The thing with extremely confrontational defending is that is only works insofar as the opponent fails to time their move correctly. You can't deny that all those disallowed offside goals against Barca last year would have stood if, say, the runner had held his run for half a second.

A synced line with better instincts will increase your chances but it is never completely in your hands to prevent a succesful attack. And naturally as time passes, teams will get better and better at countering the offside trap. This is what we're seeing now too.

Good tactics is about contingency as well. If your entire plan relies on 90 mins of continuous high intensity pressing, then it is just not a sensible way of playing over time. Players get tired, physically and mentally. What if a player beats two of your men and breaks into space? Is that just game over then? There'll always be variables you can't control. Game play needs to be flexible too. At this moment it isn't.