Rousseau

They've been really interesting to watch over the last couple of years. Nagelsman has implemented an unusual 5-2-3 formation. They've lost their lunch-pin, Rudy, to Bayern over the summer so they're maybe not what they were last season. Tacitcally, Nagelsman is really impressive, though.

 

I'm looking forward to this game against Liverpool; two of the best young managers about just now.

It's quite misleading though. Jack's position is quite high, I assume because we were dominating when he played then weren't when he got sent off, which is when his data stops. Although, it's interesting that he is still the biggest 'dot' (touches) even when the rest had 60 minutes more game-time; shows how important he is.

 

Once again, Windass and Miller the best contributors to chances created.

 

Tavernier and Jack have a good partnership, as does Tavernier with Candeias. Dorrans is our main passer, finding the most players, and mostly forward passes; unfortunately not too many times - as a result of the situation.

 

Hibs clearly favoured our right-hand side, but there is not much penetration tbh.

 

It's pleasing that we finished with the same xG (1.94), considering they had a man more for 60 minutes. It shows we continued to create chances, with a couple of big chances going begging. We gave them their 2nd goal, and their 3rd -- from the xG plot -- was actually a very poor chance, that had no right to go in.

 

It's not too bad given the result. There is just that 30 minute period where we did nothing -- according to the xG plot. Does anyone know when our subs happened? We seemed to start creating chances again after 60 minutes.

Someone got 11tegen11's pass map for the game:

 

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Messi pushed a referee a few years ago... nothing happened!

 

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I don't have a problem with him giving it back - maybe the arm gesture went too far - but what mystifies me is that Halliday can be sent off for a much lesser gesture, but Lennon's actions is just banter?

These picture are astounding - I'm shocked that any referee can come to those conclusions!

 

However, we need to stop reacting to these wee teams kicking us off the park; it's going to happen. We need to play on it, like European clubs do. I don't mean diving lafferty-esque, but playing on challenges. Reacting gives the ref a decision to make -- invariably against us -- and gets opponents backs up.

They do look more intimidating, with strength in depth, but it is just one game. Last season it looked like Man City would run away with it...

It was a wee nudge, caused by the stupidity of the decision in the first place. You can't do that right enough. I doubt anything will happen.

 

Suarez will be fine too, thanks to UEFA-lona...

AAARRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!! RangersTV not working for me!

 

Morelos deserves his spot, as does Jack. At least we have the option of a target man in Herrera if needed.

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I read something recently about how Walker is not the natural winger we think he is; he's in fact someone who cuts inside, like Windass. Although he can play both sides, it seems he'd be more of a Windass-type that a Candeias-type. He's be another option in the centre of midfield.

 

Moreover, Hearts fans themselves say he's better as an Attacking-midielder rather than Winger.

Pep Guardiola and Mauricio Pochettino will be big rivals in the Premier League this season, but they have one thing in common; they both call Marcelo Bielsa the "best coach in the world".

 

This is the era of the "super manager" in the English top flight: Jose Mourinho, Jurgen Klopp, Arsene Wenger, Antonio Conte, Pochettino and Guardiola.

 

And although Bielsa's trophy cabinet might be on the light side, arguably none of them can claim to be more influential in football than the 62-year-old former Chile and Argentina boss, who is now head coach of Lille in France.

 

"My admiration for Marcelo Bielsa is huge," Guardiola says.

 

The Manchester City manager travelled to Argentina in 2006 to seek out his advice about becoming a coach and the two have been close ever since.

 

"He makes the players much, much better and he helped me a lot with his advice."

 

"I am pretty sure his influence at Lille - their club and their players - will be huge. Amazing. I am pretty sure of that."

 

Spurs boss Pochettino was born in the Argentine village of Murphy, north of the capital Buenos Aires. He first came into Bielsa's orbit when he was 14.

 

"He is like my football father," says the 45-year-old.

 

"We are a generation of coaches who were his disciples," he told SFR Sport. "How he feels football, the passion he has for football, I think we all took that from him."

 

Jorge Sampaoli [Argentina boss], Diego Simeone [Atletico Madrid manager], Gerardo Martino [Atlanta United boss] and Sevilla head coach Eduardo Berizzo all cite Bielsa as a major influence on their style of management.

 

At the age of 18, central defender Pochettino won the Argentine title with Bielsa's Newell's Old Boys in 1991 and reached the final of the Copa Libertadores the following season, losing to Sao Paulo on penalties. It was a stunning achievement for a modest club.

 

Bielsa tasked the players at the club with scouting the opposition and asked them to present their reports in front of the squad. In an age before the internet, he told them to read three newspaper reports of their previous game, as well as sports weekly El Grafico.

 

Mysterious and unpredictable

Bielsa is seen by many fans and journalists as a mysterious figure because he never gives interviews, only pre and post-match news conferences.

 

He is also unpredictable.

 

Last year he resigned as head coach at Lazio after just two days in charge. And the year before that he walked out of Marseille after the first game of his second season.

 

Lack of trophies

But can he really be considered as one of the best coaches in the world when his trophy collection is relatively small?

 

Three league titles in his native Argentina and an Olympic gold medal in 2004 with the national team don't compare to the greats of the game.

 

And there are a number of disappointments in finals.

 

He managed the Copa America runners-up in 2004 [Argentina] and both the Europa League and Copa del Rey runners-up Athletic Bilbao in 2012.

 

Guardiola though, feels that's irrelevant: "We are judged by that - how much success we have, how many titles we have won but that is much less influential than how he has influenced football and his football players."

 

"Still, I didn't meet one guy, a former player who speaks no good about him. They are grateful about his influence on their careers in football."

 

'Just a bedroom, air conditioning and electricity'

So what makes Guardiola and Pochettino rave about Bielsa? And what is he really like to play for and work with? World Football has been to Lille to find out more about the manager nicknamed "el loco" [the crazy one]."

 

Pre-season has been very different for the Lille players this year. Not only did they work at the training ground but they also lived there.

 

Bielsa asked for about 20 "bungalows" to be built at their Domaine de Luchin headquarters.

 

"We started pre-season on 19 June," says Lille winger Anwar El Ghazi. "The first two days were tests and after that it was hardcore. We trained at 10am and second training was 6:30pm. We eat here, we sleep here and we do everything here.

 

"They're small bungalows, just a bedroom, air conditioning and electricity, that's all. If you want to take a shower you go to the changing room and we have a room with Playstation and table tennis.

 

"The coach said we had to be a family together and when you're eating together, sleeping next door to each other, you become a family. We are like brothers now."

 

Extreme (el loco) intensity on and off the pitch

Bielsa was attracted to Lille by the vision of two men, the owner Gerard Lopez [ex-president of the Lotus F1 team] and the former vice president of Barcelona Marc Ingla, who is now director general of Lille.

 

Ingla played a big part in the appointment of Guardiola as head coach at Barcelona in 2008 and working with Bielsa is bringing back memories.

 

"He reminds me of Pep Guardiola sometimes in the way that he has an extreme intensity," said Ingla.

 

"Playing at extremes always generates stress in the systems but I think it's good to push everybody and every single point or lever that can make us better. The players, the club or the infrastructure at the training ground."

 

El Ghazi said: "He is a little bit different, he can be very aggressive and shout at people but then he'll be very quiet.

 

"He pushes everybody to the limit, for example my body fat used to be 10% or 11% and now it's 8%.

 

"We train a lot, it's very physically and mentally hard.

 

"You do the kind of actions that you do on the pitch. We train like a realistic game, like passes you would do during matches, those type of things. Training is very different to what I experienced when I was playing at Ajax. We don't do position games and we don't do a lot of matches during the training sessions."

 

Research, research and more research

Bielsa is famous for his obsessive use of videos to prepare for matches and it's something he has already brought to Lille.

 

Man City's new left-back Benjamin Mendy - who played under him at Marseille - sums this up best.

 

"He made me devour videos like never before," Mendy told Onze Mondial.

 

"To begin with he put me in front of the videos and I'd fall asleep. But he was happy! I was shocked.

 

"After a while I stopped sleeping and told myself 'go on, I'll watch two minutes of this thing after all.'

 

"After that he talked to me, I talked to him and we'd go over moves together. He told me, 'see, that's why I let you sleep. You slept, you slept, you slept but the day you decided to watch you got interested on your own. If I'd pushed you to watch you wouldn't have been interested'... Marcelo is just too good."

 

When he arrived at Athletic Bilbao it is said he watched all of their matches from the previous season, making reams of notes on every single game.

 

And after joining Marseille there were even reports that he watched all of their games from the previous season up to 13 times.

 

Thrilling football

Bielsa's Chile teams caught the eye with their 3-3-1-3 formation and attacking football, pressing high up the pitch.

 

In March 2012, Manchester United fans applauded Bielsa's Athletic Bilbao off the pitch after a stunning performance in the first leg of a Europa League last-16 tie.

 

Sir Alex Ferguson described Bielsa's Bilbao side as having "a work rate higher than anyone he had seen in Europe"

 

"With Marcelo in charge we shouldn't be shy in saying we want to put together the greatest football, with the greatest coach for what we're trying to do," Ingla says.

 

"That's a spectacular, offensive, winning style and we believe he can be the greatest executor of our plan."

 

"We want to excite the crowd and surprise the crowd with spectacular pressing football."

 

Spotting young talent and giving youth a chance

 

Bielsa has cast aside older, experienced players such as Vincent Enyeama and Rio Mavuba to give younger players an opportunity. It's something that's had a big influence on Pochettino's philosophy.

 

"We went for Marcelo because he is the best coach to develop young talents to their maximum potential," added Ingla.

 

"It was a natural fit for our vision. He can be the greatest executor of our plan."

 

In 2014 at Marseille, he said this about a 19-year-old Mendy: "You may think I'm joking, but Mendy will be one of the best full-backs in the world."

 

Mendy cost Man City £52m.

 

Meanwhile Pochettino says Bielsa spotted that he had the potential to be a top footballer when he was fast asleep.

 

He'd arrived at the family home at 2am and asked the Spurs boss' parents if he could see their teenage son's legs. Bielsa then announced he was signing him for Newell's because he looked like a footballer.

 

"Yes, that was the reality," Pochettino told Sport Magazine. "I woke up in the morning and my mum explained the story. I said: 'Yeah come on, it was in your dream. What did you drink before you went to sleep?'"

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/40879274

Hardie on the bench! Hopefully he gets some minutes.

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I couldn't work out what the fourth change was: it's Alnwich for Foderingham. Rossiter, Morelos and Tavernier are the other changes.

 

Pretty much first-team, with a few others that need game-time.

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Can't wait to hear his accent...

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£1 Million for Waghorn?

 

Winning.

 

Are we allowed to comment Craig?

 

I understand Morelos getting lower marks through less game time, but I actually thought he was exactly what we needed at the end: Herrera was flagging, and Morelos had the energy and ability to run the channels, which we needed as we were playing on the counter-attack.

He struck it well but he just went on an aimless run and the space opened for him - when did he get that space for us? When there is no space, he runs it out or runs into a defender! It was these moments that made us sign him in the first place, but the game scenario's are different.

I thought we defended OK. We were left exposed early on (Moult's chance) when Wallace went for a wonder; but he tightened up and I don't recall him being caught out to such an extent after that.

 

It was the other side, through Hodson, where we struggled; they clearly targeted that area, outnumbering Hodson and Candeias. For me, Hodson just doesn't have the physique to cope with the physicality of this league.

 

In the middle we did better, albeit a little indecisive at times. I think I recall Jack and Cardoso getting in each others' way which led to a sitter from the 'Well sub. Bringing on Wilson helped, but I'm not sure I like seeing out a game for 15 minutes -- especially if it leads to the onslaught of crosses, which seemed like the only think 'Well could do! After the spell of indecision I felt Alves took charge, banging a few header downfield.

I was wondering what you think Motherwell done (if anything) to keep Windass quiet in the second half

 

They got their right back (Tait I think he's called) to play deeper and the right centre closer to him to cover the inside run.

 

I agree with Big Jaws. I also thought he was knackered after that first half; he was a little slower tracking back too which helped 'Well get those easy crosses from deep.

Foderingham 7

 

Hodson 5

Cardoso 6

Alves 8

Wallace 6

 

Jack 7

Dorrans 9

Candeias 7

Windass 9

 

Miller 6

Herrera 7

 

Subs :

 

Tavernier 6

Wilson 5

Morelos 6