We just don’t have it. Plenty of pace and skill up front but no real intelligence. We can complain all we want about Palace’s stalling tactics - and it was horrible to watch - but at least they were streetwise. As against Wolves, we’ve just not carved out enough scoring chances despite all our possession.
On the evidence of the three games so far, Lingard’s role is our biggest issue. He’s not creative enough to play there against defensive sides. And a couple of times he got the ball in dangerous areas with his back to goal but couldn’t control it on the turn - immensely frustrating. Martial and Rashford might flourish with real star quality with/behind them but we don’t have that player in attack.
Wan-Bissaka and Young were our best players for me, and James was lively all game.
Early days yet but that was not a top-four side I watched today. Far from it.
Guile
posted on 24/8/19
No creativity what so ever
posted on 24/8/19
if i must add we are one dimensional in attack
our attack relies solely on the pace of our forwards and the occassional moment of magic by pogba
oppo jus needs to drop deep and deny us space behind and we look clueless
this comes back to the lack of a quality midfield conductor. Pogba is like lampard (loose comparison), what we need is a pirlo/scholes.
posted on 24/8/19
We are one-dimensional in attack. It’s ironic - after years of Van Gaal and Mourinho we were crying out for pace up front, players who have it and tactics that use it. Now we’ve almost got too much of it. Rashford, Martial, James, Lingard - you want one of your front players to offer something a bit different, to be able to drop off and play the slide-rule pass, even to be a brute physically.
We’ll have moments like the second half v Chelsea where the opposition defence is stretched and these guys run riot, but the other two games since then have seen us struggle when we can’t get players in behind.
Of course, the referee failing to clamp down on niggling fouls doesn’t help, nor does missing penalties when we get them.