Personally, i find it extra damning especially when we don’t have clinical finishers, we barely create while also needing man like Jesus or Nketiah to be lethal. People will say it will click soon but legitimately, there have not been many signs of that and for every player in Rice or Saliba who look to be in a vein of good form, we have Odegaard or Zinchenko or Jesus who look very out of it going forwards. Doesn’t fucking help that we have yet another international break in like 20 days time, more discontinuity again.
Control’ is all well and good until it starts being sterile and eventually, it will start actively working against us because teams will start to realise and take advantage of the fact that we are quite reluctant to attack on the transition and aren’t fluid enough to create much from open play, we become easier to set up against and it gives them more leeway to take more risks against us.
At this moment in time, all we can really point towards is the penalties that we were awarded as possible ‘open play chances’ depending on these officials is a zero sum game over the course of a season.
but this has been a hallmark of Mikel’s tenure though. Raya replacing ramsdale out of nowhere, Tierney who was one of the players Mikel consistently relied upon when fit was binned the moment he signed Zinchenko, when Xhaka left, im sure plenty figured ESR would be given a proper chance but he went to sign a player who’s never even played in that position for it. If anything, apart from Saka, Saliba and Rice now, i think it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that everyone else is disposable.