Basically a two-week break from football, or at least playing (you don’t want to lose rhythm). Hopefully uses it to sort out a few things, as he played a lot of football. Then kicks on.
I liked his aggression last night, he’s always been willing to get stuck in but I still get the impression that opponents get too easily past him sometimes. I feel there’s a bit of inconsistency about him this season - not in the sense that he’s sometimes dismal and sometimes sublime but rather that he needs to play just a bit better on his “bad” days to be considered a top class player by the football public.
I also think that Slot still has to find a way to let him have the ball more often in positions that are close to opponents’ box when the opponents are playing in a low block. He’s not exactly David Silva in terms of close control but he (and Jones) are very good at protecting the ball and short passing, so I hope these abilities of theirs can be better utilised.
Fuck what “the football public” think.
As long as he’s giving it his all in a Liverpool shirt, that’s all that matters.
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Can’t have it all, each player has his weaknesses.
And when it’s pace related, it’s much more obvious to the general football public.
He’s really good in duels and small spaces, though sometimes too aggressive. He’s also slow, which means sometimes, in this league, people get away from him.
We naturally want and strive to be compact, but we cannot possibly be that in all moments of the game. His usual partners in midfield have pace and/or energy so that’s good balance. Questionable how it would work if we got Zubimendi, but that’s for another topic.
On the ball, for a player who wants to be in that control zone and involved, it’s pretty good, but you also want to see further evolution at this highest level. More personality in possession.
Was funny how when Mac was at Brighton, I linked his nous for getting foward as similar to Gundo’s. Recently, Mac said Klopp mentioned Gundo to him in their talk when we were buying him.
I also wanted him to learn a thing or two (when we talk about control and personality in possession) from Thiago for one season (even in training), but unfortunately Thiago was nowhere last season. Then, at the end of the season, Mac wrote how sad he is as he was looking forward to working with him.
It’s all good so far, here we talk about certain little things that could be improved or evolved together with the team.
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@Zoran He’s definitely improving this season needs to know where his teammates will be (gel more) and as hé lacks pace he must improve his positioning so he doesn’t feel he has to foul players every match. Save that for when it counts.
He was the kind of midfielder we were missing in that season when Hendo and Fab dropped off like a U boat.
In fact if he had come in at the time Gini left I think it might have been more seemless.
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