This is an important point that is worth making and then making again. For all the piss and vinegar being directed to Trent, and as indefensible his Rashfordesque effort was in responding to the turnover on the first, he really played no role in us conceding the second.
Prior to the move that the goal came from United had a period of nothing possession, knocking the ball around in front of us and ultimately going all the way back to their CBs. Martinez then pumped an aimless long ball that Ibou stepped over to deal with. His momentum took him a bit wider than ideal so Trent stepped inside to cover him. Everything was absolutely fine until then. From there it looked like Ibou tried to pick out Gravenberch with his header but misplaced it and gave it straight to Bruno. Bruno then gave a simple pass to Garnacho who had Ibou isolated on the right, beat him and picked out Amad with his cross who got infront of Robbo (for the second time in a week) to score.
Acknowledging Trent had a bad game with several moments of shitness in both execution and effort, criticisms of him on this goal are off based, and seemingly being used as a crutch to cover for things other more favoured players should have done better.
There are those reacting to it being Ibou who was beaten out wide as if he was having to do Trent’s defending for him, with the unstated accusation that Trent is off galivanting forward and not wanting to put the effort to get back. When in reality Trent defended exactly as he should have done in dropping in to cover the center in response to Ibou being pulled out wide and leaving them temporarily switched.
Yeah, but we were giving the ball away too often and that is why United had possession in the first place. Yes we were, and Trent was generally culpable for that, but not on this goal. The last sequnce of possession we had we lost it because Gravcy misshit a short pass to him you would expect him to make 100 times out of 100. Trent stepped into a pocket in midfield to receive a pass, but Gravy somehow hit it behind him allowing Garnacho to get back and nick it. That is a position Trent routinely takes up, is one that is clearly part of Slot’s game plan wanting us to get the ball to feet behind the first line of the attack’s press. But even then if you want to argue Trent was being too cavalier, it was still about a minute and 2 different phases of play in which we were completely reset defensively before they worked the ball out to Garnacho out wide.
Lost in all of this is the question of whether the attacking sub Slot made after the equalizer was really needed or whether the Harvey sub that restored 3 men to the midfield should have been made while 2-1 up. Or should we have responded to Ibou starting to look leggy in the 10 mins or so before they scored and made a change then to make sure he had more support.
