The players and Pep were both awful on the day, and I’m honestly not too surprised. Our performances versus Forest, Spurs, and parts of West Ham concerned me, but we managed to get over the line. That being said, Pep made too many changes today. I love Gvardiol, but he’s a centre-back being asked to play as LW and LB in his debut season. Just play Doku/Grealish/ Bobb out there and minimise his responsibilities. It’s so easy to stuff up the middle versus us and force everything out wide with him and Walker out there for large parts.
Conversely, our counter-press is ridiculously easy to play through with KDB and Haaland leading it. KDB is still brilliant but a shell of what he was physically, and Haaland isn’t ‘built’ to press like Alvarez or Jesus was.
Pep could have made more timely and aggressive attacking changes, especially considering we were 2-0 down. The decision to keep on so many defenders seemed unnecessary. Who cares if we go down a third goal? It would have been more effective to have Nunes/Lewis play as a fullback and Bobb come on for Bernardo, for instance—even Rodri, who looked miles off it from the first minute.
Oh, well. You can’t win them all. It’s still been a successful season, as much as it may not feel like it now. I hope that the game shows some just how important Ederson is to everything we do.
