My concern is that squeaking a few results has inflated our current position and papered over cracks that are becoming fissures.
One thing I would note is that our transfer business has not been up to snuff for the last few years. The likes of Phillips, Nunes, Kovacic and Doku have been expensive and peripheral, at best, to date. When we talk about players that would improve us, it’s the likes of Wirtz, Musiala…players that have a built-in starting position in the team…yet we have bought expensive squad players. In fact, Savinho is the only big signing we have made recently that has created any serious excitement and looks like they are a big time player, even though Doku and Nunes have shown flashes and Kova has been a steady Eddie in midfield and thank fuck we’ve had him!
Another thing is that Pep’s attacking philosophy requires almost perfection to achieve the results that we all crave. As we have seen, we are brilliant at bringing the ball, and the entire team, into the last third, but from there we faff about for minutes on end. Shuffle left, shuffle right, nope, back to the left, nope, back to the right….
Now, I understand there are often 18 players in there, but if we can’t generate a chance, a shot or a cross out of all the faffing about, then what’s the point?
I might get pilloried for even pointing it out, but Fergie’s United were masters of this for a decade. They pushed it wide and put it across, retrieve the out ball and recycled it. It was constant pressure, constant chances, all just waiting for a mistake, a loose ball, a deflection…and a goal.
We are a “play to feet” team. I get it. We are technically quite brilliant, and can often move teams around to create space. Brilliant! But where there is NO SPACE? What then?
Pep loves to talk about the 11 behind the ball, Erling has three on him and two in front. OK, that’s 5, so where are OUR open men?! Well, they’re the 5 shuttling ball from left to right!
Instead, we should be dropping a player like Foden OUT of the box and pushing a player like Dias, Stones, Akanji INTO the box. Not only does that give us more height in the box, but it replaces a non-shooting defender with a midfielder with an excellent outside shot AND a killer pass in him, if he sees it!
We also have 4 wingers who need to understand that not every cross has to go 8 ft in the air. A good attacking cross at 4-6 feet in a nightmare for defenders, because it’s neither here nor there, it is mid-body and arm height, and there’s almost nothing they can do to defend it with their feet OR head. So, drive a few balls in. See if there’s a deflection, feed off the chaos, and if it does drop it has as much chance of dropping for us as them.
Leave a Rico deep and play 9 vs 11, because they’re playing a zonal shell at that point and our movement and willingness to put the ball in the mix is their worst nightmare. When they hoof it clear, have Rico sweep it up and recycle it!
In short, we MUST do something different because we are struggling to beat teams who come to play 11 defenders and break on us AND the teams who aggressively pressure us and don’t give us the time to build up to the last third. What’s left???
