German Football 20/21
- Thread starter do.ob
- Start date
The notion that "attackers have less space in the Premier League" is another one of these supremacist fables that keep getting repeated over and over again despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary - just like "players have less time on the ball".
Both are the opposite from true, won't stop them being employed at every given opportunity. People are brainwashed. "But it's got electrolytes!!".
I saw a few clips at full time and it seemed like such an anti-climax. The Bayern players just kind of shook hands and quietly put on their champions t-shirts.
It’s not all bias and banter. Part might be, that BL defences are statistically a bit higher. PL teams tend to defend very deep and very passive around the box.
Players in the BL have far less space and time in the midfield. BL teams try to outplay the classical midfield pressing. If they do, they have far more space in front of the goal.
But here is the thing: If you only watch short highlights, the midfield pressing is already beaten, and it looks like all players have a lot of space.
I believe it stems from people just watchingmhighlights of the Bundesliga and full matches of the PL. Plus the superiority complex.
I only noticed after reading the game result - 'wait, doesn't this mean Bayern are champions?'
Something needs to happen. For the league it could be good if Dortmund can keep Sancho and Haaland and maybe challenge for the title once under Rose before the inevitable rebuild takes place.
That would be quite good to see if Dortmund could do that, but it does seem unlikely. I came across a Bayern fan channel around the time they were playing PSG and he was pretty much saying it doesn't matter to him if they win the league again. He's only interested in the CL. It's almost as if winning the league has been reduced to domestic cup status. Obviously not all Bayern fans feel that way but that kind of apathy doesn't come as a shock to me.
Nah, it's more like an abusive relationship. They're not happy when they win it but you can bet your life on them being super pissed if they don't
The comparison doesn't really hold weight - I'm not talking about Bundesliga as a whole, I'm talking about Sancho's goals in particular.
For instance, see his first 6 goals in the Bundesliga this season here:
Pretty much all of them he's been acres of space with no one near him. I can't find a video with the rest of his goals this season but some of them have been similar.
I get what you're trying to show with Rashford's video - but it's not the same. Rashford runs in behind with through balls from the likes of Pogba, Bruno etc - it's a big part of how we play and why if teams just defend deep against us we struggle. It's why we can regularly best the likes of City.
Sancho's goals in comparison haven't been runs in behind - he's literally just been unmarked with acres of space to get the shot off.
My point being he wouldnt score those in the PL - no one would leave him that unmarked. On top of that he's basically got no goals in that video from the RW, which is where we'd play him, adding another problem for us. I'm not talking about Bundesliga as a whole, or a supremacy contest with the PL, I don't watch enough of Bundesliga to comment on that, I'm taking about Sancho in particular.
How is Rashford running into acres of space different from Sancho supposedly or actually having acres of space? Why would it even be something positive if teams frequently give up their midfield AND fail to cover the space behind their backline? Or how would it be hard to exploit?
Runs in behind are an active skill. Standing near the box with no one around you is just bad defending.
You got that right. Bayern's competition is CL, Bundesliga is merely the qualifier at this point. Many people can't deal with that, but then many people don't like to hear how shit their own teams are. Am I bored by the Bundesliga? Yeah, tbh. I keep my interest up by waiting for that one team shit enough to let Bayern score double digits. Is this arrogant? Probably, but what can you do... 9th time in a row and such. Most people will not admit this, but for Bayern CL is where it's at until some team challenges Bayern. Given how massive mismanagement happening across the league (with a few exceptions), I don't see anything changing soon.
And then you have teams like Holzbein Kiel showing everyone in Germany how to do it. The trick is simple, I can say it publically here because everyone knows it and yet nobody seems to do it... don't give up before kick off, inflict pain. Simple as that. Ignoring the big picture, whenever I see a player stop running cos the ball's seemingly too far away, or whatever.. he's giving up. Every single time they don't tackle properly, they just stand around, that's because in their heads they're weighing injury risk vs. win chance, why risk anything if you're losing anyway?
In comes Kiel with a yolo attitude, kicking Bayern where it hurts, playing like a 2nd league team. Lo and behold, Bayern loses in the cup. Funny, so they can lose. And having said that, watch next season, Bayern coming out the gate strong, 2-3 strong games with high results and THAT is when I know the championship is secure. Cos from then on every single opponent will be concerned about how much they're gone lose by, not if they're going to win the game. And of course, since fans are physically unable to blame their own club and instead blame Bayern for everything that's bad in life, why would anyone change their attitude? The only way to break the cycle is to start at every other club, not at Bayern. They're doing everything right, why even blame them for anything? They're not going to change their approach. It's everyone else that needs to change something. Simple as that.
Oh, and no rule change is going to improve the situation. Kill 50+1, Bayern is going to soak up the biggest sponsors. Spread TV money differently, Bayern is still getting more from CL revenue and merchandise sales. Salary cap? Means Bayern can spend more on buyout clauses. Cap transfer budgets? Bayern can spend more on infrastructure or they'll buy young players at an age where that transfer cap doesn't count, and they'll pay big money for a literal army of incredible talents, leaving crumbs for the rest.
Nothing in these artificial interferences in the sport competition is going to change one simple fact: Teams lose games in their heads. Remember when Dortmund won their last championchips? Man, they were in Bayern's heads big time. It was like running against a wall. Try as we might, Bayern could not win in Dortmund. It was a nightmare to think of playing Dortmund.
Oh yeah, and then they let Kloppo go. Sure, he wanted to go but... if he had stayed, Dortmund would be CL winner and on equal footing with Bayern now. All the replacements? A joke. Including Tuchel, one of the most overrated morons in German football.
Last edited:
There are lots of teams in the league that are doing a great job since a decade or so. This is like a game of poker, only that the chip leader can be sure that he has the strongest hand every round.
Yes, Bayern wasn't awarded this position and earned it but at least as long as I can remember - and that's over 20 years by now - , they only had to not feck up massively in order to secure the title, regardless of how well managed the opposition was or wasn't.
The Klopp years at Dortmund are almost 10 years ago. The club was at least as well managed as Bayern since those days and they're still hopelessly behind. We need solutions for this. Without drastic change, it'll be at least another decade if not more until another team is might be able to compete financially with Bayern. And like it or not, it can't be in Bayern's interest that the Bundesliga as a produxt is getting that boring.
You haven't watched closely then. Bayern fecked up more than once. And Dortmund exploited that wonderfully. And then they had one bad year and they... just give up. That's it. Reach the CL final, lose VERY closely and a very tight game, and that's it. Never heard from them again. Ancelotti? Major feckup. Kovac? What else needs to happen for other teams to wake up and realise that Sane is a fecking paper straw. Check him properly and he'll fly right into the stands. Countering him isn't by stealing the ball from him, the only way is to hit the ball while inflicting pain on Sane. That is the only way. Gnabry? Don't try to get the ball, try to just hit the ball while hurting him. Lewandowski? That dude should not be left alone in the box. Don't try to outplay your way into the offensive, just do what Bayern do... win the second ball. Kick it to midfield and actually have interested players that don't just stand around. It's amazing to me how Bayern in some scenes happily concedes the ball to the opponents defense, because they know they'll kick it far into midfield and they know that the ball is theirs uncontested and they can try again.
Shower thought: Have you tried watching a game from the other teams perspective? It's funny how that changes your understanding of the game. Try watching Bayern. And then, just for funsies, watch a Handball game from THW Kiel or something. The similarities are insane. And that's why Bayern is happy camping out in front of the box forever, because... camping in front of the box isn't dangerous to them. They can wait for that lack of concentration all day long. It'll happen, because at some point someone will just not run that extra meter, because why bother...
Nothing to do with money, all to do with mentality.
Edit: I wonder what a 24s rule would do to football... would be interesting to see how it would change the game. Not that I would want it for real, but just an idle thought.
What a nice goal. Kinda lob from the ground.
Yeah that was brilliant but very fortunate
I see Dortmund have been let back in.
Is this Doppelpass or something? Teams are hesitant to commit against Bayern, because Bayern have the quality to a) deal well with pressing and b) harshly punish even a slight mistake.
Last edited:
I think you're depicting this too simple. The Bayern players are pure quality and you can't take them out of the game by kicking them. This isn't the 80s anymore, there's much more to a football gake than meets the eye. You don't overcome such differences in quality by playing rough. At least not consistently.
And Dortmund didn't just give up, they had to rebuild their squad multiple times while Bayern could refine theirs without anyone really above them in the foot chain. Them challenging Bayern was a fairy tale and never going to be sustainable. Players of the necessary quality don't remain at your club when they can earn thrice the amount elsewhere. Dortmund only gradually built the financial foundations for a challenge and they're still several orders of magnitudes away from Bayern. If they continue like that they might be able to really compete with them in 10 years time. Currently they are on Atletico, Arsenal or Tottenham level.
Moreover, Kiel isn't some Holzbein team but a cleverly assembled squad coached by a supremely talented manager who puts much emphasis on positional play. They were able to go toe to toe with Bayern because they tried to participate and actually had really good sequences with the ball, playing themselves out of pressure in the exact same manner you were criticizing. That's what Müller said as well. Actually, they played it so well that sewuences of them playing it out are being shown at DFB coaching workshops.
In general, I think you're too focused on the short term. Of course there are chances to steal a title from you every once in a while when you make a mistake like Kovac, Klinsmann or Ancelotti. Fortunately for you, these blunders occurred simultabeously with the chasers being in bad form themselves. But as the current dominwace proves, you can live with those blunders because you possess the resources to correct them quickly and don't run the risk that your best players jump ship without being able to sign proper replacements like the rest of the league.
But that is like saying the only thing Dortmund has to do to be 2nd every season is to not feck up massively and yet it happens often enough that another teams is ahead of them. Is it "hard" for Bayern to be champion if you look at each season individually? Of course not but the hard part is to do it THAT consistently which is why noone would have be predicted anything like that, even after our 3rd or 4th championship. Usually the time will come where you slip up but that simply hasn't happened and we managed to transition from Ribery, Robben, Schweinsteiger, Lahm etc. to the next generation and people still act like its as easy as just buying good players. If it'd be that easy a lot of top clubs would have more success especially considering that Bayern might have a lot of money for BL standards but our spending is even below average for the top10 clubs in Europe.
Klinsmann was a real blunder, Kovac and Ancelotti weren't. Those were just coaches who performed decently and then simply fell out with the team, they still provided solid performances overall. The thing is we make more good than bad decisions and usually come to the right conclusion. Picking someone like Flick, trusting that Müller and so on can regain their form and so on isn't about possessing resources, it's about the decissions you make as a club.
And let's be real, if we wouldn't constantly perform at the level we do then we would of course run into the risk of losing players to other top clubs. That's exactly what happend with players like Hargreaves or Ballack in our last "major" slump on an international level. Noone should take that for granted, these things can change fast, just look at AC Milan.
PS: Look also at the french or italian leagues. Juventus streak is about to end and its now also likely that PSG won't be champions this season.
Last edited:
Bayern were far more vulnerable this season, didn't they go behind in about six or seven games in a row? This has certainly been their worst defensive season in a long time.
Dortmund's record v them in last 6-7 years is really hopeless though, reminds me of later Wenger Arsenal v Man. United even under likes of Moyes and LVG. No good giving the title favourite a six point head start every year.
Feels like Leipzig is closer match up nowadays, they were excellent in the 3-3 in December but they just don't quite have enough to put in proper title challenge.
Dortmund's record v them in last 6-7 years is really hopeless though, reminds me of later Wenger Arsenal v Man. United even under likes of Moyes and LVG. No good giving the title favourite a six point head start every year.
Feels like Leipzig is closer match up nowadays, they were excellent in the 3-3 in December but they just don't quite have enough to put in proper title challenge.
Thomas Müller and David Alaba are now record Bundesliga winners with 10 titles each, surpassing
Btw, Robert Lewandowski is the only player with 9 Bundesligas who has not won all of them with Bayern.
Last edited:
Guess you can't make mistakes then... welcome to professional sports.
How do you think Germany won in 2014 against Argentina? Or the many times against Portugal? Watch those games, every single time they frustrate Ronaldo and Messi. They don't care about some dipshit fullback that thinks he's the next best thing since sliced bread... they home in on the key player and they make him cry. Bayern does the same. And when they don't... well, you saw what happened in the PSG game. Frustrating key players is a very, very successful strategy. Look at Bayern's performance with and without Kimmich/Goretzka. Who cares about Sane if Kimmich loses his temper? And I dare say, Kimmich is a bit of a hothead... everyone thinks he's not important enough, how about someone challenges him? And challenge Lewandowski, he gets frustrated if he's not fed with balls constantly. Interrupt that flow to Lewa, isolate him... that'll immediately turn Bayern into just a "good team" instead of an "outstanding team".
Short term? Yeah sure... but how long do you want to wait with your attack? There won't be a better opportunity to stop sucking than right now. I'm serious, the BL has enough potential to challenge Bayern, every single season. There's no miracle down the road, the longer this goes on, the bigger the lead becomes. What are those teams waiting for? What is the long term strategy here? Cos I don't see any. Now, I'm not saying the BL is shite. What I'm saying is the BL is not using its potential.
If you can outplay Bayern, do. Don't concede balls in midfield if you don't have to. But if you do get under pressure and lob balls into midfield, at least make sure someone there is committed to actually winning that ball. It's so weird watching a ball, any ball, go high into midfield and knowing for a fact that Bayern is going to get the first and second touch 9 out of 10 times. They're not that good.
Maybe I am oversimplifying, but this really just replaces pub talk for me, so it's all fun and games. I might be wrong completely and I don't pretend I have all the answers. This is just me idly speculating. I truly think y'alls clubs are underselling themselves and make Bayern look better than they are, is all.
Thomas Müller and David Alaba are now record Bundesliga winners with 10 titles each, surpassingKahn's and Lahm'sRibery's previous record of 9 (Kahn and Lahm, and Robben too, have a measly 8).
Btw, Robert Lewandowski is the only player with 9 Bundesligas who has not won all of them with Bayern.
Funny side note: There are children going into 3rd grade now that have never seen a team other than Bayern win the Championship. Just think about that.
Last edited:
Saying "teams just need to want it more", completely ignoring Bayern's massive financial advantage is about the most ignorant way you can look at the issue. There is a reason just about every league is dominated by the club(s) with the deepest pockets and it's not because those teams coincidentally happen to be the only ones in their country with "good mentality".
Sucking the joy out of a top team isn't just something you achieve because you feel like it. You have to play man to man pressing schemes, which leaves you exposed at the back, you have to chase after every ball, which is a massive energy investment and you need the confidence to collectively make that effort consistently. And even if you do all that there is still a good chance that the other team is good enough on the ball to just deal with that pressure until you tire out or they find the space behind your back line. Paderborn approached last season as if budgets were just meaningless numbers, they played entertaining football but in the end still got relegated on 20 points. Your role model Kiel got hammered 5:0 at half time by Dortmund.
Sucking the joy out of a top team isn't just something you achieve because you feel like it. You have to play man to man pressing schemes, which leaves you exposed at the back, you have to chase after every ball, which is a massive energy investment and you need the confidence to collectively make that effort consistently. And even if you do all that there is still a good chance that the other team is good enough on the ball to just deal with that pressure until you tire out or they find the space behind your back line. Paderborn approached last season as if budgets were just meaningless numbers, they played entertaining football but in the end still got relegated on 20 points. Your role model Kiel got hammered 5:0 at half time by Dortmund.
Last edited:
Mate, how are they supposed to "attack" the title if Bayern is lightyears ahead? What do you think Zorc and Watzke are thinking? "No boys, this season we won't challenge. Let's lose a few games when it matters most and bend over in the matches against Bayern. Our time will come tomorrow! Or the day after tomorrow. Or after that"? They are doing the best they can with their financial means in mind. Came close a few years but were unlucky Bayern were in great form then themselves.
By your argumentation, every Kreisliga team could beat prime Barcelona because all they need to do is kick them. This is literally one of the worst takes I've seen on the matter. How would you setup Dortmund? Buy Moisander, Diekmeier and 8 other wannabe thugs and try to bully Bayern?
I thought those kind of opinions were extinct and only used as Stammtisch parody. The German equivalent of the cold rainy tuesday night in stoke, so to speak.
Love how dramatic this is.
Funnily enough, PSG won against Bayern cos they bullied them, played dirty, used every trick in the book. You can't outplay Bayern as Union or Schalke. Why bother trying? Use the tools you have. So, two ways, get really good at football technique and stop stumbling those balls away in midfield, or bully Bayern so they lose the fun in the game. Look at last weekend's game. Bayern's only goal left this season is to break a personal record. And here we go, Gladbach letting Bayern get into the zone and just enjoying the game. That's how you end up with a 6-0 scoreline.
There are many factors to it, of course. This isn't the only one. But dismissing a lack of mentality... that's just giving up. Keep doing that, but don't expect anything to change on its own. Stammtisch or not, that's just the truth of it.
Last edited:
In the game that PSG actually won they disrupted Bayern so massively they allowed 4.28xG against them, around 1.5xG more than Gladbach. They also conceded 31 shots compared to Gladbach's 22 and sat on 37% possession compared to Gladbach's 42%.
It's almost as if squad quality matters and Bayern missing several star players, Lewandowski in particular, put them at a disadvantage against PSG. But who knows, maybe they just needed better mentality.
Last edited:
xG, the invention of a useless statistic to support useless arguments.
Bayern lost that game. You don't need xG to know that key players missing is a problem. Now, imagine there was a way to make Lewa ineffective that didn't involve him being injured... if only we knew how to do that on the pitch. It's like... you could maybe do something with your players that would somehow... prevent Lewa from doing whatever he wants on the field.
But feel free to continue giving him 5m of space in the box. Never give up that zone marking!
Bayern lost that game. You don't need xG to know that key players missing is a problem. Now, imagine there was a way to make Lewa ineffective that didn't involve him being injured... if only we knew how to do that on the pitch. It's like... you could maybe do something with your players that would somehow... prevent Lewa from doing whatever he wants on the field.
But feel free to continue giving him 5m of space in the box. Never give up that zone marking!
Well, that’s some 10.000 words random twitter rant.
Bayern always reminds me of some 16 century seasoned mercenary. Even when up against revolting peasants the play like “Nah it won’t be nice, it won’t be pretty, but I’ll get the job done.” But if they are challenged they did things like Kimmich, running 14,xx kilometres in the game vs Dortmund. More than any other player in Europe.
Dortmund has been insanely strong in Tuchels first year. But even than Peps Bayern got the best of them. I almost don’t matter how good the contenders are, they either have to be a top three team in Europe that season, or Bayern has to slack off. The first is insane with the budget of any BL club.
Midseason there is always a contender, it could be Dortmund or Leipzig. But in the crunch time Bayern gets ahead and finish the year comfortably.
Even in the Klopp years it was crazy close. When they played each other, Robben missed a pen and the ball hits the crossbar in injury time. All in all just a lot of luck.
Or Bayern has to slack off a bit. Like in the Kovac years. Ironically, it was Hummels himself, who denied Dortmund their title despite being 9 Points ahead.
Bayern always reminds me of some 16 century seasoned mercenary. Even when up against revolting peasants the play like “Nah it won’t be nice, it won’t be pretty, but I’ll get the job done.” But if they are challenged they did things like Kimmich, running 14,xx kilometres in the game vs Dortmund. More than any other player in Europe.
Dortmund has been insanely strong in Tuchels first year. But even than Peps Bayern got the best of them. I almost don’t matter how good the contenders are, they either have to be a top three team in Europe that season, or Bayern has to slack off. The first is insane with the budget of any BL club.
Midseason there is always a contender, it could be Dortmund or Leipzig. But in the crunch time Bayern gets ahead and finish the year comfortably.
Even in the Klopp years it was crazy close. When they played each other, Robben missed a pen and the ball hits the crossbar in injury time. All in all just a lot of luck.
Or Bayern has to slack off a bit. Like in the Kovac years. Ironically, it was Hummels himself, who denied Dortmund their title despite being 9 Points ahead.
xG, the invention of a useless statistic to support useless arguments.
Bayern lost that game. You don't need xG to know that key players missing is a problem. Now, imagine there was a way to make Lewa ineffective that didn't involve him being injured... if only we knew how to do that on the pitch. It's like... you could maybe do something with your players that would somehow... prevent Lewa from doing whatever he wants on the field.
But feel free to continue giving him 5m of space in the box. Never give up that zone marking!
You think Bayern missing three players is a valid reason for losing games, but teams like Gladbach never having any of those players in the first place isn't an even bigger factor? Why didn't Bayern just do that thing where they don't allow Neymar and Mbappe any space in the box? Why do they suffer from such a loser's mentality?
Creating space is a question of individual quality, as is denying space by marking a player or executing cleanly. Teams like Gladbach don't decide to feck up they just have players who do feck up more often, because they are lower quality than the guys who earn €10m per year at Bayern.
Last edited:
That's what I've been asking myself for the past few weeks. They got distracted by the whole Alaba situation, maybe? Clearly not locking down Neymar and Mbappe is what decided the game more than Lewa's absence. What your precious xG is describing is really just Bayern running against a wall with low probability goal shots, nothing more.
So, I've tried to stay out of the spending discussion, but recently I realised it can't be avoided... what's your plan? Schalke has a history probably richer than that of Bayern, how come they're able to sign frickin' Raul but can't retain actual talents? Raul, ffs. RAUL! And here I sit wondering every year why Neymar wouldn't even consider signing for Bayern. We always have to create our own Robbens and Riberys. It's not like money is everything.
Using the PSG game as an example in which Bayern were much the better team is quite the unexpected turn. Curious to see where this is going here.
Outside of straight up taxing Bayern for their success or somehow blowing up international interest in the league into unheard of dimensions - both not likely to happen - there is no easy fix for a financial imbalance that has been building up over decades. People just have to wait and hope that other clubs can find stability and continuous growth, maybe defund the plastics to easy the access to CL money for proper clubs.
Nowhere, it never goes anywhere.
You really have no clue about anything related to football, do you?
xG: A lot of low quality chances or few very good chances will usually result in the same amount of goals and therefore summarized have the same xG value - high xG does not say anything about the amount of shots. Bayern are usually able to outscore their xG value this season, but this mostly due to Lewandowski's astonishing run.
Full focus on Mbappe and Neymar would have meant that Bayern had to cease the battle in midfield, and Flicks Bayern team is all about outscoring the opponent, not about stopping them to play completely. And that strategy is what won him 7 titles in less than two years now. The loss against PSG was unfortunate and unnecessary, but when you think that Bayern should stop playing and instead just kick Neymar and Mbappe a bit in a game where Bayern just had to score on some of the many occasions they had, that is absolute madness.
Schalke and Raul? That was a decade ago, when Schalke still was a serious contender for the league and regularly playing in the CL. And then Raul was more or less past it, would not have been first choice anymore for an absolute top team (like Real Madrid or Bayern), and wanted instead to do some kind of a new adventure. It happens, Raul playing for Schalke is not much different from Iniesta playing in Japan and no indication that those clubs getting those players are anything special.
Those judges overturning the FFP decision against City was a blow, for sure. Although, it's probably a bit harsh to call Chelsea and City not "proper" clubs. Chelsea is just 5 years younger than Bayern, Manchester City is arguably 5-20 years older, depending on which number from Wikipedia you want to pick. It's not like they were just created out of nothing like RBL (I know, they bought, dismantled, renamed and destroyed FC Leipzig, but that's a travesty and doesn't mean they retain the history of Leipzig IMO).
I was talking about Bundesliga.
I have no clue about football? The last time they were a serious contender was 2000/2001. But I'm sure in your xG statistic it shows that Schalke should have been title winners many times since then...
But that verdict has direct impact on the Bundesliga. The money imbalance didn't start here, it started in England. The rest of the European top clubs are just scrambling to keep up with the fact that a PL midleague team could technically outspend any other club in Europe that isn't Barca, Madrid, Bayern and now PSG. Barca and Madrid are living on borrowed time, so that's not even true, although technically it is, because apparently it's a law of nature that those two can't go bust.
Here's what gets me, with all their money, Bayern can only field 25 players in a squad. Are you telling me we only have 25 good players in Germany? The rest is just second class? Where do the other players go? Ah, yes. They get soaked up by PL midleague teams. And even Bayern has to fight tooth and nails to prevent poaching from England happening to them. They have to let players go on a free to make a point that they're not a selling club. Increasing wages to ridiculous amounts to retain players.
I'm not trying to be obtuse, but I see these discussions and am just puzzled as to why the league plays out like it does... I don't get it. I mean, after 9 years I get it, but in 2013 it was far from clear that we'd win 9 titles in a row. What went wrong?
Edit: What's worst: Everyone missed the opportunity to catch Bayern when they transition out of the Ribery/Robben, Schweinsteiger/Lahm era. Somehow Bayern managed to replace those guys and we're done transitioning, so I don't expect much to change in the near future.
xG, the invention of a useless statistic to support useless arguments.
Bayern lost that game. You don't need xG to know that key players missing is a problem. Now, imagine there was a way to make Lewa ineffective that didn't involve him being injured... if only we knew how to do that on the pitch. It's like... you could maybe do something with your players that would somehow... prevent Lewa from doing whatever he wants on the field.
But feel free to continue giving him 5m of space in the box. Never give up that zone marking!
Doing what he wants? Lewandowski was invisible in the CL final as well. He's a striker with a great overall game but in the end still a striker and participates not really that much in a game. Bullying is the worst approach to shutting him down.
And xG produces the best football statistics there are.