central defence is a triangle including the keeper.

brilliant. as usual.

i'd say before the season started that it would be November before we saw what we're capable of...let's hope last night's match wasn't the first real indication. I think by the end of the month we'll know where we stand...Mancini is fucking about with this lineup and approach and it's frustrating to watch. Players aren't comfortable, to say the least. And as MRM said...there's no communication and partnership which is likely why Tevez is frustrated...he knows he has to hang the moon everytime he puts his boots on in order for us to have a legit chance for 3 points. That's gotta piss him off in terms of the pressure. Although, he is the cap'n. ;)

cheers

[dick dastardley]

i agree with the gel part but to gel you have to have a consistent team playing week in week out so they get to know the way other players play. we never have a settled team thats why were playing shite, oh and shite tactics!!!!

[brite blu sky]

For me the whole team does not need to gel with each other. Successful teams have a number of players who go and do their own thing on the pitch.

What really matters is partnerships!

Partnerships is what City have been lacking for ages. It appears we just go out and buy some expensive players and see how they get on with each other.

The most important partnership on the pitch is the centre back pairing. Not since the Distin and Dunne years have we had a settled and decent partnership at the back. Kolo and Vinny - not sure they have it in them to be a great partnership.
Case study of excellent: Bruce and Pallister

The next most important partnership is the strikers. Although we only play one up top so striker and a random midfielder in our case. But if you play with two up top and having a decent partnership then the amount of time you have on the ball in the opposition half with your striker being able to win a ball and lay it off to another who makes the right runs from his pass or header is incredibly important. We have Tevez and errr Tevez
Case Study of Excellence: Shearer and Sutton

The next partnership is the wide player and the full back. Those two have to work side by side in both attack and defense. They need to think like one and become a double act. When a full back and wide man have total understanding of each other then they are deadly at one end and destructive at the other. Our full backs and wide players change on a game-by-game basis, they never get to work together for long. In fact I'd guess the last effective partnership in this position was back in the day with SWP and Sun.
Case Study of Excellence: Ashley Cole and Malouda

The final partnership is the two in the middle. Knowing when to go forward and when to go back, knowing how to cover, how to make little runs into space and play one twos around others. Barry and Yaya look so far away from being a partnership at the mo:-(
Case Study of Excellence: Vieira and Gilberto Silva

Thinking back to our current City side, we have no partnerships of any note at the moment. It's just Tevez on his own working like a trogen with the odd splash of class from Silva and Johnson.

Refering to partnerships in a discussion of gelling is spot on imo. While i think your assessment is good it reflects more on certain formations than on others.. ie. re-read your points while thinking of Barcelona or Spain teams and it just falls apart in the main. Why? because apart from the center backs there is too much movement of players to make rigid partnerships.
The idea is more that nearly all players can play with each other at any point as they all 'know' each other and do the basics that allow partnership-style play to develop... pass and move and support the player on the ball at all times.

Personally i think that is the way football is going.. not as rigid.. more flexibility in the roles that each individual player is capable of.
So an outstanding talent can interplay and develop moves with almost all the other players on the pitch.. not jus the ones that are set formations wise near to him.
Center backs would appear the odd ones out in that idea.. but then Barca have been recently encouraging their CBs to be the extra man running into the danger area. (then again that is a very specific answer to a very specific Barca problem when they have squashed teams into their own area and need something different ).

If i was asked to put my money down and say what i thought Mancini was doing i would opt for something along the lines of this.. and that the problems we are encountering is more to do with players not being accustomed to that way of playing than anything else.. ie still more comfortable with set roles in attack. If i am anywhere near the mark on this it could be a good while before we make any serious headway in whatever is meant by gellling.

[Ted Hughes]

Barca have the ball most of the time though, so it gives them a certain amount of leeway to do all kinds of shit that a team with players who give the ball away simply can't do.

Re partnerships, it can happen at the back if we ever play a settled defence but up front, I'm not sure there's a player on the planet who can form a partnership with Adebayor. It would be fantastic if someone could but I just can't see it happening.

[Spurge]

Barca have the ball most of the time though, so it gives them a certain amount of leeway to do all kinds of shit that a team with players who give the ball away simply can't do.

Re partnerships, it can happen at the back if we ever play a settled defence but up front, I'm not sure there's a player on the planet who can form a partnership with Adebayor. It would be fantastic if someone could but I just can't see it happening.

Barca pressurise from the front - all their players have the desire that someone on 200k a week should have, however a lot of what appears to drive them on is quite simply their passion for playing football.

Barca have the ball so much of the time because their work ethic when they don't have the ball to close down the spaces tends to force the oppo into a mistake and conceding back possesion. When you have the flair and energy of the likes of Villa, Iniesta, Xavi, Messi it's much easier to put into practice of course.

I think a lot of City's problems at the moment is about what we are not doing when we don't have the ball - probably largely down to discipline. The opening game of the season at Spurs is an excellent example - when we didn't have possession, we closed down the spaces and won the ball back, in this case is was on the edge or inside our box, but we defenced as a team. It's this dicipline thats been missing lately - compare the spurs game to Thursday night and the difference is there to be seen.

[john68]

Picking up on MRM's theme of partnerships, it is really only the 1st level. Like BBS, I don't see football evolving solely with set partnerships and agree with his theory of players moving in a more free strategy.
I think also we should take into account that we don't have a team but a squad and I feel the aim is to upgrade that squad so all players are considered to be 1st team players and therefore, that would necessitate lots of different partnerships, between different players.
Having partnerships and the understanding within those partnerships that is implied, there are further levels where each partnership has to interact with the neighbouring parnership. Defence/Midfield/attack...left flank/centre/right flank, in the short passing game and also defence/attack and left flank/right flank in a longer passing game.
All in all a far more complex set up when the individual doing the individual thing has also to be accomodated.

If (and that is a massive word under our present circumstances) and when City become effective in all those categories, we will be able to consider that we are up there on a World level.
At present, I don't even think we have got near to recruiting the players necessary.
We are still so near to strting line that those initial experts may actually be right. It could take years.

[Beefymcfc]

Some good posts, and as many have said, it may take many years to get a fully cohesive squad, but I don't think it should take years to get us playing as a team, able to match the likes of Wolves. That's what money guarantees, players of a certain calibre that are able to take the game to the opposition.

As for talking about Barca in the same breath as us, don't make me laugh.

[Ted Hughes]

Barca have the ball most of the time though, so it gives them a certain amount of leeway to do all kinds of shit that a team with players who give the ball away simply can't do.

Re partnerships, it can happen at the back if we ever play a settled defence but up front, I'm not sure there's a player on the planet who can form a partnership with Adebayor. It would be fantastic if someone could but I just can't see it happening.

Barca pressurise from the front - all their players have the desire that someone on 200k a week should have, however a lot of what appears to drive them on is quite simply their passion for playing football.

Barca have the ball so much of the time because their work ethic when they don't have the ball to close down the spaces tends to force the oppo into a mistake and conceding back possesion. When you have the flair and energy of the likes of Villa, Iniesta, Xavi, Messi it's much easier to put into practice of course.

I think a lot of City's problems at the moment is about what we are not doing when we don't have the ball - probably largely down to discipline. The opening game of the season at Spurs is an excellent example - when we didn't have possession, we closed down the spaces and won the ball back, in this case is was on the edge or inside our box, but we defenced as a team. It's this dicipline thats been missing lately - compare the spurs game to Thursday night and the difference is there to be seen.

Barca do work hard on the whole when they lose the ball but they've also had players like Ibrahimovic, Ronaldo & Henry in the team, who basically do/did fuck all. Our front players work much harder than they did. They do ok chasing the ball as a team but imo that's because they rarely have to. The secret behind Barca is keeping the ball in possession. As soon as the oppo lose the ball they spend the next 5 mins chasing shadows. If you turned the tables, I very much doubt Barca's players would charge around after the ball for 90 mins. Yaya Toure is a case in point. No problem running like fuck for 20 seconds for Barca to win the ball, then strolling around at his own pace in possession, getting his energy back, big problem doing it 10 times in a row like he has to at City when we lose posession more often. I think City's players did it as well as can possibly be expected v Arsenal but made errors.

Imo the big difference between City's defending now & earlier is that we were lined up mainly to defend then & had a team who mostly knew their positions & jobs & had worked on it. Now we're trying to expand the play & are making lots of changes at the same time. So far Mancini has struggled to get the team to play quality attacking possession football for 90 mins & when that falls down & his defensive shield isn't organised, in place, we're crap basically. Hughes had the same problem when he tried to play attacking football; the defensive side fell apart. Mancini either has to solve that now & carry on trying to expand our play, like Hughes was trying to do & hope he gets lucky & not sacked or go back to playing every game aiming for a 1-0.

[brite blu sky]

Imo the big difference between City's defending now & earlier is that we were lined up mainly to defend then & had a team who mostly knew their positions & jobs & had worked on it. Now we're trying to expand the play & are making lots of changes at the same time. So far Mancini has struggled to get the team to play quality attacking possession football for 90 mins & when that falls down & his defensive shield isn't organised, in place, we're crap basically. Hughes had the same problem when he tried to play attacking football; the defensive side fell apart. Mancini either has to solve that now & carry on trying to expand our play, like Hughes was trying to do & hope he gets lucky & not sacked or go back to playing every game aiming for a 1-0.

This second part of Ted's post i think is right on the money, transitioning from a keep it tight to get a flow going is proving tricky.. and that isn't surprising tbh as the players have to then bolt on a new part of their collective game.
That said there have been games where we have managed that to a degree, but i would say without the wholesale changes that we have seen in the last few games. A few posters have pointed out that throwing 5 new players into the mix is going to be problematic. If we had something reasonably solid and then ease the new players in over a period of time you would imagine it being a bit safer. Silva is a good example, he had to be carried for the first 3 games at least, then he starts to get his bearings and showed a little promise and then he got with it after about 5 games. Every player has his own timescale for something like that depending on a lot of things, so again we have to expect time to get all these guys integrated. and the cost of that while they aren't.

[Ted Hughes]

Imo the big difference between City's defending now & earlier is that we were lined up mainly to defend then & had a team who mostly knew their positions & jobs & had worked on it. Now we're trying to expand the play & are making lots of changes at the same time. So far Mancini has struggled to get the team to play quality attacking possession football for 90 mins & when that falls down & his defensive shield isn't organised, in place, we're crap basically. Hughes had the same problem when he tried to play attacking football; the defensive side fell apart. Mancini either has to solve that now & carry on trying to expand our play, like Hughes was trying to do & hope he gets lucky & not sacked or go back to playing every game aiming for a 1-0.

This second part of Ted's post i think is right on the money, transitioning from a keep it tight to get a flow going is proving tricky.. and that isn't surprising tbh as the players have to then bolt on a new part of their collective game.
That said there have been games where we have managed that to a degree, but i would say without the wholesale changes that we have seen in the last few games. A few posters have pointed out that throwing 5 new players into the mix is going to be problematic. If we had something reasonably solid and then ease the new players in over a period of time you would imagine it being a bit safer. Silva is a good example, he had to be carried for the first 3 games at least, then he starts to get his bearings and showed a little promise and then he got with it after about 5 games. Every player has his own timescale for something like that depending on a lot of things, so again we have to expect time to get all these guys integrated. and the cost of that while they aren't.

I think we should start most away games with Bob's solid formation but just play with a bit more attacking purpose rather than suddenly picking loads of strikers etc & changing it all. We were too rigid & unadventurous in some games but now we've lost the organisation. If we're struggling & need a goal, particularly at home, then of course make the changes & go for it more & more as the game goes on but lets not chuck the baby out with the bathwater by losing sight of the original plan so early in the season. especially after spending half last season boring the shit out of us perfecting it!

[MaineRoadMemories]

I was not saying that our team has to employ all of those partnerships at the same time. My point was addressing Doug's that all the players do not need to gel, just certain players in key positions.

Take Spurs for example; they will finish pretty much in the top 5 this season largely down to a three man partnership of Modric, Bale and Crouch/Defoe. These players know each other inside out and what runs and balls to pass to each other. Sometimes football can be a very simple game.

Again look at City, can you see any of our players having a partnership? I cannot, they seem incapable of learning each other's play at the moment and I cannot decide whether its a player issue or a tactic issue.

[brite blu sky]

I was not saying that our team has to employ all of those partnerships at the same time. My point was addressing Doug's that all the players do not need to gel, just certain players in key positions.

Take Spurs for example; they will finish pretty much in the top 5 this season largely down to a three man partnership of Modric, Bale and Crouch/Defoe. These players know each other inside out and what runs and balls to pass to each other. Sometimes football can be a very simple game.

Again look at City, can you see any of our players having a partnership? I cannot, they seem incapable of learning each other's play at the moment and I cannot decide whether its a player issue or a tactic issue.

I'd say it is a bit of both at present only really because a lot of players have both prem to get used to and their team mates, so basically that compounds any tactical issues. IF Bobby is looking for a lot of flexibility in attack then the mids and the forwards have a more ambitious target on their hands imo.. if there were set plays then it would be less down to the creativity on the day and more to do with trying to engineer the plays throughout the game. Again IF Mancini is trying to build a very fluid attack it is more of an ask, a lot more and wont be truly effective until the players are well in tune with each other. However the pay off for persisting with that aim is so much greater.. the aim would after all give us one of the most difficult attacks to deal with and players who can drop in and out of the action seamlessly.

This is just speculation based on what seems like strange ideas coming out of Mancini's tactics and the players he has brought in. I do think that as the ambition is greater and the difficulty in getting there so much more complex that he is asking a very big ask of the players.. and it is a big gamble as to whether there will be any joy before basically it is too late!

[brite blu sky]

Amazingly a bit of proper analysis from the Grundian.. Tevez's importance.

What is interesting though is that even in this the writer shows perhaps how much he has not been watching enough, to see that Silva is also adopting a similar role, albeit not obviously like Tevez does it.
Tevez Question

[CityFanFromRome]

I keep hearing it but could somebody help with 2 questions:
1) How long should it take for a team to gel and bearing in mind how long a large part of them have already been together? Perhaps also taking into account the high quality of the new players and thus arguably that they should settle in more quickly than the avarage player.
2) What really does the term gel mean? Is it more about the players getting used to each other or the manager's tactics? Does it only apply to a significant group of new players or would it apply to an individual, say Van Der Vaart?

1) Depending on the complexity of the tactics, and on the number of new players, it may take from a couple months to one season, imho

2) Both, in my opinion. A new player will have to learn both the new tactics he has to fit into, and how his teammates like to move. For example, Tevez likes to drop deep, right? Some new midfielder who doesn't know it might keep passing the ball into space (as he was maybe already used to do), even when Tevez hasn't run into space at all because had dropped deep to receive the ball on his feet. Result, possession is lost and the opposition has a chance to pressure us.

Of course, the larger is the group of new players, the worst this scenario becomes, especially if the newcomers are in all the sectors of the formation (defence, midfield, attack). If, say, the defence has no newcomers, the back four will already know the tactics and how each of the other three move, so at least that would work as a solid unit (proved that the midfield can give them a decent protection).