Their first goal was just a simple through ball for a pre rehearsed routine. High line, time the run correctly and they are through. Even worse the second runner (the scorer) was 4 to 5 yards in front of our 'chasing' defenders. The high line with a slow defence is suicidal and is absolutely killing us. When we played Liverpool they just hit the ball over our defence towards the corner flags and beat us to it time after time.
Our midfield of Gundo, Kovacic, Foden and sometimes an overworked Lewis was also slow and lacked height and power. We need some muscle.
Grealish played well I thought and Bernardo ideally needs a real rest to recharge.
Haaland: He doesn't make his own goals, he is not great at link up play and he is not the hardest of workers. However he is a great goalscorer given the chances. The way we play is just not compatible with his strengths and it is a wonder he has done so well. We need to either change our style or change our striker.
Pep: I think he needs to accept that his tika taka tactics have been rumbled by teams just sitting back and waiting to break very, very fast when given the opportunity. Villa today had deliberately targeted our slow high line defence and so will/does everyone else. In some games, just high energy attacks for 10 minutes overwhelms us. It's a tough, tough ask to change heartfelt tactics at the end of your career but he will need to innovate and come up with tactics that do not end up with us passing the ball around a packed penalty area whilst Haaland is marked by two huge centre backs.
