Passing was absolutely woeful today especially at the start. Got me thinking, that there's not much point bringing in all these little passers, if there are going to be one or two in the team that are liable to break the passing rythmn. In fairness to RAMIRES, everyone was passing poorly in the first half, except Luiz.
Not saying Rami has no place in the squad - he does have outstanding qualities - but there's no point in adopting a philosophy if you don't commit to it 100% by putting out teams able to execute it. Although his positive contributions cannot go unacknowledged (eg his goal v Barca) and we have undoubtedly won points/games because of him, the difficulty is estimating how much he costs us in terms of not being able to link defence with attack (apart from his running). Could Torres' bad form, and indeed Ba's, be at least in in part attributed to his inability to link play. Hard to say.
How would I solve the problem? More basic passing practice!
Not saying Rami has no place in the squad - he does have outstanding qualities - but there's no point in adopting a philosophy if you don't commit to it 100% by putting out teams able to execute it. Although his positive contributions cannot go unacknowledged (eg his goal v Barca) and we have undoubtedly won points/games because of him, the difficulty is estimating how much he costs us in terms of not being able to link defence with attack (apart from his running). Could Torres' bad form, and indeed Ba's, be at least in in part attributed to his inability to link play. Hard to say.
How would I solve the problem? More basic passing practice!