10 | Jack Grealish - 2021/22 Performances

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ninjamonkey said:
The Grealish we've seen at City certainly doesn't run at players, not with any penetration and definitely not more than sterling. Doesn't matter either way though because Pep very clearly instructed our players to prioritise playing balls into the back post tonight, he asked all our wide men to do it, it's not something sterling or foden specialise in but they were doing it, if Grealish was on the pitch, he would have been doing it too. is Grealish significantly better at putting in those balls or getting on the end of those balls than sterling or any of the other forwards? That's the only thing that would have helped us today.

Him winning freekicks doesn't really matter, we had enough freekicks without him winning any and we must have hit double figures with corners for opportunities to put balls into the box for our defenders and it didn't really come close to coming off for us.
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Its a fair argument. His last game he ran at people and won a penalty, but your analysis is reasonable.
 
ninjamonkey said:
What game did you watch? We had over 70% possession, made two and a half times as many passes as they did, we did not lack somebody to keep things ticking over, that's pretty much the only thing we had in abundance. what we lacked was somebody to create an actual clear cut goal scoring opportunity.
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The lacking of goal scoring opportunity is the result of the lack of room. And against a low block you need someone who has the ability to control ball in tight area near/in the box, attract 2-3 defenders, create the mismatch and pass the ball to the unmarked teammate. Grealish and Jesus are good at it. Sterling is also good at it but his passing ability is a bit unstable.

Taking off Sterling - the only person who can create space near/in the box, is crazy.
 
We would need this guy to come back from injury and give something to the team in assists and goals, but it just aint happening with him usually. maybe next year?
 
Damanino said:
We would need this guy to come back from injury and give something to the team in assists and goals, but it just aint happening with him usually. maybe next year?
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Assists there is a great chance, goals don't hold your breath.
 
Yesterday we missed those "pauses" and quiet ball control of Jack...

Sometimes you need something different, than just "direct football", so that you could balance and continue during the whole 90 minutes..

I hope he returns soon..
 
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DATOIA said:
Yesterday we missed those "pauses" and quite ball control of Jack...

Sometimes you need something different, than just "direct football", so that you could balance and continue during the whole 90 minutes..

I hope he returns soon..
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We had plenty of ball control.

What we missed was a better way of breaking them down than whipping aimless crosses into the box.
 
DATOIA said:
That's what I meant under "quiet ball control" and "less direct football"...
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We kept the ball well though, we just didn't know how to break them down which is why we resorted to the crossing. I don't think having Grealish keeping hold of the ball instead of Bernardo, Mahrez or Foden would've made much difference to be honest, we still would've been faced with the same scenario. I think our best way to cause them trouble would've been on the counter but there wasn't much opportunity for that.
 
David El Mago Silva said:
We kept the ball well though, we just didn't know how to break them down which is why we resorted to the crossing. I don't think having Grealish keeping hold of the ball instead of Bernardo, Mahrez or Foden would've made much difference to be honest, we still would've been faced with the same scenario. I think our best way to cause them trouble would've been on the counter but there wasn't much opportunity for that.
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The difference is how many opposite defender you can attract/how much pressue you can absorb for your teammates when you hold the ball. And that is the critical element to break down tight defence.

Sterling/Grealish have the better touches in the box per 90 stats than the rest of the team. Grealish is the best in terms of CPA (carry into box) in PL. Ideally it will be Sterling/Grealish to create overload and attract defenders on the left wing and give Mahrez space to shoot/cross from the right wing.

However Pep made a mistake to replace Sterling with Mahrez.
 

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wattle said:
You don’t have ball control when you give it away time and time again under no pressure. We did that nearly all game. And it’s one thing Jack doesn’t do
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Without Bernardo - we aren't able to make a good build-up - against the high-pressing teams. KDB struggles in small spaces and always looses the ball and Gundo also isn't as good as Bernardo for that task.

If you look at the third goal Tottenham scored, there was complete inability to control / possess the ball when Tottenham started to press and ball was easily lost in the end. That's why if there was a team like Liverpool - who loves to possess the ball as well and high-presses all the time - that midfield would have even more problems. Even against Lyon that was obvious.. So KDB-Gundo duo is complete disaster for that kind of games... But during the 89 minutes it was a different game and that's why I'm not talking about it right now. Tottenham is a counter-attacker team and you don't have build-up problems against them...

As for the Jack - Pep still hasn't used him as a midfielder and we haven't experienced how good is he in that part, but near to the opponent's box - his pauses and extra touches and "slowing down the tempo" movements - help team to relax, defenders and especially Rodri get extra time to prepare for the counter-attack and game becomes less dynamic, more comfortable for City..

Yesterday we had too many "direct football" players.. KDB gets the ball and if there is no space - just crosses without any hesitation :D, Sterling same - especially when he played as a RW first 20 minutes, Gundo, Bernardo played out of his position maybe for the first time this season as a False9 and we had no player on the pitch - who could slow down the tempo..

As a result this high tempo game tired our players as well and defense collapsed.

That's why I don't like high-tempo, entertaining, dynamic games involving City - because that's not the ideal environment for City. It's better when there is low-tempo game, a lot of small passes, tiki-takas and as a result we always win. Just look at the PSG home game - that's how Neymar-Messi-Mbappe trio were defeated and I don't think Harry Kane plus Son - outweighs them in that sense.

If we had played against PSG like that - score would be 6-1 or something.. Low tempo is our environment, that's where we play our best football and I hope Pep will stick to that (especially against the big opponents)..
 
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