Lack of pace on the wings

Won’t be a bad thing, once everybody get used to Mr Haaland being up there and we go quickly through the middle. It’ll take a while as we’re used to working it out wide from a couple of seasons of having no out and out striker but you could see yesterday on 3-4 occasions Haaland’s movement was great and when everybody gets going outwide pace will hopefully long be forgotten!
 
Gus Fring said:
Won’t be a bad thing, once everybody get used to Mr Haaland being up there and we go quickly through the middle. It’ll take a while as we’re used to working it out wide from a couple of seasons of having no out and out striker but you could see yesterday on 3-4 occasions Haaland’s movement was great and when everybody gets going outwide pace will hopefully long be forgotten!
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I’ll probably get murdered but he currently suits the dippers’ style more than ours. We need to learn and adapt now we’ve got him… and I’m sure we will.
 
Manchester_lalala said:
I don’t necessarily think it’s pace, we just need more direct players in certain games. Jesus and Foden on the wings against Liverpool at the Etihad pinned back Arnold and Robertson. Grealish and Mahrez on the wings in open games isn’t dangerous enough.
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It’s not but the games that almost cost us last season were Southampton, Spurs and Palace. 3 points in 18 against them 3. That’s where Haaland comes into a play. A match winner like Aguero was. Grealish does need to step up though this season. He was average last season.
 
None of our wingers are exactly slow, but they don't have either Sane's lightning pace or Sterling's burst of acceleration.

But Mahrez has some of the best close control of any current player anywhere, Foden has plenty of trickery, and Grealish has his changes of pace and direction. Alvarez, Palmer and anyone else we might consider playing on either wing also have their own ways of getting out of tight situations and past defenders.

Of course pace is important. But it's just one of many important attributes and it seems the players we have are the ones with the balance of skills Pep wants.
 
It depends who you play. Some teams are suited better to play against us how they break or if they have enough quality to defend against our passing build up play. In the prem over all the games our style of play has shown to get the most points although there's always gonna be a few games it doesn't quite work out. So to win the league we're better suited to stick at what we do.

The CL is a different issue. Let's say we get Liverpool in a knockout game. Our style of play can often be found out against a scintillating midfield and attack with quality in defense who will work like their next inhaler prescription depends on it. What do you do? Go toe to toe? It won't suit us if we don't usually play that way. Go all out Mourinhio? Again, won't work if you don't usually play like that. So you do the Barca against Utd in the CL final they took the piss. Complete possession. But you often get the feeling that leads to chances missed or no chances then done on the counter.

So you get someone like Haaland, Alverez. And you play the same way but you have that bullet available now. You pull that trigger and all of a sudden that possession football pays off because you've got the same bullet the counter attacking teams have but you've got more control over the game.
 
bavarian blue said:
Erling missed two sitters but Liverpool defenders missed Erling. Something to work on.
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Exactly. If you were training a boxer and watched him fight against a fitter opponent you wouldn't be concerned if he didn't land a knock out blow you'd be pleased he shown the potential to land those blows knowing at full fitness he's going to knock the fuck out of a lot of people.
 
Pace is something we've lacked since Sane left and Sterling stopped taking on his fullback. I can see Haaland finding it much different with us. Dortmund were a counter attacking team whereas we tend to have a possession slower build up style. Finding room in the PA packed full of defenders won't be easy for him. We will most likely have to change our style and let the opposition have more possession so we can break quickly ourselves. It's certainly going to be interesting to see it develop and it's possible we could give up some early points till we find a rhythm.
 
invisibleandalone said:
I don't remember Stirling ever being devastating on the break even though he did have devastating pace
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He was devastating when he was off ball during the counter. Against liv there were like 2 counters where we slowed down because Grealish didn’t have the pace.
I don’t know how people can say that Pace isn’t necessary when literally every top club has pacey wingers. Mahrez is fine he will always score and assist but the combo Grealish + Mahrez is too slow and too predictable in my eyes. Foden + Alvarez were much more intense even tho they ain’t Sané/Sterling quick either.
 
King Jay said:
He was devastating when he was off ball during the counter. Against liv there were like 2 counters where we slowed down because Grealish didn’t have the pace.
I don’t know how people can say that Pace isn’t necessary when literally every top club has pacey wingers. Mahrez is fine he will always score and assist but the combo Grealish + Mahrez is too slow and too predictable in my eyes. Foden + Alvarez were much more intense even tho they ain’t Sané/Sterling quick either.
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Tbf, we created better chances before Foden and Alvarez were subbed in. I also prefer Foden and Alvarez for their energy and willingness to help in defence (and predicted in the Alvarez thread weeks ago that we might use Alvarez, Haaland and Foden as our front 3 in some big games), but we weren't worse creatively or defensively wise before their appearance on the pitch the other day. We had a bad day at the office. On another day, we score 4 goals from those chances.
 
Lauz9888 said:
None of our wingers are exactly slow, but they don't have either Sane's lightning pace or Sterling's burst of acceleration.

But Mahrez has some of the best close control of any current player anywhere, Foden has plenty of trickery, and Grealish has his changes of pace and direction. Alvarez, Palmer and anyone else we might consider playing on either wing also have their own ways of getting out of tight situations and past defenders.

Of course pace is important. But it's just one of many important attributes and it seems the players we have are the ones with the balance of skills Pep wants.
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They're slow , at least by professional athletes standards. Cutting back all the time makes us slower still . Only genuine pace we have is walker, the runs he makes are the sort that our wingers should be capable of. If they'd rip it across first time it mightn't matter so much.
 
We were already looking cumbersome compared tp previous seasons then we ripped all the pace out of the side in the transfer window. Jesus sale was a big mistake IMO + we should have gone for a Sane like winger.
Hope we can pull it out of the bag but Grealish really needs to step up.
 
(Just got these from Google so haven't had chance to cross reference any figures...).

Top recorded speeds.

Foden 37.12 kph
Haaland 36.00 kph
Sane 35.48 kph
Walker 35.21 kph
Grealish 35.1 kph
Sterling 34.97 kph
Jesus 33.3 kph
Mahrez 32.00 kph

In terms of top speed our current wing options (I couldn't find a figure for Alvarez unfortunately) are up there with the players we've lost.

Walker doesn't just have pace, he also has space to run into because he's a defender, and the stamina to run up and down the pitch all day.

Sterling doesn't just have pace, he also has incredible short distance bursts of acceleration.

Sane doesn't just have pace, when he played for us he also had midfielders looking to ping balls to him early, so he could run at goal without hitting heavy defensive traffic.

We need to play in a way that benefits the skills our current wingers have in addition to pace, and what they have over the Sterling/Sane partnership is close control, accurate passing and strength on the ball. They're built for getting through defences, not bypassing them.
 
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Cityinmyheart said:
Well Mahrez and Grealish are no Robben and Ribery pace wise. Foden is quick but not Sane quick. We saw how much Vunicious troubled us with his pace in CL last year. With Sterling gone dont know how we will switch to quick transition from defense to attack that we did in the centurion season.
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Mahrez relies on pure skill, slow CBs can outrun him in a straight line dash for the ball. Grealish has some pace but rarely uses it. Phil is seriously rapid. But talking about pace, it's about how quick you are with the ball at your feet.
 
Sterling was the only winger we had with electric pace and he didn’t start in most of big games last season or seemingly effect how we played most of the time.

Would start foden, Grealish, Alvarez, mahrez over him any day. It’s not as if they are slow either
 
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