7 | Joao Cancelo - 2022/23 Performances

[samarasra]

I don't get people here. Yes, Ake made a mistake with the long ball, BUT Cancelo's is 100 times worse. As a defender you know that if you make contact that will be a penalty(which is a better chance that what Fulham's player had) + a red card. He has like 3 seconds to make a correct decision and still chooses by far the worst. Imagine that in a QF, SF, F or league deciding game against an elite team and it's game over.

Imagine Pep focuses on his mistakes instead of strengths, and decides not to play him to avoid the fury of our fans. Bye Bye QF, SF, F or League. You won't value our top players till they are on the bench.

 

[supercity88]

Whilst it was a silly challenge, it was a soft penalty and sending off and I don't blame him too much for it. We should be dealing with a goal kick better. Ake wasn't in the right spot to win the first header, then it deflected off him and it was a simple ball through for Wilson who Cancelo was initially tracking but then stopped to try and play him offside but it was too late by the time he started again. If he had have avoided making contact he'd have got his body in the way as Wilson's touch was awful. Ederson probably had the shot covered/blocked as well.

One of those things. He's always going to have his moment defensively, but his creativity from deep has already been match winning for us. There will be moments like Anfield and moments like the ball to Haaland against Dortmund and overall we'll see more of the latter.

 

[kaz7]

What happened to pen or sending off or did i dream that came in for five mins ?

 

[city warrior]

Imagine Pep focuses on his mistakes instead of strengths, and decides not to play him to avoid the fury of our fans. Bye Bye QF, SF, F or League. You won't value our top players till they are on the bench.

What? It's not about thinking Cnacelo is shit. It's about asking him to get better, to think before he makes a very avoidable mistake. You can get dribbled, you can make a bad pass, you can lose a header...but you cannot make mistakes like the ones in Anfield and this one. They are not technical mistakes, they are decisions!! Those mistakes are the ones like Laporte last year against Vinicius, where the defender has 3-5 seconds to decide what to do and they decide the worst possible option. I am not asking him to stop taking risks or to suddenly be Maldini on 1v1. I am asking him to take the right decisions when he has time to think, something that he very rarely makes and should be criticized for.

 

[asahartford1]

What? It's not about thinking Cnacelo is shit. It's about asking him to get better, to think before he makes a very avoidable mistake. You can get dribbled, you can make a bad pass, you can lose a header...but you cannot make mistakes like the ones in Anfield and this one. They are not technical mistakes, they are decisions!! Those mistakes are the ones like Laporte last year against Vinicius, where the defender has 3-5 seconds to decide what to do and they decide the worst possible option. I am not asking him to stop taking risks or to suddenly be Maldini on 1v1. I am asking him to take the right decisions when he has time to think, something that he very rarely makes and should be criticized for.

I think you have spotted that professional footballers are fallible.

 

[mccity]

What happened to pen or sending off or did i dream that came in for five mins ?

It's still a red if you don't make an attempt to win the ball

 

[alexmcity]

Cancelo was the only City player who started all games prior to Sevilla last week. The foul was a (bad) mistake (TAA's was similar yesterday...) , but Cancelo's been played too much since the start of the season, partly because Walker is injured (again this calendar year). Cancelo is fit as fuck, which is a big, big plus, but he's only human and his concentration levels have dropped recently. Pep should rotate him a bit more often. Dias was overplayed in 20/21 and next season was a bit average. Players have their limits.

 

[Metalartin]

I know the letter of the law says you can only be spared the red card, if you're making an attempt to play the ball but isn't that a bit ridiculous when you think about it?

When can a shoulder to shoulder ever be an attempt to play the ball? That's never the intention, it's about challenging for a position to take the ball, once you have the upper hand. I can accept the red if there's consistency(might take a while to find a like for like incident I suppose) but I'm not going to pretend the overall justification for an attempted shoulder to shoulder being viewed less honest/more dangerous than a sliding tackle, makes sense to me. If both end up with the player being taken out. That's what they are essentially saying, with one being deemed a red card and one not. A shirt pull being a red is always deliberate foul play so I get calls like that but this just seems a bit harsh.

He should have just left the player and let him score and I know he's prone to bad decision making but I feel his intentions were obvious there.

I had some Liverpool fan fuming about my opinion that a red was harsh(how dare I) even if I accept it's the letter of the law. This on the basis of players needing to be within playing distance of the ball, if a shoulder to shoulder is to be deemed honest. He argued the attacker was but Cancelo wasn't. I'm not sure this is what the rules say but I humoured him because this isn't what I saw from the replay. I saw Cancelo being close enough to being side on, that he put his left arm infront of the attacker at the first point of contact. The Fulham player instinctively adjusts and gets his right shoulder infront by leaning across to block Cancelo off/not allow him his shoulder. Which is where it all goes wrong for Cancelo.

The closest I've come to finding a rule like that is below. If you are arguing Cancelo isn't within playing distance then you can just as easily argue neither of them are which changes things slightly. I'd argue from the replay, it appears that the Fulham player's kick-on was more to his right than he wanted(so he messed that up, unless he wanted the contact), which took him further into Cancelo's path. If he kicked it on towards his left, he's heading into more space and away from Cancelo's path.

Impeding the progress of an opponent without contact
Impeding the progress of an opponent means moving into the opponent’s path to obstruct, block, slow down or force a change of direction when the ball is not within playing distance of either player.

All players have a right to their position on the field of play; being in the way of an opponent is not the same as moving into the way of an opponent.

A player may shield the ball by taking a position between an opponent and the
ball if the ball is within playing distance and the opponent is not held off with
the arms or body. If the ball is within playing distance, the player may be fairly
charged by an opponent.

Anyway, we move on. Harsh red, soft pen... everyone's happy right? Except Liverpool and Arsenal fans.

Edit: That kind of explains(I think) to me why Haaland's goal the other week was fine too because the player moved into his path to try and slow him down.

 

[Phil1]

I accept his weaknesses and whilst it’s infuriating when they are shown up I still think his positives far outweigh his negatives and he’s a vital cog in the machine. Not had a great few weeks though has to be said.

 

[wolfie1988]

Couple of brainfarts recently against Liverpool and on Saturday but still think some are being harsh on him.