A lot has been said about our defence and attack over the last weeks, but I feel our main issues have come from midfield. The teams confidence is shot because the way we are playing is not working against a deep lying defensive setup. Usually when we play these teams, we’d count on our transitions from opposing free kicks and corners. This hasn’t been working however in recent weeks.
I feel this is down to a lack of urgency we’d have in midfield from the likes of Henderson and Fabinho. Both were very good yesterday? But we desperately missed there direct quick passing into Trent and Robbo from midfield. As much as I love watching Thiago I feel he’s much more suited to our style of play in a role higher up the pitch (same goes for Jones). Playing in that Coutinho role, with more freedom and less yellow cards.
Watching us at the moment is tiring, because of how slowly we build up play. This is especially annoying as it plays right into opposition hands. Our urgency in transitions has led to the likes of Trent and Robbo just floating balls into the box unnecessarily. This is because we aren’t getting balls out wide to them quick enough. This is also why the likes of Salah and Mane have to beat 2-3 men to create a chance for themselves.
I guess the question is to risk playing Nat or Reece in defence, so we can have Fab and/or Hendo back in that DM spot. I’d go with this for our next game:
——————————-Allison
Trent——Reece/Nat———-Matip————Robbo
———————————Fab
——————-Hendo———-Thiago
——-Salah————-Bobby————--Mane
Transitions
posted on 18/1/21
Comment Deleted by Site Moderator
posted on 18/1/21
Fab ain't moving. He is our only constant central defender and after VVD he is our next best defender. His midfield days may be over.
Having Thiago in the same role is sufficient but Thiago needs better options next to him which will include Hendo. Getting Hendo on RM helps Trent and if it helps Trent then is also helps Salah because he never gets Trent overlapping to create space. Against Burnley we need this midfield
Hendo------Thiago-----Ox
posted on 18/1/21
We just need to find a way to get Henderson back into the midfield while not worrying about the defence.
posted on 18/1/21
comment by (K̇ash) I'm the Mané - PL Champione (U1108)
posted 47 minutes ago
Fab ain't moving. He is our only constant central defender and after VVD he is our next best defender. His midfield days may be over.
Having Thiago in the same role is sufficient but Thiago needs better options next to him which will include Hendo. Getting Hendo on RM helps Trent and if it helps Trent then is also helps Salah because he never gets Trent overlapping to create space. Against Burnley we need this midfield
Hendo------Thiago-----Ox
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I really hope this isn't true as he's also our best midfielder.
Need to sign a holding midfield player if we aren't going to be playing Fabinho there. In Europe especially he's so important to us.
posted on 18/1/21
Comment Deleted by Site Moderator
posted on 18/1/21
people don't need to be pushed on further forward.
Keep thiago exactly where he is making play.
Our former tactic was all push up and compress the space as we had the pace to cope with the ball over the top. Now we are not compressing the space and 2 are sitting so we have max 4 pressing and its easy get out past us.