I'm not sure it's that so much. I think when you have no choice but to give it to your central players then it's easy to block that route. I think Brighton were forcing us to play to Werner and to a certain extent, Kulu. I think it they are both playing well, then they don't press as high.
How many of our players would you say are match fit and match sharp?
Really, all our best players were the 5 at the back.
agreed. not in a philosophy sense but in an operational manner. time and time again we have no width, midfielders are taking turns dropping with their chest to our goal with no outlets other than the same CB that found him. there are multiple situations per game where our 1st phase build up makes no sense geometrically. it's a nuanced discussion that would need video to properly support it but the point is that it is very much a work in progress. whether that is personnel or tactical, I'm not sure. tend to say responsibility falls both ways.
I think we were probably a bit ahead of ourselves in the first 10 games.
haha, nice oneOk. I prefer Bissouma as the deeper, primarily defensive midfielder over Bentancur, and I prefer Sarr over Bentancur as the high energy box to box midfielder.
Bissouma and Maddison's ability to take the ball on the half turn was instrumental in helping us, but teams have adjusted to us inverting our fullbacks and it's making it very hard to build out from the back now.
Yep. although moving forwards we need to get back to dominating games a lot more again.
Probably down to the constant change of players due to injuries etc.
Biss and Madders starting the season on fire was what created all of that early drive and excitement. Not surprised we've been off it without. The sooner they get back fit and in form, the sooner we will look a lot better imo
I do think Kulusevski was growing into the game, and plays an important role - but, with the benefit of hindsight, I can understand Ange wanting to have pace on the wings - for exactly the type of goal that was scored.
In fairness, if he "was not even trying" he wouldn't have been in that position to score in the 95th minute. He would have been dawdling by the touchline ready for the final whistle. At least give him props for scoring the winner ffs
This was my point at the time. We could have brought on Son for Kulu and I think it would have been a bad sub. Kulu was clearly significantly growing into the game and was an integral part of our domination of them I felt and bring on Johnson, who has a different skill set, was not a clever move at that point in the game.
Someone on twitter pointed out it was actually joao pedro celebration against us
As I said, stats aren’t everything but we had 16 shots to their 6. We weren’t at our best but daylight robbery is just a massive overreaction. As well as the goals we had Richy and Kulu one on ones, Maddison curling wide in a great position and a few other chances.
Thing is I’m not saying not to make the sub I just think it was too early to take Kulu off. The game was quite physical and Kulu was excellent at using his strength to move the ball up the pitch and retain possession. When he came off we lost that and it showed.
