Good post. Palace even looked far far more dangerous once Eze and the cavalry came on. It’s going to be a lot closer of a game for sure and we will have to deal with a lot more attacking pressure and being forced into making mistakes closer to our goal. As this season has gone so far I could see it being a high scoring draw but hopefully we shore up the midfield and control the game and can pick them off.
Onana
Dalot
Varane
Lindelof
Reguilon
Casemiro
Amrabat
Bruno
Mount
Rashford
Martial
Rasmus, Garnacho, Hannibal, Maguire and Pellistri all unlucky to miss out after playing well recently but competition is always a good thing. I hope the manager sees this and continues to rotate and keep freshness and the element of surprise.
Apart from Mainoo Martinez Shaw and Antony this is pretty much our full squad now for the season so I hope to see a lot more solidarity in defence and attacking dynamics than in the last few league games. I think we will start to look good again once we pick up some confidence from these winnable games. Majorly positive signs our squad depth and competition for places is starting to look tasty. It’s up to the manager to keep things fresh and keep the fringe players fit and interested and pushing the starters to better performances and working harder than ever off the ball.
This is the thing. Once you ‘earn the right to play’ by dispiriting the opposition (essentially winning the midfield battle and then the lead on individual ones (sweeping up)), a potentially competitive game can become a procession as they give up, or become half-hearted. It used to be a cornerstone of our successful sides and others in the league now have that aura and mojo about them.
Palace did give up and conserve energy, but we had a huge hand in that with our own intensity and pressure. I hope those coming back into the team as starters will match that and play their part in earning us the right to play. If they do, hero ball’s necessity will reduce and we can continue to look like a cohesive unit, which is what we should be working towards anyway.
If we remain tight knit, Palace’s powerful runners (especially Eze) will have to pick and choose their moments and avoid being embroiled in an extensive two-way contest which drains their tanks and reduces the amount of all-out sprints they can execute. If we can keep them working away from our goal, the breaks and surges won’t have anything like the venom we’ve been at the mercy of in so many games this season.
Roy is a decent tactician and he’ll have thought up some measures against what we put them through on Tuesday, so long as our counter measures are stronger, the difference in quality of the players should take the game away from them. It’s a very good game to see what ten Hag is about, as back-to-back games against the same opponent definitely have extra flavour in terms of tactical acumen.
re attacking dynamics. If we finally have a decent midfield unit, the spotlight will turn back to the final third of the pitch. Mount, Bruno, Rashford and Højlund have to familiarise themselves with one another and now with so much energy and aggression by way of the two returnees, Rashford is going to be forced to meet the bar because all of a sudden, he’ll be a non-worker amidst a throng of grafters in midfield
and attack. Citing Klopp’s best Liverpool sides, there was no player in their midfield or attacking trios who did not put in a solid shift; Rashford has to match what Garnacho outputs or he should now be in jeopardy of losing his place. Intensity and collective movement is everything and we need to build on what we’ve just done in that regard.