I learned more from today's defeat than from the two pre-season victories so far. Atletico seemed out for revenge for their CL defeat & Simeone took their handbrake off & actually allowed them to play to their ability, & it told.
We started with a 4-4-1-1 formation & the thing that immediately struck me was our lack of width. I've warned about not having a proper overlapping left back & not replacing Mahrez, & we were cruelly exposed because of it.
Foden played wide right, but he didn't seem to want to commit forward, because he was also covering central midfield too. This meant Atletico's LB & LW had little to worry them on their side.
This allowed them to keep pouring forward, pinning Walker back, but in truth Kyle had little ahead of him as an option to pass to anyway. Atletico's Lino looks a real talent & caused us major issues throughout his performance.
In the second half, we seemed more balanced with Gomez & Bobb playing, but the lack of quality they offered quickly told & we offered little in respect to being a sustained danger on Atletico's goal.
Philips again kept playing the safe square or back pass, so offered little to help our forward play. We were so inept at one point, Lewis was shifted from midfield to RB & Cancelo played the inverted role, with no change in fortunes.
If ever there was a match where we needed a Mahrez, Sané or Sterling to threaten a defence & offer something different, it was this match.
We've allowed all of them to leave & as yet replaced none, presumbly hoping that Palmer or Bobb would come good. Well they haven't & neither have shown they have what it takes to step up right now.
We had few answers to the questions posed & became more clueless as the match wore on, & Pep knew it. I noticed he was shown sat on a drinks box away from the bench, deep in thought.
I think he evidently saw what many others did & he didn't like it. Our saving grace is we have 5 weeks to resolve our issues & bring in reinforcements. We've only lost Dog & Riyad, but today it told in respect of midfield control & our attacking threat. As I said with Mahrez, we won't realise what we've lost until he's gone, & today we seriously missed him.
I'd rather these realisations hit us now, than once the season's started & the window's slammed shut. I think we'll be OK once the season starts & we can take KDB into consideration, but there in lies another problem.
I can see KDB's game time being managed next season, but my big worry is what happens when injuries, fatigue, suspensions & loss of form kick in? Today was an insight into what we'd have in reserve if that ever became the case, & I'm sorry but McAtee, Bobb & Palmer aren't up to the standard we need right now.
There's still huge question marks over Gomez & Philips, & the futures of Walker, Cancelo, Bernardo & Laporté. We've potentially got a lot more to resolve squad-wise than many of us may care to admit.
The second half formation kept changing & was baffling me at times, let alone the players. As things stand, we're OK 1-16, but if players start leaving, we get a couple of key injuries & we don't address our LB, RW & LW situations, we could end up being the architects of our own difficulties.
The only positive I gained from today was judging by the look on Pep's face, I think he realises all of this too.
Over to you Pep & Txiki...
