Our attack - what's off?

[goater1985]

I've only read a few pages but I've noted Sterling is clearly not good enough and Jesus cant be relied upon???? Am i missing something?

Well that's put them up for sale and see which teams deem them not good enough or reliable.

For me the problem lies at the double pivot, I'm far from a tactical genius but i find the double pivot encourages a lot more sideways passing between CB's and holding mid, then Gundogan sits just floating waiting to play it simple or chip an attempted ball forward (think Gundogan is an excellent footballer btw but doenst effect the game enough)

We need more running (Foden), drive (Foden), creativity (Foden), movement (Foden) & goal threat who goes beyond the striker (Foden). Remove Gundo and find someone to do the above. And get sterling on the right.

Oh and our two main strikers have been injured, doesnt help.

We will be fine and be there or thereabouts at the end of season. We will score goals again i do believe and its great to see us have a backline that looks as though can be relied upon for the majority of the time.

 

[simon23]

our midfield when it contains both Rodri and Gundogan together - completely nullifies our attack and slows it down

neither gundogan or Rodri (esp) are creative -lots of ball retention with sideways and backwards passes - Gundogan occasionally tries something but not often..

These two are now our biggest issue and they affect the team both creatively and defensively

Inverted wingers are an issue with no pace outside to stretch the pitch and make it wider....players always coming inside into heavy traffic and packed defences.

Liverpool played a front 4 against us - direct quick players all of them supported by Henderson and GW who are both extremely mobile and box to box players - compare that to the two we have.

This should be our starting 11/shape

Ederson

Back 4

Rodri or Gundogan (BUT NOT BOTH)

KDB plus one of B. Silva or Foden

front 3 (not B.sliva wide on the right and preferably not Mahrez). A front 3 containing any of the following :G. Jesus, Kun, Torres, Sterling

For me our best 11 (in a one off game) definitely contains the following

------------------Ederson----------------

Walker-------Dias---- ----Laporte--------- Ake/Cancello

--------------------Rodri/Ferna-------------------------------

------------KDB------------ B.Sliva/Foden----

Sterling/Torres -----Aguero/Jesus------- Jesus/Torres

Mahrez and Gundogan dont get anywhere near a best starting 11 imho especialy against eh likes of Liverpool, Spurs, Chelski, Utd, Leicester

 

[OB1]

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.

I don't believe Pep will play both Rodri and Gundo together regularly, at least not in the longer term. There are games where they will feature where he is more concerned about control of the game, like yesterday and perhaps UCL.

Against weaker English sides, he will put a more attacking central midfielder in i.e. Bernie or Phil.

He's not simply going to pitch Phil in every game or just play him in one role.

 

[bugsyblue]

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 ;))

I don't think answers why we seem devoid of ideas sometimes when we attack. We just don't have the synergy, fluidity or clinical touch we once had.

 

[OB1]

I've only read a few pages but I've noted Sterling is clearly not good enough and Jesus cant be relied upon???? Am i missing something?

Well that's put them up for sale and see which teams deem them not good enough or reliable.

For me the problem lies at the double pivot, I'm far from a tactical genius but i find the double pivot encourages a lot more sideways passing between CB's and holding mid, then Gundogan sits just floating waiting to play it simple or chip an attempted ball forward (think Gundogan is an excellent footballer btw but doenst effect the game enough)

We need more running (Foden), drive (Foden), creativity (Foden), movement (Foden) & goal threat who goes beyond the striker (Foden). Remove Gundo and find someone to do the above. And get sterling on the right.

Oh and our two main strikers have been injured, doesnt help.

We will be fine and be there or thereabouts at the end of season. We will score goals again i do believe and its great to see us have a backline that looks as though can be relied upon for the majority of the time.

Of course Sterling is not good enough; how could he be when he's simply the player in the league that a couple of weeks back had scored the most goals in all competitions since August 2019. I think he might still be but Kane could have caught him.

Oh and he has done that mostly playing from the left.

 

[Jesus H Gabz]

The midfield cloggers and no natural width from our full backs or the wingers

If it’s not coming through De Bruyne we struggle to create anything

Spot on fella, Kev popped up on the left right & central trying to link up midfield to attack, as we’ve seen in other games this season, it was crying out for him to stay in the middle or just off the right (as the goal showed) there was space in front of Henderson & Wijnaldum and in behind for him to exploit, but he’s off doing other people’s jobs, would like to see more of the Phil/Ferran link up on the left, Joao showed yesterday he can defend when called upon, Kyle then has an out ball to Raz on the right and can come inside to Kev, both flanks have pace guile & penetration

 

[Exeter Blue I am here]

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.

1. I didn't say that I thought 36 year old Fernandinho could perform the role described - I pretty obviously meant peak-era Fernandinho.
2. I never said, or even insinuated, that Liverpool had never torn into us before.....although that was unquestionably the worst 30 minutes they've put us through in recent years at the Etihad.
3. This thread isn't confined to yesterday's game. It embraces a growing number of performances over the course of the last 18 months (11 defeats last season, most of which featured the Rodri/Gundogan double act).
4. Again, very obviously there are other factors at play - loss of Sane and Silva, etc - but the demise of Fernandinho has been the biggest in my opinion.
5. It's a forum full of opinions, and describing someone lamenting the loss of an acknowledged (by plenty of people and pundits) key midfield component, as delusional, is frankly, erm, delusional.

 

[Semper aggressus]

Sell Rodri, Bernardo and Mahrez, replace with Kante, Grealish and Haaland. We'd be unstoppable.

 

[domalino]

I've only read a few pages but I've noted Sterling is clearly not good enough and Jesus cant be relied upon???? Am i missing something?

Well that's put them up for sale and see which teams deem them not good enough or reliable.

For me the problem lies at the double pivot, I'm far from a tactical genius but i find the double pivot encourages a lot more sideways passing between CB's and holding mid, then Gundogan sits just floating waiting to play it simple or chip an attempted ball forward (think Gundogan is an excellent footballer btw but doenst effect the game enough)

We need more running (Foden), drive (Foden), creativity (Foden), movement (Foden) & goal threat who goes beyond the striker (Foden). Remove Gundo and find someone to do the above. And get sterling on the right.

Oh and our two main strikers have been injured, doesnt help.

We will be fine and be there or thereabouts at the end of season. We will score goals again i do believe and its great to see us have a backline that looks as though can be relied upon for the majority of the time.

The problem is we didn't replace Silva.

Several journalists have relayed that 3 or 4 times this season Foden has basically been given a bollocking by Pep or KDB or someone else for not keeping hold of the ball, and he's given the ball away a lot, carelessly, that's why he can't play the role Silva did. He's too attack focused, he doesn't know how when to just calm down and restart an attack instead of forcing the ball and losing possession.

So then there's a choice between Bernardo or Gundogan as KDB's partner, and Bernardo has played awfully for more than a year now and has never looked good playing next to KDB. Gundogan doesn't have the energy to do the defensive work.


This problem is the consequence of Pep taking 4 years to bring Foden through. He doesn't have the experience and maturity to play Silva's role and it could be another 100 games in that position before he does.

 

[PragueBlue]

We used to attack with 5 or more. Now it's pretty much just 4 - of which KDB and Sterling are well out of form, Mahrez doesn't fit in, Torres still settling in and Aguero/Jesus not being fully fit. We've gone from one of the most positive and free-scoring teams into a team that really looks quite blunt. Silva has been a loss but we've played well enough without him before.

I understand that he has used the extra midfield body to help make us more solid at the back but it has been at the expense of our attacking play and we now seem unable to really dominate games. I think if we put Bernardo/Foden in for one of Gundogan/Rodri it would give us more options going forward and it might take some pressure off KDB and Sterling.