Even though it had been speculated and expected by a few of us before pre-season, did anyone else still find it surprising Hojbjerg didn’t play a single minute on Sunday? I know part of that decision could be down to ensuring he doesn’t get injured to prevent the potential Atleti move but for a guy who has been ran into the ground for three straight seasons to not even come on did surprise me a little, even if realistically it shouldn’t have done due to the way Ange wants to play. Skipp starting and Sarr being chosen to come on over two experienced internationals isn’t a call many managers make in the Premier League. This is on top of a similar decision at LB as well as throwing a CB in after just a few sessions. Safe to say Ange is definitely more of a risk taker and very much willing “To Dare”.
Personally I think we would have had more points in each of the last few seasons if Højbjerg had never joined the club.
I don’t. He stopped the rut that was happening at CM after Winks, Sissoko, Ndombele and Lo Celso. The fact we should be making a healthy profit on him too would imply he’s been a good, if not great signing. Our defence just got progressively worse and it likely wouldn’t have mattered if we had prime Wanyama in front of it, no one could’ve saved us from the calamities of Dier, Sanchez, Aurier, Doherty and Sessegnon, as well as age catching up with Lloris too.
Pass...errrm...network time I'm going to suggest that it doesn't look particularly similar to the ones from last season... please log in to view this image One thing to mention is, as this is focusing on the network instead of being a pass map, it makes it look like Richy wasn;t getting the ball - yet the reality is you see the exact same pattern several times over the weekend, notably The Sheikh Mansour Team with Haaland, Man Utd with Rashford, the Saudis with Isak, and the Bottlers with Nketiah, so it isn't comparable to some of the maps where we saw a pinprick with Harry Kane's name next to it which was common throughout the last few seasons. Indeed, if there's any criticism of Richy to be had, it's that he seems to be playing a little too deep and needs to be closer to Deki than he is to Maddison Weirdly, though, the network does have a lot of the shape of the passing networks we had from both the ubermensch and Conte, but with two key differences i.) It's a good 25 yards further up the pitch ii.) Bissouma is the out ball for the CBs, but the CBs are not an out ball for Bissouma. Compare this to how often we've seen a triangle from the CBs to Hojbjerg or Winks and back again in the past few seasons, the fact there's no traffic from Bissouma to van de Ven and a lighter triangle to Sanchez does underline the difference in approach
True but Hojbjerg was never the answer to the midfield questions we had. Statistically and technically superior to Sissoko, but when we assess the picture purely tactically, the gap narrows and perhaps even reverses. I was no fan of Sissoko but for a period he was one of our "best" players. Not due to any sudden improvement in ability, but because he was an extremely disciplined and hard working player who followed his manager's instructions to the tee and as a result served the tactical purpose of shielding an ageing defence and babysitting Aurier when he went AWOL. Hojbjerg is certainly the better overall player and you'd probably pick him first in the playground, but for a team in crisis he too often unwittingly added to that crisis simply due to the fact that he is tactically very limited, his positioning and anticipation have always been suspect and far too often he is in the wrong place at the wrong time. Useful stopgap but the arrivals of Bentancur and Bissouma have shown us what technically and tactically gifted midfielders are meant to look like.
