Muric

[Vegas Claret]

Masterclass

[KRBFC]

He's a joke mate, serious baller.

[MancunianClaret]

That upfield ball for Barnes > Tella goal. His seamless transition into the backline on the press. He just gets better and better.

[HiThere]

Absolutely superb.

[KRBFC]

Btw people were criticising this fella not long ago, madness.

[HiThere]

That upfield ball for Barnes > Tella goal. His seamless transition into the backline on the press. He just gets better and better.

Some of his central passes too was sublime. Certainly entertaining.

[CoolClaret]

Can’t be understated just how much he helps us to beat the press. Preston were chasing shadows because of him.

Incredible

[jdrobbo]

The thing I like, is that Burnley fans are all starting to see just how good he is now. His distribution today was filthy!!!

[NewClaret]

Man is unreal

[tiger76]

Shows what he brings to the party, Oh! and he also kept a clean sheet for good measure.

[4:20]

Up there with the best passers of a ball for a keeper in the world. His positioning is utterly brilliant. Calmness and stoicness personified. A vital part in this magical machine.

[MDWat]

He was ridiculously good today

[MancunianClaret]

Only 24 as well, no age for a keeper. Can only get better from here.

[DCWat]

That was a masterclass in passing - his heat map must have been more out of his area than in it!

[RVclaret]

Serious talent. I’ve been saying it all season.

Mentioned in my match ratings but his vision, clarity of thought and reading of the game is top draw, that’s without even mentioning the execution of his passing.

[DCWat]

Btw people were criticising this fella not long ago, madness.

I don’t think I’ve read anyone criticising his distribution, that would be madness. He has, rightly in my view, faced criticism at times when not commanding his area.

In a game like today, it’s like playing with 11 outfield players.

[KefkaClaret]

Need another compilation after that, some of the passes were unbelievable.

[Taffy on the wing]

Terrific today......showed he's a cut above Peacock-Farrel who is pretty good himself.
Happy days & easy 3-0 wins all the way to the Premier league.

[Pickles]

Some of us have been saying it for months.

He's superb. I'm going to the Turf and spending a lot of the time glued to watching the keeper in the same way I used to watch Little and Blake etc. It's bizarre.

[Socrates]

We will sell him for big, big money.

He’ll end up playing for one of the super clubs.

[wilks_bfc]

I wouldn’t be surprised to see VK do a Pearce and bring BPF on for Barnes in the last game of the season and stick a Claret shirt in Muric and stick him up front so he can score a goal

[boatshed bill]

I don’t think I’ve read anyone criticising his distribution, that would be madness. He has, rightly in my view, faced criticism at times when not commanding his area.

He's going to spend the summer working on crosses and handling in general. He will be awesome

[RVclaret]

We will sell him for big, big money.

He’ll end up playing for one of the super clubs.

I believe City installed a few clauses on the deal, buy back for ‘x’ amount / first refusal if another club comes in.

[GodIsADeeJay81]

That was a masterclass in passing - his heat map must have been more out of his area than in it!

Screenshot_20230211-173401.png (223.99 KiB) Viewed 7184 times

For the season so far

[equinox]

I'd have him on free kicks around the box if Twine isn't on the pitch.

[HiThere]

I'd have him on free kicks around the box if Twine isn't on the pitch.

Aye, that's not asking for trouble at all

[NewClaret]

He’s seriously SO important to this team. Absolute key man.

[bfcjg]

We will sell him for big, big money.

He’ll end up playing for one of the super clubs.

He already is

[nil_desperandum]

I'd absolutely love for us to be 4 or 5 goals up at Ewood Park and send him forward to take a corner.
That really would be taking the ****

[equinox]

I'd absolutely love for us to be 4 or 5 goals up at Ewood Park and send him forward to take a corner.
That really would be taking the ****

...and head his own corner in the top corner off the bar and post on its way in.

[Goody1975]

I don’t think I’ve read anyone criticising his distribution, that would be madness. He has, rightly in my view, faced criticism at times when not commanding his area.

In a game like today, it’s like playing with 11 outfield players.

I'd have a look back to early in the season, especially the Blackpool home game, that may change your opinion. Some of the comments were way over the top.

[equinox]

There's no question, when the opposition are able to arc crosses into a packed penalty area then the defence as a whole, not just Muric, has been found wanting but that very rarely happens because we're often at the other end of the pitch scoring goals of our own.

[clarethomer]

He was brilliant today. I think again we are blessed with good keepers having seen BPF stand in more recently.

His passes and positioning were just sublime at times

[Spiral]

That pass five minutes in, 90 degree pass on the ground, made forward, drilled with power, absolutely inch perfect to Cullen (I think) while there's a PNE forward literally trying to tackle him and he's using his shoulder to block the tackle. Audacity of the man. Anyone else in English football bar maybe Ederson is knocking that out for a throw, or at best looking for his right-back.

Also first half, slipping into the back three, parallel with Beyer and Ekdal ON THE GODDAMN CENTRE CIRCLE!!! What's that all about. How does an opposition team even play against that when our defensive unit is so composed? They're all completely unfazed.

[quoonbeatz]

Showcase for him today against a team which pose zero threat. Like the whole team they needed to get used to each other and the system at the start. Now everything really has clicked, we're seeing the fruits of their hard work and no little talent. Next season is going to be really interesting.

[Swizzlestick]

Absolutely outrageous today! Some of his passing was utterly sublime.

[helmclaret]

I’ve said all season he’s an unbelievable talent.

[Pickles]

It was entertaining seeing Delap get more and more frustrated as Muric passed rings around him. At one point the ball was with a centre half on our six yard line and Muric was stood to the side of the goal, goal totally empty, asking for the pass. It's brilliant.

Muric passes like a centre mid. Beyer, Harwood-Bellis and Ekdal dribble like wingers.

[Rileybobs]

Brilliant again today, his use of the ball has improved immeasurably as the season has gone on, and it was pretty great to begin with.

Re. the criticism earlier in the season - it’s easy to look back now after 10 consecutive league wins whilst dominating the league and scoff at criticism that he faced earlier in the season. But that criticism was valid at the time when he was making bad decisions on the ball. Since then his decision making and actual passing accuracy has improved hugely, and more importantly the rest of the team are on the same page as him meaning he always has an option.

I have been critical of Muric at times this season. My biggest concern is his ability to keep the ball out of the net or relieve pressure by dealing with crosses into the box. I have always acknowledged that this concern is not particularly valid this season as we don’t let the other team anywhere near our goal.

I still have that concern in the Premier League, but I must admit it’s diminishing as with each game I become more confident that we will be able to go toe to toe with 13/14 teams next season.

[Burnley1989]

That IanMcl must have some feedback

[Lowbankclaret]

I'd have a look back to early in the season, especially the Blackpool home game, that may change your opinion. Some of the comments were way over the top.

I was one who criticised him, but he has learnt from those mistakes and now mixes it up more. Early days he was just passing short and that let teams push up and press high. Now he mixes it up teams cannot press high.
He has improved a lot.
His shot stopping can still be a concern, but in most games like today, not many teams get shots on target.

[FCBurnley]

I was very critical of Muric earlier in the season and rightly so. Today I marked a 10. He was perfect

[boatshed bill]

I was one who criticised him, but he has learnt from those mistakes and now mixes it up more. Early days he was just passing short and that let teams push up and press high. Now he mixes it up teams cannot press high.
He has improved a lot.
His shot stopping can still be a concern, but in most games like today, not many teams get shots on target.

i think we have to look at improvement all over the pitch, increased confidence which has come with them playing together.
His passing is better because our players are better at receiving the ball, it's a two-way thing.
I also think it helps when teams try to press us particularly if they are not very good at it.

[Lowbankclaret]

i think we have to look at improvement all over the pitch, increased confidence which has come with them playing together.
His passing is better because our players are better at receiving the ball, it's a two-way thing.
I also think it helps when teams try to press us particularly if they are not very good at it.

Agreed, but Preston stopped pressing early doors today.

[boatshed bill]

Agreed, but Preston stopped pressing early doors today.

Stopped playing?

[Lowbankclaret]

Stopped playing?

Well yes you could say that as well.

[Spiral]

I don't know if I'm just imagining or misremembering this, but it feels as though the fullbacks were making tonnes of vertical runs (forward and back) in the first few weeks of the season with not so much horizontal movement, and when you look at the positions Roberts and Maatsen are taking up these days, they're providing more options for a pass because they're getting through a hell of a lot of horizontal movement, sliding left to right, rotating with the defensive midfielders, and making our defensive unit basically unmarkable and almost impossible to press. We'll only get beat well when we come up against the ridiculous athleticism of those PL teams who can press way more intensely and confidently. I think this horizontality from the fullbacks is a significant shift from early days, and it has liberated Muric.

I think if I were to sum up our tactics in possession in one sentence it would be, "overload local areas". For a lot of teams that's usually only noticeably applied in midfield where wingers will come inside (think Arfield under Dyche) or a striker drops deep, but under Kompany it's as though the whole pitch is mapped out as a grid, and allied with an immense amount of hard work to actually cover the ground, players move into local positions to outnumber the opposition in every zone of the pitch wherever play is, which means we've got usually three angles available for a pass in literally every single area of the pitch. This makes our players look like better footballers because they are not required to make difficult passes. They pick the simplest of the two, sometimes three options available in any situation in any zone of the pitch. This is a stark contrast to our old ways where oftentimes in possession the options available were to pass to a single, sometimes marked player, or to go long.

In this system, someone comes in to overload a local area (like a 10m squared area of the pitch), we pass through and out of it, then the whole team is quick to move up the pitch as a whole unit (rather than just those players involved in the attack), until we're met with the next crowded area, at which point, following the script, we make another player available to overload that locality, which we then pass through and out of, and the whole process repeats systematically right the way up the pitch until we either make a mistake, which we rectify by hunting in packs to regain the ball — a notable shift from the Dychian insistence on regaining team shape during transition, or we move forward until the opposition is sitting deep, at which point we gladly pepper the box with crosses. It's so simple in principle, but the tactical knowledge and awareness of each and every player to switch from one situation to the next is impressive and requires so much hard work, physically and mentally. I've not seen a championship team ever play so systematically. We've seen free flowing teams with great players in this league before, but nothing so tactically precise as this.

And to bring this back to the topic of the thread, this principle of local overloads applies right the way back to our deepest defensive areas. Pretty much to our own six yard box in fact. The sheer balls required to do this is insane. We've got a lot to be thankful for from Roberts and Maatsen, because they're being asked to cover a lot more ground, not just vertically (forward and back) but horizontally, than all the other fullbacks in the league, and probably half the premier league, too. And we've got a lot to be thankful for from Muric for being an absolute assassin with the ball at his feet.

[NL Claret]

Like the WBA manager said , it is like playing against 11 outfield players.

[Spiral]

Like the WBA manager said , it is like playing against 11 outfield players.

Totally. Any set-piece frailties we might have need to be viewed as being priced-in to the system to allow us to have the calibre of ball-playing players we have on our budget to be able to play with eleven outfield players. If our lads were all absolute units and still playing like this they'd be playing for Madrid or Liverpool or Munich.

[Leyland Claret]

Did he actually use his hands in the 2nd half? I genuinely can’t remember if he did. Absolute masterclass and one of the best sweepers we’ve had at the club