This is true. When you look at Dom’s good passes today (including the one Isak should have touched home) they all came from the RB position where he could look up and curl a cross/pass in to the attacker, rather than trying to thread the needle from CM which he is shit at.
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I don’t think Gerard ever got the emotional argument that Rafa moving him out of the middle to the right was not about not trusting him, but about not wanting to handcuff him with a role with more positional responsibility. Moving him to the right would unleash him to play with the energy and ferocity he naturally wants to. Hell, I bet Rafa never even made that pitch to him because Rafa doesn’t do feelings.
But you can make the same argument to Dom about RB being a better way to unleash his powers than playing in a 2 where half the time he’s going to have to worry about staying behind the ball.
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It would help if Szoboszlai, and the entire team actually, moved the ball faster with some zip and actually moved, instead of mostly standing idle and passing sideways and back in a leisurely way.
It’s kind of hard to pass accurately when there is a wall of defenders sitting comfortably a couple of yards ahead.
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Passing into space needs time to build…the only that can do it in CM consistently is nobody. Our CMs somehow don’t have the vision and passing ability to do so…
No they don’t but what is equally worrying is that neither of our FBs have that vision or passing ability either. And Frimpong and Kerkez are more of an issue because they can’t cross or defend too.
How have we gone from TAA and Robbo to Frimpong and Kerkez ffs? Hughes has fucked this up completely.
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So basically what you are saying is that we have an £120m player who can only play one position.
I’m not buying that.
It wasn’t many but we had a few games where Coutinho played as a #8 together with Gini and Hendo on as the #6
While I don’t think Flo is better attacker than Phil was for us I’m sure Wirtz has better defensive and physical attributes.
The midfield 2 is a huge worry. In this system I don’t see how it’s going to work and you can feel the nervousness being struck through the rest of the team because when they’re on the ball you don’t know where it’s going. There’s a hesitation to commit to the runs because why waste energy when you know you’re not going to be found. Between them today, there was 1 pass of any quality that looked to open the defence.
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Neil Atkinson agrees with you. I can’t see Dom being happy with this though.
Iraola has been landed with some big decisions to make!
The good thing is that Iraola already seems to have realised it´s a problem and has started to try things to fix it.
It was never just that we lack some physical guy to fight for the ball. it was much bigger than that.
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Yeah, I don’t think physicality is an issue at all. Grav and Szobo are a match for anyone in that department, and Mac has plenty of Argie fire to make up for a lack of size and athleticism.
I wonder what Iraola saw in this game today against Forest in terms of this type of game scenario with these players; which solutions it requires, if he learned something new about them.
I liked the move with Szoboszlai going to right back, it really suits this sort of game scenario when you’ve got a right winger who can be the outside threat.
Exactly. Could be argued with Mac perhaps but Dom and Grav are both tall and quick.
It´s all about decision making and reading the game, with the ball and without. And desire perhaps.
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We have a collection of midfielders that are serviceable in a three, but I cannot think of a combination of two of them that fills me with any sort of confidence.
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You summed it up pretty nicely on this!
Hope we sign him. He wouldn’t go down without a fight!
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Right now, I don’t like a single double-pivot partnership in theory with what we’re trying to do. And that is theory, let alone actually on the pitch.
Gonna have to wait and see how things develop, because things in football are solved through more than just who plays, where and with whom. Also in what way.
I just don’t like our team/squad building in the last few years and I know there are circumstances that have made it difficult, it’s not all in our (the club’s) hands.
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And I’m not convinced a change of shape from a 2-1 to a 1-2 would change much or enough.
It’s all connected to the other parts of the team, what’s behind and in front of that central midfield.
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Indeed. A lot of the half time analysis yesterday focused on how bad our defenders were at pushing up. Our defensive line wasn’t moving out as a unit, and not quickly enough, which allowed the long balls from Forest to be effective and put us under pressure.
And also that the CBs weren’t being brave enough to cover the space behind our midfielders, they were sitting back too much instead of squeezing the space and make the team compact.
This is obviously a pretty significant structural issue connected to the midfield. We say pressing starts from the front, which it does, and it also depends on the players at the back doing their part to keep the team compact when we press.
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Give it time!
What surprised me in the 2-1 midfield was the double pivot Szoboszlai to the left Maca to the right which imo was the wrong way round. It’s like Iraola is over thinking this which would indicate he feels there’s a big problem. We’ll see, our wide players need sorting as well none of them look comfortable however Rio going to the left worked well for him.
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Yeah, it’s why I was worried about our initial off the ball phases considering we got our first parts of it (strikers, the attack) and (second) last part of it (CB’s, the defence) very late in pre-season.
They are the ones who mostly determine how compact we are as a team. Hence why Iraola said how with Isak, he knows he’s a goalscorer and wants to be, but his focus with him is mostly without the ball.
And in central midfield, I think it’s genuinely open meritocracy right now (I mean, apart from Endo it seems, nothing new there). We have little room now for reputations, new contracts, vice-captains, future captains, whatever. I believe for Iraola, whoever proves he can make the biggest difference right now, will play.
Could be totally wrong, I’m very willing to wait and keep learning what we’re trying to do game by game, but we’ll see.
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You could well be right about the meritocracy. I’ve been thinking he’ll commit to the Gravenberch-Szoboszlai combo, and focus on making those two work as a partnership, give them the necessary reps to build the understanding within his framework.
But I don’t know, it could just as well be a case of seeing what works; if he sees another combo with an intuitive understanding, maybe that changes things.
And then like you say, getting all the parts behind them and in front of them to work as well. It’s going to be an interesting few months. Just two more days now and we’ll finally know what he’s got to work with.
Then you’ve got the possibility of unexpected solutions as well, like Szobo at right back. Obviously something we’ve seen before, so it’s not really unexpected to us; but for me it was in this context, so early under a new manager. However, as an in-game switch against a very deep lying team it’s not a big surprise in itself, it made a lot of sense under the circumstances.
I’d love to know if Szoboszlai is open to the possibility of it becoming a thing against certain opponents, or if he’s now determined to finally being a central midfielder and only that. We’ve seen it before with other high profile players like Milner and more recently Valverde, that it’s not something they’ve been happy to do, but they’ve accepted it for a limited period of time.
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