For weeks?! Try months! . Usually I’m quite a strong critic of players and their performances - I’m sure none of you have noticed - but this season I struggle to bring myself to wanting to actively bash them because a) there are so many players I like ability-wise and b) this system just isn’t sustainable nor a good fit for many. Agree on your latter point too, I’ve said a few times that I think he needs 22 players of equal quality to essentially rotate every game in order to maintain the standards and intensity he wants to play… and I’d challenge anyone here to name a side with such equal depth.
It’s got a touch of what Ledley said to me about Ramos in how Ramos was ridiculously meticulous about some of the most fine details when it came to facing top sides (hence his dismantling of Arsenal and victory over Chelsea in the final) yet when it came to sides we were expected to beat, he barely said a word to the players other than “you should win”.
City have been very close to it in various recent seasons. Not this one though, obviously. I don't even think that we have bad depth, which makes the results even worse. We've got a bunch of very good defenders, but we leak goals constantly. The midfield is full of talented players, but it's a disjointed mess. Solanke's isolated and run into the ground. Richarlison's broken. Scarlett was recalled, scored a massive goal, then disappeared.
Which fits with how Joe Hart, Tim Cahill and others have described Ange: He doesn't get particularly involved on the training ground, preferring to watch from the periphery while the coaches handle all the fine detail stuff. Sounds very much like Ramos as you've said and that was the first comparison that came to my mind too when I read Kulu's comment.
Our system in bullet points: Push two good goalscorers (Son and Johnson) further away from the goal to accommodate... Underlapping FBs who are expected to play as pseudo-10s. One of them has one of the best crosses in the league but we rarely see it because he's constantly on the corner of the box. Move your actual #10 to LM to accommodate the above. The remaining two CMs are deployed as roving or box to box, so you might or might not have cover for the gaps left behind when the FBs start doing an impression of Kaka. Neither of the FBs are good enough at quick or threaded passes, so the ST often looks isolated with very weak service. Meanwhile the players who are actually good at passes are 40 yards away from him. Play inverted wingers so that they run infield and get in everyone else's way. It's a work of genius. Hang it in the Louvre.
I haven’t read the previous pages because I knew what the probable content would be, so someone may have already mentioned this. The referee did not show a yellow card to the goalkeeper until almost the end of the match,although. he had been doing it since they scored their second goal. I know the minutes are added,.theoretically, at the and of the game, but extra possession give the offending team timeto reset,Perrhaps he fourth official could remind the raferee of ongoing offences, when he is failing to Krupp Arteta Slot and Amorim in their own areas.
The full backs and wide forwards have over 60 PL goals and assists between them this season. How many would it take to convince you that they were being correctly used.
Balance is what it would take to convince me they are being used correctly. We've been held to a clean sheet 7 times this season. We lost all 7. Conversely, we have kept just 6 clean sheets all season. Only four teams have kept fewer and three of those have already been relegated. Only three teams have conceded more major chances this season - again, they've all been relegated. And unlike them, our XGA is higher than our actual GA, which suggests we've been lucky not to concede even more. Nearly 30% of our goals this season have come in matches we've lost, i.e. they were by definition pointless. If the price for our FBs notching up more goal involvements is that we concede more frequently, why is that something to celebrate? Sadly in football, points aren't awarded for endeavour, impressive statistics or anomalous goal differences.
This is why I find it so bizarre we don't try asymmetrical FBs, especially as that makes more sense with our tactical plan - The left side is treated as the creative side (and let's not get into that for now, eh...?) so logically Udogie should hug the line so that Maddison/Bergvall have two options to aim for, which also lets Sonny cut inside yet still allows us to overload the flank - The right side basically exists so there is somebody at the far post, with Johnson in the six yard box while Porro appears on the edge of the area to shoot like a midfielder if they were allowed to get forward so they can both cut in at different times, which can be done if we primarily create down the left And the weird thing is this actually works with the other options - Tel also likes to cut inside, so is reasonably close to the Son/Udogie setup - Odobert takes on his man, meaning that Porro could overlap or underlap depending on the run Odobert is making which opens up games differently - Mikey Moore is more of a line-hugging winger, which allows Porro to cut inside - Werner's role is to get forward at pace and spam crosses across the six yard box, which again allows Udogie to stay wide Obviously there's disadvantages of asymmetrical FBs, as teams will likely twig what's going on after 10-15 games and have a strategy to nullify it by the 25th game, but that can be addressed by letting the tactics evolve so some things are added, some are streamlined, and some are discarded completely for all manner of reasons
