Wonderwall wrote:Donnarumma,
Ait-Nouri - Khusanov - Alleyne - O'Reilly
Reijnders - Rodri (C) - Lewis
Foden - Haaland - Cherki
Ok, look at that team. It's not half bad is it?
That team has no one in front of the back 4 (besides a player coming back from a knee injury playing on turf who also played a few days ago) who can defend with any physical presence or track back effectively. He basically put out a back 4 of:
- A left back w/ no right foot playing on the right
- A young player just getting his first run of games for awhile
- A young player just recalled to the squad 10 days ago
- An attacking midfielder who is excellent on the ball and in challenges, but massively struggles when someone dribbles at him
with absolutely no protection in front of them. Pretty much all the goals came when our midfield was brushed aside by a simple pass to expose an out of position, inexperienced back line who obviously have gotten little to no instructions for how to play together.
The players were beyond bad, but Peps bizarre team selection enabled it to happen. And he obviously did not inspire them to play with any determination at all - not that they should need it but obviously this group does.