@Mike09
The below was the post you talk about vision, decision making, team mate position before first showed the image which I couldn't see until later edit.
I don't agree with these point. First of all, it's not about decision making as Lukaku is definitely a better option to pass to.
Again, I have already try to make the sentence as short as possible and you are still missing the point. Here what I said above:
The images that I showed you was trying to tell you that there is also times and times when our players gave him an option to pass the ball, Matic failed to deliver it.
In order word, the decision making that I mentioned before has nothing to do with that picture. If you check my post again, I only started talking decision making & vision when you mentioned that our players didn't give Matic an option to pass the ball to. Mainly because Matic tends to make short easy pass. And by the way you don't need to be a great vision in order to pick up Lukaku. Every player who started counter attack like that should be able to see Lukaku easily.
However, that picture shows that when a player like Lukaku gives him an option (you told me that our players didn't give him an option), Matic still failed to deliver the ball to him.
Failing to deliver the ball with his weaker foot is Matic's fault but nothing to do with vision, either.
Player like Pogba, Carrick and Scholes can pass the ball using both of their feet. No excuse. That's why I said that I wasn't surprised with Matic today because his speciality isn't controlling the tempo. His main job was to protect the back four, recycling the ball with simple pass or even clear the ball out. So relax mate because there is nothing bad and wrong for me to said Matic & Fellaini couldn't control our tempo today because it was never their speciality. We missed Pogba!!
Again, I will say it again that picture wasn't meant for vision thing that I mentioned. When you said it's our attackers didn't give option to Matic, I was meant to use those pictures to show you that our players do give our midfield option to pass to. The vision & decision what I meant are in different case. It was the case when he couldn't find other players who are in free space but he decided to make short simple pass in the midfield which is the area that Southampton did high press. For example if Matic has the vision he could give the ball to other players like Rashford or others who were in free space but he passed the ball to Fellaini and Fellaini lost the ball because of the quick high press.
Matic spotted Lukaku. Lukaku was in good area but there were not enough passing options to take Soton players away. Lukaku was read by Soton players. When talking about passing options, passing angle for the passer needs to workable. The easier for the passer to pull the better. In this case, Matic had 2 options. One difficult which is a better to transit the play. The easier passing option is to Mkhi which would further close out the next pass down the line. Matic decided to pick difficult pass which should be better for team play. He failed, no excuse. Can it be improved? Sure. Some players should make run to the left of Matic so the Soton player who intercepted this pass would have to think twice since he has 2 passing angle to close down.
And another reason why he missed the pass because like I already said in my very first post that our midfield couldn't handle the high press from Soton. There were not enough passing options to take Soton players away because it was a counter attack and if he was able to deliver the ball quicker enough to Lukaku then it would have been a perfect one. Lukaku has a good strength to hold the ball, with that it'll give plenty of times for other players to go forward as well which give more options to pass the ball too. Well, only if Matic was able to pass it to Lukaku.
Oh by the way that "no excuse" you mentioned.
Mate you just mentioned Matic used his weaker foot as your excuse lol.
In this specific case, we lack the passing option to raise the tempo. Soton would love if Matic kept choosing the safe option to Mkhi in counter attack. That happened under LVG where LVG prefers keeping possession, and ended up with slow build up (tempo), played into opposition hand. Here Matic failed to raise the tempo which we I believe no one disagree, but I disagree that he had enough passing options to make it work (raising the tempo). Everyone know Lukaku would be our the focal of our attack. Soton knew as much and did as much to work and close this path to Lukaku. My point was just that. In this game we didn't have sufficient passing options for Matic or whoever else in attempt to raise the tempo. Matic in better form would be better in picking his passes than yesterday. However, the hardship of the Soton imposed on our play and one player or our outnumbered midfield, 2 vs 3 of Soton for majority of the game, would be in same disadvantaged with the other players not pulling their weight helping the team play.
Well, I don't just mention slow the tempo. It seems that you have missed what I said. I said: Today, we didn't know when we need to slow it down and when we need to play quicker.
Check it out last page if you think I make it up (I even copy paste the exact same sentence). Anyway the picture what I showed isn't about this case.
Anyway, I don't want someone else jumped it and being misunderstood. Matic did his job defensively today. It's his speciality but he was never a type of player who control the tempo and provide great balls, he's not Carrick not Pogba. He missed Pogba who can do the job for him. There is nothing wrong to say Matic was never that type of player IMO. If you still disagree oh well so be it.
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Both points are correct though. His passing wasn't at his usual standard tonight, almost put their striker through on goal and started a dangerous counter attack for them. But then he players a 40 yard raking pass that he apparently isn't capable of.
