These two are the least of our issues. Both should be in the side full stop. De Bryune tries to play quickly which sometimes means he gives the ball away and Silva is the one who can keep the ball. He was man marked by Flamini last night and that should have mean't someone else had space but we resorted to playing too slow and backwards...cough cough Yaya! We also use our fullbacks to distribute the ball which isn't working, and last night one piece of play in the first half summed this up - Sagna released DeBryune and then proceeded to wander aimlessly into the space Kevin was trying to use - They both literally fell over each other and the Arsenal player stepped in and said 'thanks' Sagna should have made a run away from the space to drag the defender away. Is that poor coaching? or simply Sagna is poor. Same with Kolarov which means whoever plays wide has only one option to pass back to the fullback. No coincidence that Sterling has suddenly stopped taken players on in our system. I think it all stems from the decline of Yaya who in the past collected the ball deep and then dictated the play forward - last night I lost count of the amount of times he collected the ball and gave it back to Mangala or Otamendi for them to try and play it forward, often to the fullbacks who then lost possession. Perhaps if Pep comes we will revert to playing with more structure? As it stands we are playing without using our strengths and therefore, despite having a better team on paper, are often struggling to get results - how many games have we won in the final mins = lucky rather than a strategy to win. Love Manuel for his class but we are treading water right now.
Arsenal were not that good last night and we gifted them space and two goals - first by not closing quickly and the second by a panic pass from Mangala. There is still time to win the league but unless we change tactics it may not happen.