You can defend all you like.. But Brighton made it very difficult with the interplay..Not easy when they play in between the defenders and move quickly. They are very good techincally which surprised me
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Actual defending, having to defend lots of 1v2 and 1v1 situations when the opposition has been in good possession in our half, having to make the right decisions an incredible amount of times in your positioning when teams have good possession in our half
Watch the highlights of all the games in that season Gomez played, the only defending he did in almost every single one of those games involved beating a forward in a foot race to a longer ball played down a channel from deep becuae our press and counter press was at its very best that season and we restricted the vast majority of opponents to resorting to that, the vast majority of teams barely had any good possession in our half in any of the games he played and barely ever managed to release ad player between our midfield and defence either
Honestly, that season, you could have played Usain Bolt partnering Virgil as the only defending of any sort necessary involved being faster to a ball you could see coming a mile off and were closer to in terms of where it would land than the player trying to beat you to it
I'm not doing it again, I've posted the stats on those games of opposition attempts on goal, possession in our half, number of clearances, interceptions, tackles by our defenders in those game 3 or 4 times already, the stats comprehensively support what people should be able to see with their eyes in the footage and concede as accurate without any need for stats in any event
"If Everton were playing at the bottom of my garden, i'd close the curtains”
You can defend all you like.. But Brighton made it very difficult with the interplay..Not easy when they play in between the defenders and move quickly. They are very good techincally which surprised me
Cleaning up the Scots since the 13th century
Hendo at 6 is the master of our press and counter press, he's always in the right position and conducts everything from the 6.
Ergo
If it looks like he's out of position, it's someone else's fault. If our press and counter press isn't upto speed, it's someone else's fault.
You can look at games where Hendo didn't play at all and the team performed and that's down to his amazing leadership skills around the club.
You can look at games he's missed and we didn't win or do great and that's because we missed his leadership skills on the pitch from the 6 position.
We made it easy for them because the press and counter press was non existent as LCM and RCM were letting it down all game after Keita went off and we kept playing it wide instead of into the centre, we made so many really poor decisions of which pass to make when in good possession to fashion an opportunity from in the second half especially, Robbo, Jones, Bobby, Oxlade, between them there were about 15-20 passes, that could have put us in a great position to create an opportunity when Brighton players were off their press as we'd found our player with a good ball through midfield and as they tried to get into a better position, they were opening themselves up and one of our player moved into a great position inbetween them and we went to the wide player instead
There are exercises you can do with players to improve their peripheral vision, how they can't see in their peripheral vision our players moved into those positions is beyond me, it should be standard
"If Everton were playing at the bottom of my garden, i'd close the curtains”
I know, thing is, when he does fuck up, I actually call it out in the match thread, 3 or 4 times already this season for poor passing or crossing - It's pretty straight forward to me, if you're No6 and doing what you should be, if RCM isn't and you go all the way over their, or halfway between the 2, you're leaving the centre, unless LCM is Gini rather than Jones and you can rely on them coming across to cover the centre or also going halfway between the centre and left
"If Everton were playing at the bottom of my garden, i'd close the curtains”
What we need is making subs, when it’s not working before the 65 minutes mark. That’s what we fucking need
"If Everton were playing at the bottom of my garden, i'd close the curtains”
Ex Boro player Craig Hignett has heard "on good authority" that Bellingham to LFC is dead cert.
That's that then. Boom.
In all seriousness, it makes sense. Our next big move is surely a midfielder. Bellingham despite being expensive would be an ideal FSG signing. Young and the potential to make them millions through marketing.
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