Sane against an 11 man defence sat on the edge of their own area however does nothing....
And I was a fan of Sane....
Haaland is desperate for that early ball in behind the defence. He would be buying dinner for Sané every night if the week with the kind of service Sané would be providing him!
We have a CF who likes the ball in behind, which isn’t easy given the 5-3-2 block, so you have to lift the ball looking for him directly or to clean up second balls. Just didn’t do EITHER with any effectiveness yesterday!
The key to these types of games is EXACTLY what Brentford did to us…get the first goal, make the opposition chase the game, then hit them as often as possible once they open up.
Usually, the oppositions soft underbelly is the open spaces it creates for us to exploit. Against us, it’s the commitment of all 10 outfield players inside their last third of the pitch.
As I said earlier, OUR greatest weapon is forcing OUR GAME on other teams. However, early on, Brentford forced THEIR game on us and SHOUKD have had a 3-0 lead in the first 16 minutes!
From there, it was long cross & knock on for the angled runner in behind or the one on one runner with pace playing hit and run with our slower defenders. Their pace caused us problems because we play high risk defence. Yesterday it cost us. Normally it does not,
Our troubles ALWAYS seem to come against the disciplined 11 man defence they can not only press and collapse of we beat that press, but can break out at pace, with rabbits that can hold the ball up or take players on one on one.
It has been this way for years under Pep, but playing the percentages means it has very rarely cost us 3 points. This year, it has made us look a bit slow, stale and at 6s and 7s.
The last thing I will say is that our schedule has been punishing. It hadn’t allowed us to do almost any tactical work, because there is simply no time with a weekend-midweek-weekend schedule due to travel, rest & recovery.
I’m hoping Pep has a fresh idea of two for the Abu Dhabi “mid-season” because we have started to look a bit one dimensional, even with different line ups, because we are facing the same challenge every game, with very little variation. We are becoming very predictable, both in the manner of our attack and the way in which we can be attacked…and teams like Fulham, Brentford and Palace are starting to become OUR most difficult opponents, because they don’t need to attack us, nobody expects them to get a result, and they have the exact same approach, which we struggle against!
Our saving grace over a season is that we usually score first and that creates the need for the opposition to come out at some point. This season, we have conceded first more often than I can ever remember happening.
I am reminded of when Pep had a sticky spell and we got the “Tackles? What is ‘the tackles?’ We do not train for the tackles!” comment.
It is time we did some self-reflection of what we are doing that is not achieving the desired results, and what our difficult opponents are doing that we are struggling to handle.
Lastly, it feels like this is the last iteration of this team and that we are on the verge of a transition…be that with or without Pep.
There is youth on the doorstep, there is age creeping up on s few players and injuries are causing too many reshuffles at times. Our possession is the stuff of legend, but it’s not creating the desired effect. It is no longer smothering and killing teams off with the chances it creates.
Rather, it is creating defensive blocks that are not only holding, but are spring-loaded to attack our soft underbelly…and being far too successful at it!
I’d expect another 2-3 man rotation this summer, with some pace and something a little different being injected into the squad. Grealish was certainly different to the profile, but isn’t being utilized as effectively as he could be, although he does seem like he has upped his game wrt to dribbling and taking on his man, albeit to little effect as yet.
With Gundo looking like he’s leaving and Bernardo apparently wanting to leave, we have major quality required to replace both of them, esp given one gets to walk away for free and will not contribute a penny to the transfer of his replacement.
Here’s hoping Txiki has identified the men and we are already working on the deals, because it will not be cheap!
