When we had a team of real elite, world-class players at the peak of their game and with a massive hunger, we could:
Retain the ball for most of the game,
Concede very few chances,
Create multiple chances,
Win games,
Win the treble.
With less elite players, we:
Give the ball away more,
Concede chances from repeatedly similar positions,
Create less,
Lose 3 in a week.
But what is frustrating, is that I’m sure, man for man, we had a better team than sporting last night. But they beat us 4-1. To me, that can only mean that the system we played wasn’t successful. And it almost proves it when Pep says that we were incredible in the first half. He’s said this a lot. Maybe it’s all psychology, but I refuse to believe we can have been incredible (it’s a strong word) when we’re are drawing 1-1.
The fact that he would rather bring Gundogan on, play Bernardo for 77 and Kovacic for 85 rather than bringing McAtee on is proof again to me that he is purely focussed on ball retention without seeing the reality of anything else. They younger, less experienced players definitely lose the ball more, and in our team, losing the ball means giving away golden chances. The safe, experienced players are not currently creating chances but he won’t adapt to use tactics where we are more defensively solid, more creative in attack but with higher risk of losing he ball. His system obviously works, but maybe it’s only with elite players on the top of their game.
