The traditional ways to beat a press are: through the speed of your attack, or through the consistency of your passing. Make the team pay for pushing bodies forward. Unfortunately, we have one of the slowest teams in the PL; our only particularly quick player (beyond the kids) is AA, who lacks the skillset to turn that pace into anything, and our passing is both unimaginative and hideously inaccurate. There are plenty of fair criticisms of Ralph, but our biggest issue is that our attack is desperately short of quality, and our midfield is badly short of numbers until Lavia returns.
Yeah. As much as Lyanco needs to be off, I think this was the right move. If we can't build through midfield, having 10 men isn't going to be demonstrably different than having 11. I'd still probably replace Lyanco though.
God it’s so refreshing having a midfielder out there who can win a tackle and makes an effort to show for the ball.
Payne and Mara for Stu and Lyanco, methinks. Hell of an assignment for Payne, but Lyanco isn't going to be on long.
From Solent commentary, it sounds as if Lyanco got in a good tackle against Zaha. Maybe he's been told what to do...
