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Felix looking like a proper player. His final third decision making is ridiculous lol.
Anyways, I’m really bothered by how our starting XI looks.
We can’t run an alpha striker because neither our midfield nor our wingers create enough and have poor final third decision making. We can’t run a support striker like firmino because our wingers aren’t inevitable like mane and Salah were. So we end up running this halfway striker but he cannot score and would definitely be better on the wing.
Odegaard doesn’t have a final ball, but we can’t play vieira because we need Odegaard to lead our press.
Rice can’t manipulate a block from inside in the middle, but partey is washed physically, and jorginho cant cover big spaces.
I have no idea what Zinchenko is doing this season. Defensively ok, but he’s supposed to be the one manipulating blocks.
I dislike Twitter tacticos and try to fact check everything they say, but they seem to be right about havertz looking better as the RCM.
This reads like you’re angry that our players aren’t perfect
Yes and no. We’ve spent a lot of money, and when you’re not a state run club, you need to be very good with your recruitment. Mistakes are very difficult and take long to fix.
Secondly, my issue isn’t that our players have flaws. It’s that to me there seems to be a lack of chemistry. Is Martinelli really the best way to complement a frontline of Jesus and saka? Is Jesus really the best way to complement a frontline of Martinelli and Saka? Is Havertz the best way to complement a midfield of rice and Odegaard? Having suboptimal chemistry was forgivable last year because we were still somewhat in the beginning stages of the project. We’ve spent enough now, the players should be clicking with each other.
The (good) problem is Rice.
Partey was our buildup, along with Zinchenko. He is the best in the world at collecting off the back 4 and dipping through a press and line breaking from that position while carrying.
We’re at a juncture now. Do we find a way to incorporate him back in the team, or do we jettison and just go full Rice 6. Rice is elite in different ways at 6, but one of them isn’t build up, and in a strange way, it seems to negate the usefulness of Zinchenkos party tricks. Rice dominates the whole space. He’s not a builder, he’s a breaker, to put it in very simplistic terms. Which isn’t to say he has no playmaking, but he’s not absorbing pressers and stepping through them.
(All of the above is why I will die on the hill that Tierney, or a player like him, still had a place in our team, injuries aside)
I take your point about our attackers but with that Liverpool team, I think you have to remember the midfield had 0 creativity. They offered little to nothing offensively, they were just a back wall for Jurgens box of doom. We use our wingers as creators, we could use them as outlet, but it would mean a retool of the midfield.
Havertz played as a RCM and as a right sided 10 at Leverkusen. It’s his natural position.
Yep. I don’t get what we’re doing