I've found that he'd been sloppy in the opening periods of a few games now. Not quite getting his passing right, not quite making the right decisions but then gradually settling in and becoming a real force. His acceleration with the ball is quite remarkable from what we saw last season. He's really worked on something there, or has confidence in his body now.
Against Chelsea he will be vital. They come flying out to press and will do the same against us, so a quick turn from Ilkay could instantly see us get through that and create chances and score goals. In the FA Cup we didn't manage to get through their press enough and they were happy to let us pass from side to side before pouncing and counter attacking. I don't see their tactics in the final being any different. But our lineup will be quite changed from that game and we should be able to play through them.
We just need to ensure we don't have a nervous start where we give the ball away through poor passes in the wrong areas. It tends to be in the central areas when we are passing out from the back that we can go wrong. A ball into the middle from wide being under/over hit, or Gundogan/Rodri/Ferny taking a little bit too long to release the ball. The benefit is we defend pretty well as a unit when in that position. Their goal against us was purely down to Steffen wrongly coming out of his goal and giving them it on a plate.
