I’ve been thinking for a while of Rafa’s blanket - only it feels like Arne put it in the washing machine and it’s now shrunk. 
Although you would lose out from not having a forward in a more dangerous zone, couldnt you have him covering because of his pace and being somewhat fresher as he had come off the bench not so long before then - particularly if your full back options have question marks over their fitness?
Kerkez, a FB is closest to their goalie, presumably to block him from claiming the ball?
He did block a ball that looked goal bound from a Van Dijk header, so it did work in that respect.
Well maybe you just didn’t see it. There were a number of posters on here expressing dis-satisfaction at the time and a lot of people I know personally were pissed off with it.
So, like I said, it’s only revisionism if it wasn’t said at the time, and it was.
I suppose you could, but it was pretty clear from that sequence that his role was to set up to circulate or shoot from outside the box. I suspect last man was Gravenberch, who ended up involved in the play. Kerkez is standing in front of the keeper when the corner is taken, Jones is making a run toward the back post. The real problem is that Gravenberch is trotting back down the central line and is completely out of the play from the moment he moves the ball on. Isidor just runs behind his back while he is watching the ball.
The dip from Gravenberch late 2024 to late 2025 is bewildering.
But…but…he should have seen the danger a lot earlier and cut the pass out before it reached the Sunderland player and then slalomed through their defence before burying it in the top corner.
Yeah. As I said in my first post, its actually pretty normal for us to have Grav as our last man back on our own corner. For his height he doesnt offer much of a threat so I guess it makes sense to have someone so secure in possession as the guy the ball will break to if they clear it.
The issue in this sequence was how far forward he got in the first place, and then once the ball broke to him and he took his shot how badly he turned off. As Arminius says, when the ball broke to Grav on the edge of the box, Chiesa dropped off diagonally to give him in an angle to keep the ball moving. That made him momentarily the furthest man back, but it was not in a defensive position, but as a passing option so had a good amount of ground to make up once he realized no one else was tracking that runner.
Set up before the corner
Grav took the shot
Shot blocked, Chiesa recycled, Grav strolling
Ball looped back in, other than Ali, Chiesa is now the last person
Chiesa recognised the situation and started sprinting before the goalie launched the ball, but oh shit!
Hey, where’s everybody else? Why am I the last line of defence?
Here, Ali, you’ve got it.
Can’t you see mate? They’re all playing Isidor offside.
This is one of those things where I think the club was caught in two minds. One was planning for a couple years from now when we’d see a lot of turnover, and one was evaluating opportunities as they came available this summer. Wirtz wasn’t going to be available to us next summer - he would have ended up at Bayern or Real Madrid if we didn’t pounce now. Neither was Ekitike - he’s likely at Newcastle. Frimpong or Kerkez might have gone elsewhere. Isak might have been available to us if we waited a year, but that’s one less year of his physical prime and in a position of significant need in light of Diogo’s passing and Nunez leaving, at the very least. So, you jump at the opportunities now with an idea of making it work over the next several years.
I just don’t think they anticipated the drop in form we’ve seen all over the pitch otherwise, and the head coach’s difficulty finding solutions to problems which were obvious from MW1.
You can’t be offside in your own half👍
Just to be sure, that is Chiesa standing to the left of Gravenberch, clearly acting as one of two tasked with covering?
So this should really should put to bed the notion that he was only left as last man accidentally, it wasn’t his job and he was acting above and beyond in covering the run?
Not of this should detract from a) how brilliantly he did to get back and deal with it, and b) that I don’t really understand why he isn’t in the box given he knows where the goal is.
Ignore the caption, but this video of Grav is a shocker.
Hospital pass to Szoboslai, bottles the tackle afterwards. As we see above, he couldn’t be arsed defending the counter Chiesa cleared off the line.
Boggles my mind how these performances keep going without comment. Absolutely hopeless performance again.
People said it was the most unprofessional behaviour by a team in 50 years? And not just one person but a number of them?
Forgive me if I don’t take your personal anecdotal evidence laced with an absurd level of hyperbole all that seriously.
I was busy enjoying just our second title win in my adult lifetime but if others were pissed off with us drawing at Palace on the final day before we lifted the trophy at Anfield then they were really desperate to be miserable about something.
At this moment he cannot allow the Sunderland player to get behind him. That is the critical error. He’s positioned on the edge of the box for the corner, you can only assume to help negate any counter attack.
Once their player makes any advance from that defensive line Chiesa’s only responsibility is to prevent the easy counter from a long ball. That’s easily done if you don’t let him wander in behind.
As for anyone else chasing back, the bloke has a 40 yard head start on everyone but Chiesa when the keeper gathers the ball and most of them have 90 minutes in their legs.
Zero wrong with the pass. It’s a basic wall ball play to try and start a break and Szobo overhits the pass. He could make more of an effort to make a tackle perhaps but maybe he’s wary of giving away a foul on a player 40 yards from goal with three defenders and a keeper to beat with little in the way of support.
He’s been poor compared to last season but this kind of thing isn’t really the issue.
This is just incredible commitment to the bit. Why Chiesa has ended up so deep in some of these images has been described by two different people (not just me) and are completely supported by these sequences of images, as is Grav’s complete lack of interest in recovering his position and fulfilling his actual defensive responsibility after his shot is blocked. He is an attacker who starts the sequence in a relatively attacking position and does what he does in the interest of giving a viable passing option, all while, presumably, expecting Grav to get around to recovering his own defensive position.
Chiesa only looks like he is “one of two tasked with covering” because of how aggressive Grav is in his position, something that creeped progressively with each corner all the while Chiesa’s attacking position remained relatively constant.
No.
Dom was at full stretch trying to control it. That isn’t a good pass.
Oh it was definitely being raised on here. I didnt agree with it then and I still dont agree that there is any throughline to what we’re seeing now, but it was definitely a bone of contention in real time with at least a few people on here, most of whom were saying they were talking to plenty of people outside of here who were of a like mind.
Erm, no, I said it was the most unprofessional thing I could remember and wasn’t speaking for anybody else. However, there were people on here saying they were unhappy with certain things, and I don’t really give a fuck what you think of my conversations with fellow supporters.
Seeing as you have twisted what I actually said I’m done with this discussion.
Full stretch?! Granted it’s not perfect but he’s far from full stretch and Grav is under pressure from two players with Szobo his only option for a pass.
Szobo overhits the pass he tries to make. That’s not Gravenberch’s fault. He’s done exactly what you want which is to beat the initial press and then look to spring the counter. That’s what he excelled at doing last year and could have done here with a better return pass.
