This season I'd like to see Casemiro take on more of a pure DM role, which he hasn't really played since arriving. He tends to get sluggish later in games, but that could be down to him joining in with the attacking too much. With Bruno and Mount ahead of him he has two high energy players so we can afford to have Casemiro sit deeper.
Casemiro can do that, and Mount and Bruno may be high energy, but they're also gonna leave him exposed, as we saw today. Playing like that I fear that Casemiro is going to be dead by the time November rolls around. I'm not sold on this set-up yet. We definitely need some cover for Cas. And preferably not someone called Fred.
With Antony, Mount and Hojlund added to our starting front five, we should now be starting to see a team that are built to work and press that way.
I said this repeatedly in Mount's transfer thread. I was hoping EtH would play him deeper but the suggestion was we'd play two attacking 8s pushed high and I was not a fan of this idea. In my opinion, its too risky especially with how loose Casemiro is in possession.
So you were making 2 separate points in your original post cuz you said
Dealing with transitions before the ball reaches the defense is different from being weak in possession (possibly leading to turnovers), no? Unless I'm misunderstanding your point.
You replied to another post by wondering / asking why we are easily overrun in midfield and if the reason may be that we don’t have someone like VvD/Saliba if I understood you correctly.
This is indeed a concern.
Agreed.
I think we need an overlapping RB, not an inverting one. Dalot is quite good at inverting and sitting in midfield.
Not if the plan is to play with two high #8s like Bruno and Mount. And Dalot from what I've seen thus far hasn't shown the ability at the requisite level on a consistent basis to be a strong inverted fullback option.
That pass from Bruno was just ridiculous.
with Antony as inverted winger, he'd need an overlapped attacking RB. And yes, Amrabat type would then come handy. That's my preferred style, but probably i'm just not used to this "inverted" fullback thing.
Antony doesn't really play as an inverted winger though. He is usually found on the touchline rather than starting at an inverted position. With him providing the width, you can have the fullback come into the midfield to provide an option. When we had Mata who would commonly be found coming into the 10 role, we needed a line hugging wingback to provide the width but with a wider winger we don't.
I think he will be. I've seen in the last couple of games, he's been dropping almost into the defensive line to allow the centerbacks to move into the midfield. Particularly Martinez.
He's hugging the line but always need to go inside because of his one footedness. He's not a crosser type winger.
We are poor at finishing... We are excellent at transitioning. Is that hard to square?
Liverpool midfield had far more defensive nous than ours, it was a completely different setup and meant that they didn't get punished as much.
Arsenal had a solid base in Xhaka and Pertey. They also had a RB that could tuck in to form a back three. Interestingly they're going the same route as us by losing one of their deeper midfielders for Havertz. I think they'll run into the same issue and bring Partey back in.
Yes, basically. People will try to dress it up as something that sounds better, but that's effectively what it is and has been on display all of last season and through pre season.
At it's best it was quick transition football. But it had the same issues we still see now in that we can't break down a low block and it relies on physical abilities of your attackers, which can be dealt with by an equally quick back line or a well organised back line. It also means we take a lot of risks in our half as we position players further forward, if we lose the ball then it will be a scramble to recover.
I agree and have been concerned this would be the case since I heard we wanted Mount. I even said early doors last season that I thought this is the direction we were taking, only to be shot down by posters claiming were slowly going to become a possession team.
He is the one who holds the width is what I was saying. Without that you would need your fullback to do it. A lot of the times he comes inside is when we are compressing the opposition into their box and usually have Bruno run the channel so the width is less necessary.
You talked about us playing without a midfield when we were getting to CL finals too. It’s fair to say your midfield ideal and the actual requirements of a successful midfield don’t entirely align.
Exactly, when he says best transition team, it's more to do with pace of the attack. I think EtH's Ajax was usually called as 'Vertical possession' team' by few "analysts".
One of the example from today's game.
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I can guarantee you Xhaka never played at the base of CM with Partey. He played exactly where Mount is playing, where Havertz is playing. Now you can argue he is a natural CM, so he still helped out or whatever but it was mainly Zinchenko inverting inside into CM to help out Partey. And yes we are both in same boat, except maybe they have Saliba who is an exceptional defender, and their pressing works way better than us cuz they have been training longer.
Completely agree. Not a fan of this counter attack United DNA stuff. Nearly every attack we do is counter attack, we are average in possession and there's no reason to see that changing. Quite the opposite
Did he say that
This, I don’t know why people are struggling with what he said. Being effective on the transition doesn’t mean sitting back, it can also mean scoring directly from winning the ball high up the pitch.
Weghorst would've scored that
