Our best XI - 22/23

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WNRH

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23 Oct 2010
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If you looked at our squad and wanted to pick the best XI on paper based on what they bring to the team I.e ability, leadership, status etc (not form) and playing them in positions they would excel in, I would be confident in my opinion that the majority of City fans would pick this XI.

Ederson.
Walker, Stones, Dias, Cancelo.
KDB, Rodri, Bernardo.
Foden, Haaland, Grealish.

There’s opinions of course and there’s valid ones for including Mahrez, Gundogan and Laporte in there or even Ake (even though I personally think Dias and Laporte are the better defenders ability wise as great as Ake has been this season), even if they didn’t agree you can only admit it’s a great fluid team. A solid back two, with the leadership of Dias. Two good full backs. Rodri anchoring KDB and Bernardo who would create with Foden and Grealish who naturally would cut inside often allowing the full backs to over lap, basically a team that could control the game and create for the monster upfront.

So far this season after 28 games that XI has not played together once. The closest we got was 10/11 in the 433 positions in the games against Palace home (4-2), Seville away (4-0), United home (6-3) and Wolves away (3-0) where we were outstanding in the latter three games.

More importantly Haaland scored 9 goals of his 28 in those games so he has scored 32% of his goals in the four games that starting XI in the right positions has nearly been available. Even Foden in them four games scored 5 of his 9 goals (55% of his total goals). To go one step further until today that was the only system and personnel Grealish played in and with that allowed him to score his only goal this season (against Wolves)

We’ve only had one further opportunity to play that XI in the game at Villa away where Grealish was on the bench, Gundogan was in midfield and Silva was out wide.

The rest of the time we have not been able to due to the injuries of Stones and Walker, the form of Ake all season and Akanji at the start.

So it’s clearly a system and personnel that works for us and gets the best out of our talented players up top.

Is this the reason why Pep has not been Pep recently? Is he trying to overcompensate for us not having our best XI available?
 
WNRH said:
If you looked at our squad and wanted to pick the best XI on paper based on what they bring to the team I.e ability, leadership, status etc (not form) and playing them in positions they would excel in, I would be confident in my opinion that the majority of City fans would pick this XI.

Ederson.
Walker, Stones, Dias, Cancelo.
KDB, Rodri, Bernardo.
Foden, Haaland, Grealish.

There’s opinions of course and there’s valid ones for including Mahrez, Gundogan and Laporte in there or even Ake (even though I personally think Dias and Laporte are the better defenders ability wise as great as Ake has been this season), even if they didn’t agree you can only admit it’s a great fluid team. A solid back two, with the leadership of Dias. Two good full backs. Rodri anchoring KDB and Bernardo who would create with Foden and Grealish who naturally would cut inside often allowing the full backs to over lap, basically a team that could control the game and create for the monster upfront.

So far this season after 28 games that XI has not played together once. The closest we got was 10/11 in the 433 positions in the games against Palace home (4-2), Seville away (4-0), United home (6-3) and Wolves away (3-0) where we were outstanding in the latter three games.

More importantly Haaland scored 9 goals of his 28 in those games so he has scored 32% of his goals in the four games that starting XI in the right positions has nearly been available. Even Foden in them four games scored 5 of his 9 goals (55% of his total goals). To go one step further until today that was the only system and personnel Grealish played in and with that allowed him to score his only goal this season (against Wolves)

We’ve only had one further opportunity to play that XI in the game at Villa away where Grealish was on the bench, Gundogan was in midfield and Silva was out wide.

The rest of the time we have not been able to due to the injuries of Stones and Walker, the form of Ake all season and Akanji at the start.

So it’s clearly a system and personnel that works for us and gets the best out of our talented players up top.

Is this the reason why Pep has not been Pep recently? Is he trying to overcompensate for us not having our best XI available?
Click to expand...
I do think us not being able to have a settled back line with 2of Dias stone laporte in.stone ms and Dias is always my preference.

I do think peps being trying to compensate for the defence. For example our last really good performance in the league was united in October where walker got injured. So then he had to compensate for him being missing which peoceeded to have stones rb Ake Lb cancelo both, Rico ect multiple different experiments so to speak. We get walker back stones and Dias are injured. I do think our form will begin to turn once we get Dias / stones back fully fit and get a settled back line.

Especially because confidence breeds from having a back line you trust to keep a clean sheet
 
The quicker stones and dias is back the better, if the likes of laporte and anyone else wants to moan about they can leave.

Not the time now for rotating, get a settled 11 on the pitch and get some consistent wins in.
 
Footballing technique wise and on the ball Stones and Ake are our most gifted defenders, Dias is a rock though and so any combination of these as a CB pairing is our strongest.

Ake gets vastly underated, wether it be because he came from bournmouth or his first injury plagued season, many on here sell him far too short for his ability.

I truly belive Pep wanted to go full Cruyff this season with Haaland signed and Johans favoured tactics of a 3-4-3 or 3-5-2 with stones-dias-ake/laporte as a back 3 but injuries and dips in form have left him experimenting with this 3 at the back and us disjointed

if all the squad was fit though my 11 would be

eddie
walker stones dias ake
rodri
berny kev
foden haaland grealish
 
Last edited:
WNRH said:
If you looked at our squad and wanted to pick the best XI on paper based on what they bring to the team I.e ability, leadership, status etc (not form) and playing them in positions they would excel in, I would be confident in my opinion that the majority of City fans would pick this XI.

Ederson.
Walker, Stones, Dias, Cancelo.
KDB, Rodri, Bernardo.
Foden, Haaland, Grealish.

There’s opinions of course and there’s valid ones for including Mahrez, Gundogan and Laporte in there or even Ake (even though I personally think Dias and Laporte are the better defenders ability wise as great as Ake has been this season), even if they didn’t agree you can only admit it’s a great fluid team. A solid back two, with the leadership of Dias. Two good full backs. Rodri anchoring KDB and Bernardo who would create with Foden and Grealish who naturally would cut inside often allowing the full backs to over lap, basically a team that could control the game and create for the monster upfront.

So far this season after 28 games that XI has not played together once. The closest we got was 10/11 in the 433 positions in the games against Palace home (4-2), Seville away (4-0), United home (6-3) and Wolves away (3-0) where we were outstanding in the latter three games.

More importantly Haaland scored 9 goals of his 28 in those games so he has scored 32% of his goals in the four games that starting XI in the right positions has nearly been available. Even Foden in them four games scored 5 of his 9 goals (55% of his total goals). To go one step further until today that was the only system and personnel Grealish played in and with that allowed him to score his only goal this season (against Wolves)

We’ve only had one further opportunity to play that XI in the game at Villa away where Grealish was on the bench, Gundogan was in midfield and Silva was out wide.

The rest of the time we have not been able to due to the injuries of Stones and Walker, the form of Ake all season and Akanji at the start.

So it’s clearly a system and personnel that works for us and gets the best out of our talented players up top.

Is this the reason why Pep has not been Pep recently? Is he trying to overcompensate for us not having our best XI available?
Click to expand...

Agree with your statement about that being our best side but it’s also an unbalanced side, particularly on the left where there’s a lack of pace and both full back and wide attacker like to cut inside. Replace grealish with a winger like Vinicius and immediately the team is way stronger. We need a winger that has bags of pace, gets the the byline and can beat a player. That will create tons of space for haaland like Madrid do for benzema and it’ll be goals galore. That’s what we aren’t seeing at the moment.
 
Next season

-----------Eddie-------
Walker-Stones-Dias-Robinson
-------------Rodri-----------
-----Bellingham---Bernie--------
----Foden--Haaland---Grealish
 
bugsyblue said:
Agree with your statement about that being our best side but it’s also an unbalanced side, particularly on the left where there’s a lack of pace and both full back and wide attacker like to cut inside. Replace grealish with a winger like Vinicius and immediately the team is way stronger. We need a winger that has bags of pace, gets the the byline and can beat a player. That will create tons of space for haaland like Madrid do for benzema and it’ll be goals galore. That’s what we aren’t seeing at the moment.
Click to expand...

I agree with you, with one exception. I'd replace Foden with a proper winger rather than Grealish.

I think that Grealish has a bit more to offer than Foden, and his ability to 'draw the foul' around the box is a very handy weapon. .
 
Ederson
Ake - Stones - Dias -Walker
KDB - Rodri - Bernardo
Grealish - Haaland - Mahrez

Best atm - give it a few months and Foden will probably be back in it.
 
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