Originally Posted by
dicko1969
Has Mo lost a yard of pace ?
No, he pissed all over James in their foot race to make it 2-0, I think the difference you're seeing is a consequence of the team evolving and all the players working hard to keep improving, 2 seasons ago Mo used to pick up every ball a run as fast as he could with it in a straight line down our right a lot of the time, now because he provides a lot more than runs in behind in his movement and it looking to play other players in more and got more used to players surrounding him and trying to crowd him out and developed a few nice little tricks and flicks to evade their attentions and hold the ball up incredibly well so much of the time, he isn't running at full tilt a lot of the time, he's keeping the ball a lot closer to him with each touch in most of his play, which obviously slows you down a little when running with the ball compared to knocking it half a yard to a yard in front of you and full on sprint running with it.
I love how he's developing his play and becoming more of a creator, he can develop it a lot further still if he stops being Mr Greedy at times as he gets more used to playing with his head up a lot more and become the creator supreme as well as scoring A LOT of goals himself as I think we all know he has the potential to be, it's getting that head up more when he gets in situations in which there's the potential to score combined with the realisation that when those situations happen there are going to be 2 defenders panicking, charging to close him down leaving Mane, Bobby, Oxlade, Origi or Robbo wide open and then shaping slightly one way (normally away from our player in space) to bring the defenders further away from them, across more with one dropping a little deeper to then ping it to our player in space with his outstep.
Pretty standard 5 a side or 7 a side play, know where your player is, run towards their defender on a slight angle going slightly away from your player to draw their defender across, then ping it back to them with the outstep
"If Everton were playing at the bottom of my garden, i'd close the curtains”
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