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Everything posted by Smal
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Needs to vary his dives more
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more than a bit lucky with that bounce off the defender, like . Straight onto Isak's head.
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Longstaff trying to win a free kick in that situation is fine, he's just absolutely awful at it though
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Our shape when our defenders have the ball in settled possession is absolutely awful tbh and that is a structural issue that he needs to fix. It’s one thing that’s entirely to do with coaching rather than tiredness. There’s rarely anything on for Schar or Botman/Lascelles other than a sideways pass to another defender and it eventually ends in us either being impatient and booting it, or coming under pressure and giving it away cheaply.
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agreed with this. His final pass is his outstanding attribute. I see him as a Maddison type rather than someone who can play in midfield. He sometimes looks like he’s too keen to play the safe pass, but I think people need to remember he’s made all of his appearances in a struggling team with low confidence levels. I’d like to see him play for us when we’re on a good run of form so he can play with a bit more freedom.
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He’s not normally that bad on his right though. We had issues playing the ball out from defence all game - even Trippier and Schar. Arsenal bombarded our only realistic midfield passing option in Bruno which worked very effectively, and Longstaff just hid most of the game like he didn’t want to receive the ball. Their centre backs were proactive against a half-fit Isak… there was just never a good passing option for our CBs. And also… he regularly uses Burn as an outlet but Livramento plays much higher and was generally marked as a result.