Everton v City live

Yeah - no denying the coverage was very poor. Amazon seem to have done well with covering multiple games at a time with individual teams with knowledge of the clubs.

It was clear that no research had gone in before the game though. Usually a commentator will have a “stats pack” with key bits of information to use during the game (e.g. number of points per game with/without Vardy) but that looked missing from last night.

Shambolic!

The other talking point for me is Perez. If Vardy isn’t back for the Liverpool game he just shouldn’t play for me. His pressing and commitment to the tackle is just useless. I get it not his usual role, but boy he needs to work harder than he does. Compare his work rate to Vardy - I’d be interested in sprints and distance covered.

I thought Perez’s work rate was really good unfortunately he just can’t play in that role. For the next couple of games, I’d play him and Barnes up together or Perez behind Barnes - with the cameos of Nacho as well

Perez dropped off and linked play quite nicely at times. Which is what you'd expect from a False 9 position. The problem was that, when he did vacate the front line position, nobody replaced him. Which meant that some pretty build-up didn't really go anywhere. There may be tactical answers that the team can work on for this, particularly the 3 in the 4-2-3-1 running beyond him. Although that doesn't look like that tactic particularly suits the personnel right now.

I think it's clear that Rodgers doesn't trust Iheanacho though, so I guess we'll continue with this if Vardy's not out for long.

The problem surfaced last night Dunge is that against a narrow deep block having runners beyond Perez didn’t work unless it included our full backs to create an overload.

Both Justin and Castagne did this well, but generally there wasn’t any space for them to break the lines so it resulted in a cross which was either blocked by the narrow defence or went to nobody because players weren’t in the box.

As brilliant as Albrighton has been, and was in preventing Everton breaking on us last night, he offers little going forward in that set up.

Lots to puzzle over before Vardy returns, but for me it requires a change in formation to enable the full backs to get further forward and play a proper number 9.

To stay defensively sound this would need your favourite formation Dunge - a back 3!!

For TB’s benefit also, we forgot to declare Tielemans as the official MOTM on this thread.

Just rectifying that.

Well, we're up against Leeds next. And I don't think there will be many surprises with the way they play and what they do: They'll come out all guns blazing and go on the attack.

Getting Maddison and Barnes on the ball and playing through the lines will be key, and there should be plenty of space to do it. Having Albrighton steadying the ship defensively and enabling that will probably be the right tactic.

Yes in retrospect Under may have been the better option against Everton. Their block was so deep it needed a player to try and break the lines. Albrighton’s crossing ability was probably not going to be a great outlet given their considerable height advantage.

Leeds will cause us very different problems. We’ll need to be defensively disciplined, but utilise the attacking space when we get the opportunity. You’d think Albrighton would be much more suited to this game.

comment by Merseysidefox (U4842)
posted 2 hours, 16 minutes ago
For TB’s benefit also, we forgot to declare Tielemans as the official MOTM on this thread.

Just rectifying that.
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Nice try Mersey, although he did have a better game, still a few ahead of him, Castagne, Justin, Barnes , Evans, Fofana to name a few.

Lol. Next you’ll be telling us Perez was ahead of him 😂

Evans was imperious at the back though - I’ll give you that.

I love Justin, but no way was he better than Tielemans yesterday, come on.