10 | Jack Grealish - 2021/22 Performances

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applejuice said:
This is my own opinion. Happy to discuss. But I think that it is more about the preferred foot. Grealish competed with Sterling on the left wing, not Foden.

Foden is left footed. He is a traditional left winger - left foot on left wing. Grealish is an inverted left winger - right foot on the left wing. So Foden has no crossing problem playing with Cancelo. B

Same thing happened in England when Southgate played Foden on the right wing. Since England's right back rarely overlapped as well- Foden looked not as good as he did for City usually.


Thus it is actually not fair to say that Grealish takes Foden's time because they are not the same kind. It is more fair to say Grealish takes Sterling's time on the left wing. Because they are the primary inverted left winger in the squad. Foden and Stones invited and persuaded Grealish to join City when they played in England last year.

When Pep wants a traditional winger on the left side to cross, he picks Foden (for example Liverpool, Man utd). Because these team have problem of protecting the space behind (Liverpool high line and Man utd laughable defending)

Chelsea is very very good at protecting the space behind. Even if you put a lovely cross like Foden/Grealish/Sterling did several times yesterday. Chelsea defenders would make sure other City players not on a better position than them. So the crossing were not that dangerous as it looked to the audience. You would find all better positions were taken by Chelsea defenders first. Unless we have a very good striker who is physically strong enought to be able to get to the better position facing Chelsea CBs - those crossing are likely to end up with nothing.

On the other side, Man utd poor defenders are not well trained. Even they tried to play 5 persons defending like Chelsea, they did not really know where the city players were when we attacked in waves. So they would either hurry to try to clear the ball and resulted in worse situation like own goal when we crossed - or forgot to clear the ball and resulted in Bernado's goal.

Pep played an inverted left winger on the left wing facing Chelsea. The main task was gaining as much as attention - rather than crossing. Thus an inverted wing back who could cut inside - suited the best. Kante had to move to protect Azp to provent the cutting inside route. If a traditional winger was played there, Rudiger would protect the space behind and you cannot tire Rudiger out in 90min.

Thus we saw that Grealish and Cancelo played all their slow tricks on the left wing. Kante rushed there to help AZP. Then Kovacic had to move to the central. Grealish/Cancelo would only pass the ball back to Rodri when they saw Kovacic made the move. Then we shifted the ball to the right and let Sterling run quickly at Alonso. Kovacic had to run back to protect Alonso and Sarr. Time after times Kovacic burnt out - made an error in the 1st half and gave us a golden chance (Grealish SHOULD put it in the net). Then in the 2nd half, Kovacic and Kante were even more slower and Kovacic tracked back way too slow to protect the central space and KDB shot comfortably. Pep's master plan won again.

Pep played a very similar plan in CL final. Deployed an inverted left winger - Sterling. However the problem was on the right side it was Mahrez - an inverted winger. Thus Chelsea defenders did not need to move and rotate that much. You need to have an inverted winger + a natural winger to play this trick. Thus in the following 2 games, Pep used Grealish + Jesus and Grealish + Sterling. And it worked well for us. Given Mahrez was away, there were only Sterling/Jesus available on the right wing, both natural winger. Thus it had to be Grealish to start on the left. IF Grealish was still with covid, I guess Pep perhaps started Jesus on the left + Sterling on the right.

It is not about who is better - but who is more suitable.
Click to expand...
Great analysis.
 
simon23 said:
I wouldn't disagree on Kdb...upto a few weeks ago...he has been getting his form back however.

It's not totally a new job either...different but not totally different
Click to expand...
When I was thinking about writing that, I was thinking about just changing employer rather than changing to a different career.
 
alexmcity said:
He does, he's much better than Mahrez at keeping the ball under pressure, and that's a huge quality for a Pep team. Few attacking players in the world are as good at keeping possession in the final 3rd as Grealish. That's why he was signed, imo. He lacks confidence to try more ambitious (creative) moves, but it will come, probably already this season.
Click to expand...
What we know of Grealish from Villa is that he's potentially world class in 3 aspects.

1) Ball retention (and in turn foul winning)
2) Ball progression (in the rugby sense)
3) Key Passes and Throughballs

We've seen a lot of 1 and 2 so far. Unfortunately they are not very obvious in a team like City and can be boring to talk about. But check the stats and he's excelling on those fronts.

We've only seen 3 sporadically, but that's what happens when you're new to a team and play a lot of parked buses. But once that clicks people's opinions will change dramatically.


We saw it with Gundogan. He did all the right things, but it was only once he started scoring did people notice. Same with Rodri, he did a lot right but people only gave him credit when he started visibly winning more tackles. It's fairly similar to Mahrez, Jesus, and Sterling too.


Grealish is clearly doing more right than wrong which is why he's playing. And to agree with your point further, the talent is obviously there.
 
Brightwell Bros. said:
Not only did he not just put a shift in pressing wise a long with the whole of the front three, but in the first half he got in behind Chelsea a couple of times (as Cox in the Atlhetic illustrates), making a few half chances in the process, and in the second half he ran at defences and made trouble that way, including a great chance that Aguero or any top number 9 would have gladly been on the end of. I think there are a few criticisms you can make of him, but like you say making stuff up isn't helpful.
Click to expand...
He failed to press on several occasions. We were lop sided at times with an easy out for Chelsea. Watch again, he hung back while the others busted a gut. He is either slow in pace (which has surprised me) or slow in thought or both. Pressing is an aspect I hope he improves.
Tracking back was better but still slow to get back and not always sure what to do when the ball fell to him. Some nice passes and a couple of runs but still no gasp moments all season like we get from some players. There are times Silva, Sterling, KDB, Mahrez and Foden have regularly lit up a match with wonderous play.
He does need time. My worry is he lacks the basic speed of thought to apply his obvious skills to best effect. Time will tell. Still waiting, which is disappointing. He should have been our first superstar branded player. Now he looks more like an expensive (but maybe necessary) cog in the machine.
 
applejuice said:
This is my own opinion. Happy to discuss. But I think that it is more about the preferred foot. Grealish competed with Sterling on the left wing, not Foden.

Foden is left footed. He is a traditional left winger - left foot on left wing. Grealish is an inverted left winger - right foot on the left wing. So Foden has no crossing problem playing with Cancelo. B

Same thing happened in England when Southgate played Foden on the right wing. Since England's right back rarely overlapped as well- Foden looked not as good as he did for City usually.


Thus it is actually not fair to say that Grealish takes Foden's time because they are not the same kind. It is more fair to say Grealish takes Sterling's time on the left wing. Because they are the primary inverted left winger in the squad. Foden and Stones invited and persuaded Grealish to join City when they played in England last year.

When Pep wants a traditional winger on the left side to cross, he picks Foden (for example Liverpool, Man utd). Because these team have problem of protecting the space behind (Liverpool high line and Man utd laughable defending)

Chelsea is very very good at protecting the space behind. Even if you put a lovely cross like Foden/Grealish/Sterling did several times yesterday. Chelsea defenders would make sure other City players not on a better position than them. So the crossing were not that dangerous as it looked to the audience. You would find all better positions were taken by Chelsea defenders first. Unless we have a very good striker who is physically strong enought to be able to get to the better position facing Chelsea CBs - those crossing are likely to end up with nothing.

On the other side, Man utd poor defenders are not well trained. Even they tried to play 5 persons defending like Chelsea, they did not really know where the city players were when we attacked in waves. So they would either hurry to try to clear the ball and resulted in worse situation like own goal when we crossed - or forgot to clear the ball and resulted in Bernado's goal.

Pep played an inverted left winger on the left wing facing Chelsea. The main task was gaining as much as attention - rather than crossing. Thus an inverted wing back who could cut inside - suited the best. Kante had to move to protect Azp to provent the cutting inside route. If a traditional winger was played there, Rudiger would protect the space behind and you cannot tire Rudiger out in 90min.

Thus we saw that Grealish and Cancelo played all their slow tricks on the left wing. Kante rushed there to help AZP. Then Kovacic had to move to the central. Grealish/Cancelo would only pass the ball back to Rodri when they saw Kovacic made the move. Then we shifted the ball to the right and let Sterling run quickly at Alonso. Kovacic had to run back to protect Alonso and Sarr. Time after times Kovacic burnt out - made an error in the 1st half and gave us a golden chance (Grealish SHOULD put it in the net). Then in the 2nd half, Kovacic and Kante were even more slower and Kovacic tracked back way too slow to protect the central space and KDB shot comfortably. Pep's master plan won again.

Pep played a very similar plan in CL final. Deployed an inverted left winger - Sterling. However the problem was on the right side it was Mahrez - an inverted winger. Thus Chelsea defenders did not need to move and rotate that much. You need to have an inverted winger + a natural winger to play this trick. Thus in the following 2 games, Pep used Grealish + Jesus and Grealish + Sterling. And it worked well for us. Given Mahrez was away, there were only Sterling/Jesus available on the right wing, both natural winger. Thus it had to be Grealish to start on the left. IF Grealish was still with covid, I guess Pep perhaps started Jesus on the left + Sterling on the right.

It is not about who is better - but who is more suitable.
Click to expand...

Excellent post that mate - really enjoyed reading your take on our tactics against Chelsea.
 
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