You watched the 2nd? Same guy who made many mistakes in the 1sf was impossible to press in the second and made some of key tackles after being left for dead by Pulisic and Ziyech on separate occasions in the 1st.U watch that first half? Agree with some of your points yes, but he’s out of his depth in this league. Luckily our defence has improved dramatically
Good post mate. I was critical of his performances early season and it could be he was still trying to build fitness. He must be just about first name on the team sheet now though. Thought he was brilliant yesterday at the base of our midfield. Bloody hell though what a midfield performance that was in general. At times I thought we had seven or eight midfielders with Cancelo, Zinchenko and Foden all contributing significantly to wonderful performances by Gundo, Bernie and Kev. We must be an absolute nightmare to play against.Sure it doesn't tell you everything. No one ever said it did. People are watching the same player and reaching different conclusions. I.e the very information you possess ( i.e. your eyes) I possess that too. Yet we've come to different conclusions about the same player.
Thus, stats suggesting he passes more into the final 1/3 of the field than any other player in the Prem, simply supports one impression of the player
The thing stat does better than our eyes is skip bias. It doesn't overrate the on missed pass here and underrate the quick pass that opened play there. It simply documents.
I would bet my mortgage you didn't know he passed more into the final 3rs than anyone else in Prem. These kind of stats that contradicts ones perception should cause one to pause and re-examine. Not simply dismiss by claiming a straw man no one ever argued.
Here's a thought though, for someone who's so shit at getting goalside or chasing down, we sure are conceding fewer goals than we ever have and fewer chances than we ever did. Why is that? I mean we apparently have an incompetent guy at DM, who leads all leagues in pass completion and leads the Prem in passes into the final third. Sure, he probably is missing passing to the right guy, and taking less risk to pass his stat. And 'some' of our eyes say he is so slow and is never goalside once beaten. Yet we give up so little.
If nothing else, there must be something special about a player who is so incompetent, that he makes everyone else around him work harder than they ever have to cover both his deficiencies and theirs. So much so that they are defending better now than they ever did when they had better players at his and other positions
That surely is an argument some seem to be making. And there certainly are no stats for that. :)
When Chelsea stopped pressing him and the game slowed down, he played well.
But that says everything you need to know about him.
When pressed he can’t play, he’s far too easy to close down and force mistakes out of. When the games fast he can’t keep up, he’s too easy to get past.
He’s a good player, I don’t not rate him.Well, stats show he is one of the most press resistant players in the whole league. Why did Chelsea stop pressing him? Why don't the other teams take advantage of his weaknesses more often then? Because you can't press like that more than 20 minutes. Real were quite good at pressing last season and didn't trouble Rodri in both legs.
It's naive to think we have now the best defence in Europe despite Rodri. He is generally very solid in possession and has most completed passes in the final 3rd. There's a reason Pep plays Rodri and Dias all the time. Both are key to the new team he is building.
Yep, the way we play, we have to accept that a player in Rodri's position will be pressed very hard. It's on Rodri's shoulders to hold his own when the press comes. Rodri couldn't do that until Chelsea stopped.He’s a good player, I don’t not rate him.
He has shown though that when he’s been out under pressure, he struggles. Take two recent examples; Southampton away and Chelsea last night - both team started with busy midfields and he looked out of his depth in the first half hour of both games. Then when both teams dropped off (Chelsea’s heads dropped, thought their attitude from going 2-0 down was a bit of a disgrace, concerns for Lampard there!) their pressing, Rodri shined.
He has shown though that when he’s been out under pressure, he struggles.
They wouldn't. The reason they managed to catch him on the ball is because they massively overcommitted to pressing him and killing his passing options. That partially worked because they managed to win possession back, but then all of their players were out of position and we won it back.
After 20 minutes he worked them out and they suddenly looked like they were a player or 2 down when he passed through the press.