Good post, however I would be surprised if Stones was to play the full 90 against Villa.No protection when we lose the ball high up the pitch.The lack of pace is hurting us when Stones and Kev are back would like Rodri to sit a bit deeper.This does not disguise the fact that Dias and Gvardiol should be nowhere the 1st 11 at the mo.
Im sure that Stones will play the Rodri role against Villa.Be interesting to see the roles of Lewis and Bobb against them also and this is a big shout do we think Bernado could play the Silva ,Gundo role thus offering more control.We had a bad window i have yet to see what Nunes or Kovacic will offer us.Hindsight is a wonderful thing but would have liked us to have tried hard for a Maddison type player.But as others have said trust in Pep felt after the game some of the comments of our fans were very self entitled no one has a devine right to win and with betrer finishing in the 1st half the conversation would be different.
I'm not particularly astute with tactics and all that malarkey but even to me it was pretty obvious that Spurs were playing through our midfield with alarming ease and regularity. They took some quite risky chances around their own penalty area and apart from the odd occasion we didn't put them under enough pressure. It just seems that a combination of things aren't aligning at the minute: injuries, chance conversion, individual errors and now (Rodri and Grealish) suspensions. Credit to Spurs though who made us work bloody hard all game and didn't back off despite their own injury problems.It’s very simple.
The forwards/midfield press is not quite working. Teams can then run free past the midfield and onto the defenders who will be playing a high line. Individual mistakes will then happen.
Lose that extra 5% closing down and it is noticeable. Lose 50/50 and it’s noticeable.
As a team we either need a shift in mentality or we have tired legs or both. It will resolve itself soon enough. Small margins and all that.
So until we effectively press and win the ball higher up the pitch our problems will continue.
You do wonder if his bigger size would have stopped the last goal as 5’10 Ake got cleaned out.This is why I’m unclear why this forum thinks Gvardiol was the worst player on the pitch last night and in the team in general (that’s playing regularly). I’m not saying he had a great game, but he didnt seem complicit in any of the goals or worse than anyone else. And realistically, I think the Sterling goal at Chelsea was the only one that he was really responsible. Which puts him on par with most of our defenders this year in terms of individual errors leading to a goal. Sure, maybe we didn’t need him this year. But other than Ruben our defense is on the older side. Doesn’t some long term planning make sense?
You do wonder if his bigger size would have stopped the last goal as 5’10 Ake got cleaned out.
Ake has a good leap for his height but his positioning was poor and should‘ve done better .Always thought Ake was taller than that!