Two points that summarise our season were very clearly highlighted by last night’s game.
The first is that, regardless of formation, we have very few players who are capable of playing the way Pellegrini wants them to. I’d argue that only Aguero and Fernandinho fall into this category. The rest either lack quality, work-rate or both. The likes of Silva, Nasri, Yaya, Bony are clearly very good players, but they don’t have the energy, stamina or mentality required for the high press. The likes of Milner, Navas, Jovetic, Fernando, Clichy and Zab can’t be accused of a lack of effort, but their lack of quality often gets highlighted against better sides. We also have the likes of Dzeko, Kolarov and Sagna, to whom both criticisms can be levelled.
I’ve left out the keepers and centre backs because I think we’re looking at different skills, but the result is the same. We have Kompany and Mangala who are physically capable; strong and quick, of playing a high line, but lack the positional intelligence to do so. Then we have Demichelis who whilst intelligent enough, lacks the mobility to make up for any mistakes, which get clearly highlighted in a high line system. With Hart and Caballero, we have one great shot stopper and one good distributor, but we really need both attributes in one keeper.
The second point is that despite having spent nearly two years with these players, Pellegrini doesn’t seem willing to change our approach. Whether this stubbornness is his doing, or he’s been given instruction from above, I don’t know. However, trying to play this high press, high line, intense style of play isn’t working. It worked for the majority of last season because it was new and different, plus for the first half of the season, Negredo fit into the first category with Aguero and Fernandinho. We blew teams away with our goal-scoring, and so conceding 3 at home to Arsenal, or 2 to CSKA didn’t matter. However, this year, we’ve seen teams adapt to our style and frustrate us, our goal tally has plummeted but we’re still conceding goals. It may not be a long term solution but with our Champions League status at risk we need to become more solid, drop the defence deeper and compact the space between the lines and just get the results we need to get us across the line.
Going into next season, we’ll definitely need personnel changes, we need more quality “proper” wide players and we need another dynamic central midfielder. Some big names need to be moved on and we need younger, hungrier players to take their place. I can see us listening to offers for everyone but Aguero, Kompany and Hart. As far as the manager goes, I think he’ll be given next season because we want Pep the year after. However, I can’t see Pep coming, we’re not (and won’t be) ready for him and I think he’ll know that, I can’t see him wanting to risk his reputation for us. I’d like to see us go for someone else this summer because I don’t think we can make enough changes in one summer to have a squad capable of playing the Pellegrini way next season and I can’t see him becoming more pragmatic. I have no real preference, although Klopp’s enthusiasm would be like a breath of fresh air and something I think we as fans could really take to.
