One of the big issues with the start to this season is ten Hag outlined how limp the attack is and how much they need to improve in preseason, and yet, they’ve been even worse.
You have more pressure on you as a manager in a second season because the team is more yours than your predecessors and whatever you’ve achieved in the first season is supposed to be built upon. We’ve come out this season looking lost, individually and collectively - the pressure is on because we’ve set up in a system we’re not equipped for and it has looked shockingly poor; our players aren’t fit, either and we actually look like the most unfit and unprepared team in the entire league right now.
A huge, huge part of the system that ten Hag is trying to implement relies on the wings bringing literally (even Onana, as our extra outfielder) the whole team both into play and up the pitch as a unit. Everything depends on the flanks driving with the ball, holding it up, and then passing it on to a teammate whilst everyone else catches their bearings in their advanced positions. Garnacho has been point, but that is just too much responsibility and pressure to place on a kid, especially one as wet behind the ears as he is, so he has to be cut slack and should be quietly removed from the team as a starter. Out on the right flank, Antony is essentially the wave that follows behind the point and the striker and his role is vital because he is found specifically for the task of holding the ball up and then progressing it subtlety and precisely; all those short passes inside are supposed to rapidly chain, but they are reliant on each contributor completing their task… Antony is preventing a number of these intended plays by failing the initial progressive pass, a pass that is made as easy for him to make, per the system where he should have a rapidly advancing and encroaching #8/#10 supporting as intended to provide the option for this relatively easy action.
If your point of attack is good enough, you can circumvent a lot of the build up as he preoccupies so many players by himself, and theoretically, even if he loses the ball whilst attempting to be so brazen and daring, he’s doing it in an advanced position way up the pitch where the consequences are minimal as everyone behind him is still compact and advancing as a unit. Garancho failing at this task is a mild annoyance, but more a write off for him than the team. The playmaking flanker, however… well he’s supposed to be able to bring others into the play; they rely on not only his hold up, but his competence with ball progression to break their own ranks and trigger the next phases of the attack - if he loses the ball cheaply, it impacts a lot more of the team as the attacking midfielders on his inside will have run beyond him, the flanking full-back is supposed to also look to go beyond him and everyone left behind the ball has moved a good 10-15 yards upfield in a compact unit. This is why when Antony loses the ball we flail so much because so many more players are exposed as they are then forward-thinking and not at all in a position to turn heel back toward their own goal - he’s really not afforded the same amount of unforced errors as the player tasked with the biggest responsibility to progress us as a unit.
Playmakers knit play first and foremost and the bemoaning his goal output or even his assist rate should be secondary and tertiary concerns - if he was our glue, the vast majority of his job brief would be fulfilled with the goals and assists then being very welcome bonuses. It is the biggest worry of all that he isn’t making the right decisions or executing what should be easy passes. He is in fact killing a lot of our attacks and even our intent because of the interceptions and the fallout from them. Bruno has the same predicament in field in some ways, and he too puts a lot of weight bearing load on his teammates by not being able to retain the ball.
We have two other playmaking widemen in the squad who have their own approach to the same tasks, but imo a far clearer head and competence with their utilisation and manipulation of the ball. They aren’t going to lose the team possession with the frequency Antony does because they are technically superior and capable. There’s quite an irony to the vaunted tracking back and tenacity Antony is praised for; it’s admirable when it’s purely about the opposition attacking us through their own skill and creativity, but a curious affair when it’s down to him that they’ve been gifted the ball in the first place. This is another trait he shares with Bruno, interestingly enough.
A goal or an assist is often seen as the be all and end all of what a forward should contribute on here - terrible game, but scored? That’s a pass, type thing. But goals and assists are far more likely to dry up or be streaky than rock solid playmaking and ball retention for the team; it’s your wing-forward and strikers that can be judged primarily on goals; your playmaking type of wide-man is supposed to be the biggest dependency in terms of keeping his team safe whilst constantly probing and hurting the opposition from a position he’s difficult to really nail in. Iniesta, when played wide was the epitome of what a player can do for his team as a wide attacker whilst not scoring or directly assisting much himself. David Silva, also. Bernardo Silva from active players also comes to mind.
@Skills the goal contribution stats were not that great of an issue for me personally, and still aren’t, but the use and care for the ball has really been an increasing cause for concern, even more so this season than last because this new system is much more reliant on wide men doing their jobs to enable others to do theirs. It’s a house of cards with Jokers propping everything up at the moment.
21
