on the other side you always have that like Competitive Edge to you and you sort of think ah if that last pass had been right if that lasts you know dummy inside and shot had been had been the right one you're always left with that half Taste of ah missed opportunity [Music] this was my more or less first game in charge as as as a house coach we started in a 352. where we've got even youth in goal we've got Andrew gravion that's right center half Emmanuel Badu Central and then our captain unisa as left
Center back and then holy midfielder we've got Azor matusiwa who's a Dutch or was a Dutch Dutch youth International right wing back we've got Alexi flips left wing back we've got badly local and then our two number eights or infiltration players were Lupi and Marshall munezi and then we were playing with a sort of a second Striker who was just playing off the main Striker who was Arbor's energy and then our main Striker was baragoon who's on loan from Arsenal and then for PSG they'd got Gigi Donovan Sergio Ramos uh marquinos Danilo mukieri was playing
right wing back Bernat was playing left wing back Senator midfielders were verati and Fabian Ruiz Striker was Killian and Bape and they've got Sarabia and Sonic adjusting support and a 343 so we actually got quite lucky but Messi and Neymar and probably Ashraf akimi who would have played right Messi wasn't in the squad Neymar and akimi were benched for that game [Music] my plan from like the start of the week was basically not to sit back because I didn't want to be defending on the edge of our box for 96 Minutes and to just concede
wave after wave after wave after wave so from the sort of start of the week we were clear in the communication that we were you know getting towards the players was we're going to go and get them we're going to go and press them we don't want them to to play out we don't want them to yeah have a nice evening nice evening on a Saturday night we really want to disturb what they want to do to us and it's pretty much what we did um we knew that their shape varies so they they set
up in a three four three but actually when they build up marquinas pops into Midfield so it actually becomes a 433 which was easier for us to press um but yeah the intention from the off was we're not going to sit back because if you sit back the longer we sit back we are going to concede because they've got so much quality we didn't know obviously that Messier name I wasn't going to play but it didn't really change because Sarabia and Saleh they've all got unbelievable individual quality and then Bape is capable of scoring from
from well nothing basically so yeah we just wanted to make it as difficult as we could for them and make sure that they weren't just bopping it around and attacking and attacking attacking and it worked it worked really well actually to be fair [Music] if the ball was with Donna rumor we knew that their center-backs or Center are split and that marquinius dropped into Midfield so our two Strikers had to go and basically man man their two center-backs our Midfield would then come out of shape and we basically go man man everywhere and our wing
backs would take their full back slash Wing backs and the role of this two Strikers we've got zenity and Bellow playing up front and we wanted them to play out so we wanted them to hit these sides so that we could protect inside and as soon as they played outside we'd force them out so if the ball came to Ramos who was here Arbor would come and close in and Bala would close the return pass either to the keeper or to the other Center half and then that was our trigger to press so we've got
our wing backer we're sort of waiting inside protecting the pass to whoever it was sunny or Serbia and he was waiting inside and as soon as that ball was underway then we press and it was basically man man everywhere else and we'd close one pass passing line backwards and the role or the key role in that was our opposite Wing back where we knew the danger of mbappe and Sarabia together and the pace especially the mbappe has and if we were late pressing this pass we knew that it was going to go deep so we
had to have an extra man and go plus one behind so it was just a simple we close inside let them play outside and as soon as it goes outside we're basically using the touchline as an extra defender or an extra player to press and it works because they just got stuck every time and they tried to play inside but there was obviously a man-man situation or plus ones plus one situation with the opposite Wing back so they kept playing inside and we just won it back and were able to play forward really quickly and
that's what we wanted we wanted them to play or try to play through us and as soon as they played outside they got stuck and had to start again and it allowed us to keep pressing up and pressing up and pressing up and basically what I said was the higher we stay the less danger we're going to have going that way and that's what we did and every time they built up from the back the game was basically spent a majority of the time sort of in this area because we didn't want them playing higher
up the pitch so you'd always have plus one or plus two with him and I kept on playing into us [Music] we didn't want to drop too low so we were sort of in a medium compact block again protecting everything inside so these Wing backs would always protect the line to the to their three forwards and we'd always got plus one with our holder midfielder so we've got overload midfields man man behind and they've got plus one in defense but it didn't really matter to us because we were waiting for them and as soon as
a ball would get played either from the central Defender which is marquinos or the keeper so one of these two outside it would get played and we'd press press and again press press and it was always the ball outside and we knew that we'd always got plus two so we've got an overload with him and he was able to protect these forward passes inside to their three Strikers and we'd always got a wing back that was protecting inside and again the number of times where we were just waiting for them in a high block or
in a medium high block but always with the clear intention of we want to press that way and we want to force you to come into us ing these extra players and then we were able to transition really quickly going forward so it was just all the time trying to create a plus one or a plus two overload in whatever the situation was and if the ball came to the side then it was a side run if a striker was dropping in or if it was solid or Sarabia dropping in then it didn't really matter
because we'd got an overload or a man extra Midfield um and they never apart from the first sort of two minutes where we got a bit got a bit stuck and a bit emotional about the whole occasion they didn't actually create that much against us um so I'd say the defensive part was pretty clear and pretty obvious for our players which which I really wanted and we've stuck to the plan really well forcing them outside expecting them to try and play through the middle because they've got you know five players in the central area and
we managed to deal with it without any major problems [Music] we need a large number of chances that we'd create would come from these transitions After High Press but again I broke it down and I try to try to make it as difficult as I could uh for PSG to defend and instead of building up with three which we could have done but probably wouldn't have worked as well we just went with four so I'll write Center half who's got an ideal profile to sort of play right back dropped wide we've got other two centrals
playing in there and our left wing back dropped even deeper and this is where Arbor the second Striker comes left and is almost playing touchline football and our right wing back was also playing um touchline football so these three in front two were expecting to press just against our our three Center halves then couldn't because we were with four and we've got an extra man Midfield and they were basically three against one for nothing and they've got Ramos and Danilo who weren't doing anything um and that was the role of our two Wing backs we
wanted to Well Wing back and second Striker we wanted to stretch them as much as we could so that we'd get a 4v3 with these three Strikers and even a 5v3 with our keeper we've got an overload Midfield and so the first ball was either Center half right back or left back we knew they were going to press let me get across but we also knew we've got a man extra Midfield so we've got three clear options it was ball to feet in here for a third man layoff only if he's free and then we're
gonna go and play deep if we've got time and we're not under pressure we can play inside but only if that inside pass wasn't a risk and he wasn't under pressure from one of these three or it was a channel ball for Barlow who's really good at running channels into there from there um and it was just trying to create an overload where we could create an overload and not lose the ball too quickly because their press is unbelievable and they managed to sort of stuff you out as soon as possible but they did struggle
against that overload here and especially Ramos and and Danilo they could have just pushed the wing backs up which would have stopped us completely but they we knew that Ramos and Danilo playing that far apart wasn't their most comfortable uh option um so that's what we did we stretched them as much as we could created an overload where we could and again we'd always got that man extra in the Midfield [Music] had got a totally free role and I said if you want to cause Ramos a problem then run away from him okay because he
doesn't like dropping in or coming outside and I wanted him to either create an extra overload inside and pick up balls between these lines here because he doesn't like stepping out and he didn't like stepping out and they didn't like coming to the side so I think the ball is from Eunice it gets played I think to a free man and then gets played to Arbor who picks it up between the lines is running towards goal and just gets clipped from behind I think it's from their Midfield player I'm pretty sure it's variety that Clips
in and the foul is more or less in that area there referee blew a foul I was on the floor and then they just crowded out the referee and Ramos lost it he said something he got a first warning with a booking and then he kept on going and kept on going and then the referee just pulled out a straight red so he was off and then we've got an extra wow we've almost got a total overload but PhD being PSG they have enormous qualities and they made it as difficult as they could for us
from that point on [Music] he brought the ratty off and they played uh a full two three or four three two with solid dropping in the Midfield and that wasn't causing us any problems and then he bought Neymar on but they started playing a a diamond in the Midfield and that really caused this problem with them back paying as high as he could and as soon as I started playing this diamond in the Midfield then we were in trouble because they've got an overload of Midfield and with the quality that they've got we were lost
for about five or ten minutes and it was difficult to see because we thought okay he's going to bring Neymar on so they're going to play Neymar and Bape up front but Neymar had a totally free role and was dropping into this awkward shape because it wasn't quite a diamond it was like name I was dropping left hand side and then it was it was a square diamond in Midfield that really caused us problems um and that happened and we tried to you know go forward by saying okay you're gonna step up and we're going
to play Four like that and then Arbor you're going to play on 10 in here to try and protect that overload inside but it wasn't really working the message wasn't clear enough for me so we changed as well and we played a four two three one we bought Mitch from Bergen on left we took Alex he flips off and then we played a proper four two three one and it looked like that and then basically the message was again protect inside so our two Wingers were protecting inside so we didn't want them to combine in
this Midfield and as soon as the ball got played so imagine the ball gets played to this fullback we press we press we press Barlow comes over and cuts the return off and then the opposite Winger comes inside and we've always got almost a plus two or three like that which helped us a lot because we then got more control of Midfield but we just weren't able to it just didn't quite happen for us going forward we kept winning the ball back and then our final pass when we were getting into these zones in here
our final pass or our final touch or our final decision making was it was rushed and we were sort of thinking oh I've got an opportunity I've got an opportunity something's got to happen it's like no no now's the time to relax now's the time that we get our heads as clear as possible and make the right choices when we win the ball backs where where we want to win them back and because we won so many balls back in this sort of Midfield area after that [Music] we had twice as many shots uh our
ball our balls recovered in opposition half were really interesting um the number of jewelry one was was was really encouraging for the sort of next step of what we were going to do and it just sort of set the tone to what we we want to do and the team that we want to be you know we want to we want to frustrate teams you want to press forward we want to spend the majority of our time in this area of the pitch because we've got individual talent in our team so frustrating PSG to that
extent and probably pushing Ramos into getting sent off was a satisfaction and being the only team um this season who hasn't considered a goal against PSG was 100 you know a huge satisfaction but on the other side you always have that like Competitive Edge to you and you sort of think ah if that last pass had been right if that lasts you know dummy inside and shot had been had been the right one or had we crossed that ball instead of passed it into the into no one you're always left with that half Taste of
missed opportunity [Music] oh [Music]
