My concern at the moment is that we just look much less of a team than we usually do, even if we are still unbeaten.
I can accept that our style of play was always going to change with Haaland coming in to the team, but we seem to have aggravated this disruption by making a load of other changes to our play which just don’t seem to be working at the moment.
For a kick off, Walker has clearly been told to play more centrally this year and get more involved in the build-up. So far this hasn’t worked and we’ve looked more vulnerable as a result, particularly against Newcastle.
Meanwhile Gundogan and De Bruyne are playing incredibly high, and don’t show much inclination to drop deep and help Rodri out. We are trying to use Haaland as a diversion and get Gundogan behind the defence, and it almost worked today. But I would question whether he has the legs to do this now, and given how high De Bruyne is playing, we’re now effectively playing with a one man midfield most of the time. This lack of numbers in midfield has been made worse by playing Bernado so far wide, and again I think this failed badly today as he was hardly in the game in the first half.
The other observation is that Foden is playing a bit deeper this year, and playing it back much more often, whereas I think he’s best playing at the very top of the pitch and attacking the space. He is in poor form at the moment, undoubtedly, but I don’t think all the changes around him have helped.
I do wonder whether losing Lillo as Pep’s assistant in the summer is going to be a bit more of a loss than has been acknowledged. He was obviously a bit of an enigma, particularly as he didn’t speak a word of the Queen’s, but so far we’ve looked shaky at the back and less cohesive as a team, and we did improve significantly defensively when he was appointed.
