Benjamin Mendy - 2017/2018 Performances

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While he had a dud cross or two and there appears to be some issues protecting Otamendi on the left of a 3, his crossing in general was superb and consistently stretched the Liverpool back 4 plus he made some very clever runs.

I really like the look of him so far.
 
Offensively he's a tank but defensively he still worries me. He gets caught out of his position way too much and sometimes looks like a headless chicken. Below is only one example of his lack of positional sense. He was supposed to cover Otamendi but almost all the time Salah received the ball Otamendi was left 1on1 with Salah and got absolutely destroyed by him. Only thanks to Salah's shit finishing we didn't go 2-0 down after 20mins. Imagine if it was Arjen Robben on his left foot........

UPRiIid.png
 
Dipsis_LTU_MC said:
He was supposed to cover Otamendi
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Says who?

Pep was standing 10 feet from him and didn't once correct his positioning or bollock him for being out of position. He didn't take any steps to make Mendy more defensive. Walker wasn't doubling up on Mané with Danilo, so who says he was supposed to cover Otamendi?

When has Pep ever had 5 players defending against 2 wingers?

It's a 352. Not a 532.

Mendy has made a mistake in that picture, but it's not failing to drop deep to protect Otamendi more, it's being too far back and giving Alexander-Arnold time and space to play the pass, when he should have been closing him down and in his face like he was most of the rest of the game.
 
Dipsis_LTU_MC said:
Offensively he's a tank but defensively he still worries me. He gets caught out of his position way too much and sometimes looks like a headless chicken. Below is only one example of his lack of positional sense. He was supposed to cover Otamendi but almost all the time Salah received the ball Otamendi was left 1on1 with Salah and got absolutely destroyed by him. Only thanks to Salah's shit finishing we didn't go 2-0 down after 20mins. Imagine if it was Arjen Robben on his left foot........

UPRiIid.png
Click to expand...

On that reckoning we were playing a back 6..

This was an experiment by pep and supposed to pin salah back with where he positioned Mendy. Pep got this wrong, not Mendy, who was under clear instruction to play that role!
 
Zin 'messiah' Zimmer said:
On that reckoning we were playing a back 6..

This was an experiment by pep and supposed to pin salah back with where he positioned Mendy. Pep got this wrong, not Mendy, who was under clear instruction to play that role!
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Don't think it was to push back Salah - it was to push Wijnaldum and Arnold back who are normally ridiculously high up, and gave us better numbers in midfield and left Firmino to Fernandinho and our back 3 vs their 2 wingers.

Mané and Sarah would get behind but in theory the combination of very aggressively sweeping Ederson and a man advantage would be enough no matter how fast - especially if the midfield and forwards pressed well enough to not give players loads of time and space to pick a precise ball over the top.

I still think it worked for the most part - most of those balls down the side that were scaring everyone pushed Salah very, very wide because they were just knocking a ball into that channel, not really picking out a killer pass, and so we always got men back before Firmino and Mané could arrive, which is why they only got 2 shots off from those balls behind us, one of which being the Ederson save.

And those 2 were where we cocked up and gave possession away and they hit us quickly where there was real chance they could score.



IMO this is why Pep didn't change it all through the half, why he didn't pull Mendy back when it was apparent the pattern had emerged - if he was trying to push Salah back like you said, or he wanted him protecting Otamendi by doubling up on Salah like others have said, I think he'd have adjusted once it became apparent what the pattern of the game was.
 
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domalino said:
Says who?

Pep was standing 10 feet from him and didn't once correct his positioning or bollock him for being out of position. He didn't take any steps to make Mendy more defensive. Walker wasn't doubling up on Mané with Danilo, so who says he was supposed to cover Otamendi?

When has Pep ever had 5 players defending against 2 wingers?

It's a 352. Not a 532.

Mendy has made a mistake in that picture, but it's not failing to drop deep to protect Otamendi more, it's being too far back and giving Alexander-Arnold time and space to play the pass, when he should have been closing him down and in his face like he was most of the rest of the game.
Click to expand...

That just saved me a bit of time, great explanation and exactly how I saw it too.
 
Which paper said we had majorly overspend on this player. Laughable.
Needs some work on his defensive positioning but this boy is going to be an absolute gem.
 
fatbloke said:
That just saved me a bit of time, great explanation and exactly how I saw it too.
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We also cocked up our offside trap/defensive line a couple of times at least (like in that picture), can't remember which specific chances it led too, but if we'd got that right Liverpool's threat would have been minimal, despite Mendy being high up the pitch.
 
We don't know what his instructions from Pep were so it's no good saying he was poor defensively- very often WBs are asked to push forward and only defend on occasion.
 
domalino said:
Says who?

Pep was standing 10 feet from him and didn't once correct his positioning or bollock him for being out of position. He didn't take any steps to make Mendy more defensive. Walker wasn't doubling up on Mané with Danilo, so who says he was supposed to cover Otamendi?

When has Pep ever had 5 players defending against 2 wingers?

It's a 352. Not a 532.

Mendy has made a mistake in that picture, but it's not failing to drop deep to protect Otamendi more, it's being too far back and giving Alexander-Arnold time and space to play the pass, when he should have been closing him down and in his face like he was most of the rest of the game.
Click to expand...

domalino said:
Don't think it was to push back Salah - it was to push Wijnaldum and Arnold back who are normally ridiculously high up, and gave us better numbers in midfield and left Firmino to Fernandinho and our back 3 vs their 2 wingers.

Mané and Sarah would get behind but in theory the combination of very aggressively sweeping Ederson and a man advantage would be enough no matter how fast - especially if the midfield and forwards pressed well enough to not give players loads of time and space to pick a precise ball over the top.

I still think it worked for the most part - most of those balls down the side that were scaring everyone pushed Salah very, very wide because they were just knocking a ball into that channel, not really picking out a killer pass, and so we always got men back before Firmino and Mané could arrive, which is why they only got 2 shots off from those balls behind us, one of which being the Ederson save.

And those 2 were where we cocked up and gave possession away and they hit us quickly where there was real chance they could score.



IMO this is why Pep didn't change it all through the half, why he didn't pull Mendy back when it was apparent the pattern had emerged - if he was trying to push Salah back like you said, or he wanted him protecting Otamendi by doubling up on Salah like others have said, I think he'd have adjusted once it became apparent what the pattern of the game was.
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I had several paragraphs written out to respond to earlier assertions Mendy was defensively lackadaisical and then saw these two posts that already explained my tactical analysis... not to waste, I saved them for a blog post this evening. ;-)
 
Neville Kneville said:
His defending was fucking awful tonight but his presence & pace defensively still adds up to more than Kolarov.

Their guy did really well against him & then Sané.
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As much as Keown kept slating their 5 at the back, it lead to just one telling cross all game from our full backs. Excatly where we ripped Liverpool open.
I thought as shit as they were in possession they snuffed out our dangerous full backs.
The addittion of Bernardo meant it was harder for them to stiffle us centrally.

They were poor, but they were not far off tactically. We just moved the ball very quickly, too quickly for them. We also whipped in a few undefenderble crosses and we nodded a few in.
 
schfc6 said:
As much as Keown kept slating their 5 at the back, it lead to just one telling cross all game from our full backs. Excatly where we ripped Liverpool open.
I thought as shit as they were in possession they snuffed out our dangerous full backs.
The addittion of Bernardo meant it was harder for them to stiffle us centrally.

They were poor, but they were not far off tactically. We just moved the ball very quickly, too quickly for them. We also whipped in a few undefenderble crosses and we nodded a few in.
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Yes, it wasn't easy to defend against us tonight. They are getting slaughtered for it they were under constant pressure when we had the ball & constant harrassment when they had it.

The bloke on the line letting it in, was the worst moment for them.
 
I said before he signed that he reminded me of a very fast version of Kolarov. Thankfully he has age on his side to sort out his defensive positioning which is his biggest weakness. He can be amongst the best in his position if he does that as he has everything else you'd want from a wing-back
 
He has only played 3 games?? not many anyway and is learning still,when pep wants him to drop back and defend he will,he is fast enough to get up and down any hows
 
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