I agree, Solanke is unlikely to go the distance and the surface may have a further impact on his game time, and there is also a possibility of extra time so keeping Richarlison as an option for 60 mins onwards would have made more sense to me when we have lots of cover for left wing! They do seem very confident I am hoping that may yet be there undoing, I think we will score tonight but whether that will be enough we will have to wait and see C O Y S
I think that's the plan with this selection. Solanke and Richarlison will both probably give us 65 mins, IF we can grab a goal by then, the pace and skill of Tel and Odobert coming on the flanks (I'd push Johnson central) should give us a decent outlet to sit back and counter what will be a desperate Bodo. That's how I'd like/ hope to see it play out on paper but then we never do the straightforward.
One thing I've wondered this season: given the meta about playing an attacking midfielder as a False 9, most obviously Havertz at the Bottle Bank, how comes we never tried Maddison in that position? Not that it's an option now, of course...
I'm personally not a fan of false 9s in general, it's worked in spells for Liverpool with Firmino and Spain back when they had a conveyor belt of world class technical midfielders but I'd just rather your central attacker be your best finisher, which is obviously a sticky point for us as neither of our actual strikers are great goal scorers. It's something I'd like to see addressed in the summer to be honest.
Firmino started as a striker, so Norbert playing him in his natural position wasn't the tactical master stroke we're led to believe it was Then again, the False 9 setup that always got me was the one Dortmund used when Haaland was there: Marco Reus played as a False 9 while Haaland was on the wing cutting inside, which somehow sound equal parts insane and absolute f'n genius
