Our attack - what's off?

Nonsense,while another quality striker is needed,Jesus is plenty capable.

The problem lies elsewhere,as ive mentioned above.
I'm afraid whilst Jesus may well be capable he is no where near consistent enough and i do not think he has shown enough over the last few years to be considered a replacement for Aguero if such a thing even exists. Good backup striker but far too hit and miss.
 
Two injured strikers, Sterling off the boil completely, KdB as the player supposedly creating 'million' chances hit rock bottom of his form, Merlin doesn't live here anymore, Riyad and Bernardo turned into pure luxury players playing futsal in their own world (what does Bernardo actually do in our team, anybody's guess?), Foden is like an atom, he is here/he is not here, Gundogan is not able to stay near the box where he is able to do something, because he's been constantly dragged back to sort out things when we are pressed, counter attack became a far fetched idea like universal basic income, we all know it would sort out a few things, but we are unable to execute it, Pep and his system being incompatible with any possibility we actually shoot on goal from further than 8 yards and so on....
It took 4 pages for a Bluemooner to note the biggest hindrance that we have been missing our main two strikers.

Another factor is our lack of aerial threat at set pieces that could earn us a few more soft goals.
 
This is being debated in various different threads and I thought it deserves its own one. We've been known as one of the best, if not THE best, attacking side in the premier over the last few seasons. However last year we saw our attack stutter at certain times and it seems that trend has continued into this season. We are still more than capable of beating a poor side by 4 or 5 goals on our day but against the more organised and better teams we seem to falter. Arguably Liverpool and Chelsea now seem more clinical in attack than us.

So why is that? Why do we seem devoid of ideas going forward? Why have we lost our fluidity and dynamism? Is it fitness? Player injuries disrupting our forward three? Have teams become accustomed in how to defend against us? Or is it something else?

Thoughts blues.
Our defence was a shambles meaning we had to score 3 to win so we bought Dias and changed to a more cautious approach which means we create far less chances but play less expressive football. I preferred the previous way but you can’t have it both ways I suppose. I just think we could still use the current tactic with only one of Rodri/gunda playing and still be tight. Maybe that’ll happen when pep gets over his gundog and Rodri playing together obsession. Anyway we’ll score for fun in January when Lionel comes ;))
 
Pep is trying to achieve a better balance between defence and attack. We are looking much more solid at the back but doing that has reduced creativity a bit. This will improve over time. We are taking less risks, yesterday was proof of that. We could have played a midfield of Bernardo, Foden, and KDB..but we probably would have lost.
I think this strategy is 100 per cent the correct approach and will bring us more trophies, possibly even the Champions League. We can all judge at the end of the season but, for now, I remain confident. More than ever before this season is a marathon not a sprint.
 
Foden is either the David Silva replacement or he's not?

Pep must start him every week if he is and drop one of Rodri or Gundo, or the team will continue to get fewer looks at goal because the entire onus is on KDB to unpick the lock.

Sterling has no triangle to link inside with on the edge of the 18-yard-box, so he drives inside and tries to get a shot off.

Silva would always make sure there could be a join up.
 
Whole host of issues, most of them covered.
Losing Silva obviously - not just his ability to pick a pass, but also, probably more so, his skill at getting into space ahead of the ball.
Sterling playing on the left is also a major factor - irrespective of what he himself might think, he’s far more effective for us from the right, where his movement is world class and he can properly stretch teams. Saw it in the champions league game the other week - baffling that he‘s still on the left. Generally, we have nowhere near enough dynamic ((c) Mark Hughes) movement ahead of the ball.
Overall setup/shape is an issue. Too much emphasis now on the fullbacks to provide attacking width outside the ‚inverted‘ wingers. Cancelo is obviously a (very) decent player going forward, but even he doesn‘t pose a sustained attacking threat. Huge gaps between centre halves, fullbacks and the midfield makes us much less effective both in terms of winning the ball back and moving it quickly. For all his very obvious limitations, we still look a better team with Zinchenko at left back, tucking into midfield with Rodri/Gundogan. Gives us more control, and allows the left-sided ‚no. 8‘ to play much higher up the pitch - which in turn means we‘re not so reliant on absolutely everything going through De Bruyne.
And add in the various injuries, tiredness and struggles with form ...
 
Simple answer. Fernandinho.

He used to whip the front five left and right, like Messala driving his horses onward in Ben Hur, and if anyone did manage to beat the initial press he'd be on hand himself to shove a serrated hub cap through their spokes and ride his chariot over their broken bodies for good measure. That dynamism is completely absent from both Gunders and Plodri, who play everything sideways and backwards, who never feature in the opposition penalty area, and who don't have the legs to get back and cover if we lose possession (I lost count of the times that Salah dropped 10 yards off Dias and Laporte yesterday and was able to receive the ball and turn without any City midfielder being within 5 light years of him. It was bloody painful to watch. The fact that there are 2 of them as well (Rodri & Gundog) means we are always short-handed going forward and that our attacking players find themselves isolated. How Pep doesn't see it is beyond me. 2nd half once the tempo slowed down they were fine, but that first 30 minutes was an absolute shambles and we were lucky not to be 2 or 3 goals adrift

Absolute nonsense.

How many times have we played Liverpool and been battered for the opening 20 minutes with Fernandinho in the side? The answer is certainly not zero.

Making out that Fernandinho in his prime would magically fix all our problems is hopefully at best and to think 36 year old Fernandinho would do it is just delusional.
 

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