Then you lose some creativity in midfield because if your playing to both delphs and sanes strengths for all intent and purposes your looking at a 433. Assuming fern is an automatic start in midfield, you got debruyne, Bernard, Silva, Jesus, aguero, mahrez, sterling and foden, fighting it out for 4 starting slots. Mendy's inclusion along with fern starting, allows a 352 freeing up 6 starting slots to our creative players, as opposed to only 4, if you go with Delph and sane. The whole point of going with Mendy is that you don't need the winger down the left, as he will do the job, allowing you to slot in further 2 creative ballers/players, which is required to break down the number of parked buses we face each week.Then Mendy needs to come off the pitch. Delph and Sane give us much more both offensively and defensively.
pass completion is easy when its sideways or backwards
Nasri consistently had the best pass completion of any of our midfielders when he was at the club too. That's all well and good when you play in deeper positions but when you are playing in the more advanced role those passes also have to matter. Unfortunately there are too many games when Gundogan has filled in for De Bruyne or Silva in one of the advanced positions and I'll go back and look at the stats and Gundogan will have the best pass completion or the most passes of any of our midfielders but I won't remember him creating anything. I honestly prefer when he fills in for Fernandinho in the deeper role. I dont like him in the more advanced position, no one is questioning that he is a tidy player that knows how to keep possession, what we don't see is the requisite incisiveness and creativity. Nasri had the same problem in my eyes although Nasri also didn't work hard enough whereas Gundogan does put in a shift.
I hope we never start having to "cover" for someones deficiencies.Defensively - absolutely.
Mendy's crosses though are irreplaceable.
I think Mendy deserves a starting role - we just need to cover for him. I'm less concerned about his defensive play than his giving the ball away easily on offense - the former we can cope with, the later will kill us. I think though that sloppy passing is likely down to lack of concentration; Pep hopefully can improve this area of Mendy's play.
Neatly sidestepping my main point there!
Most passes should be easy: that's how you keep the ball and maneuver into position to try the difficult stuff. The very best players do the simple things right time after time. Gundogan has also shown that he can do the trickier passes. Does he take enough risks? Maybe not but it doesn't stop Pep picking him so maybe, just maybe, he is doing the job that Pep asks of him to his manager's satisfaction.
Maybe when Mahrez has settled in and learnt positional play sufficiently well he will edge Gundo out.
Mendy was poor in stages but he wasn't one of the main issues. Certainly no worse than komps, who can do no wrong in my eyes generally. If were being harsh from a creative perspective the same could be said of fern, gundogan, Silva, sterling etc. Mendys issues stemmed from his performance to an extent but also from whoever was playing on the inside left of are 352 or whoever was playing just behind serge failing to drop back into position to provide Mendy with support defensively. Singling out one player seldom gets to the nub of understanding why we've dropped points or win matches for that matter. There's usually a lot more going on tactically beforehand when one of are defenders is called on to win his one and oned or when serge is in position to smack home a hatrick.
Then you lose some creativity in midfield because if your playing to both delphs and sanes strengths for all intent and purposes your looking at a 433. Assuming fern is an automatic start in midfield, you got debruyne, Bernard, Silva, Jesus, aguero, mahrez, sterling and foden, fighting it out for 4 starting slots. Mendy's inclusion along with fern starting, allows a 352 freeing up 6 starting slots to our creative players, as opposed to only 4, if you go with Delph and sane. The whole point of going with Mendy is that you don't need the winger down the left, as he will do the job, allowing you to slot in further 2 creative ballers/players, which is required to break down the number of parked buses we face each week.
With Delph and sane starting the number of ballers you can squeeze into are team diminishes because of delphs limitations offensively and sanes limitations defensively, but of course it's all subject to form.