Players who can shield the ball and dribble

Yagami

Good post resistant
Joined
Jan 27, 2013
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14,190
We need to target more players with these attributes.

The only midfielders and attackers we have who can shield the ball under pressure are Martial and Sancho on a good day. Both are still inconsistent at this. Everyone else we have is weak under pressure.

The only midfielders and attackers we have who can dribble and beat their man is...well, no one right now. We don't even have a full back capable of dribbling. Maybe Malacia eventually.

It's makes us easy to play against because we don't have anyone who can dribble to open up teams, and we struggle to pass through teams because, once you pass the ball between the lines, chances are the player receiving the ball won't keep it as they can't shield it under pressure.
 
The team lacks pace, dribblers and press-resistant players.
 
Bruno gets bullied so easily off the ball. His technical ability can't hide that anymore
 
Dalot, Maguire, Shaw, Fred, McTominay, Rashford, Bruno are the common factors for our failure under Ole and Rangnick.

They are all possessionally wasteful and lack composure

it is painful that we are still stuck with the same set of players under the third manager
 
The sad fact is we could’ve hired Klopp and would’ve sacked him because of our refusal to accept the fact the reason we are bad is because of the players.
 
Can we please start prioritising these players.
 
Our top three dribblers last season aren't in the team anymore for one reason or another and not one of them has been replaced.
 
It is really a rare skill.
JeffFromHK said:
Dalot, Maguire, Shaw, Fred, McTominay, Rashford, Bruno are the common factors for our failure under Ole and Rangnick.

They are all possessionally wasteful and lack composure

it is painful that we are still stuck with the same set of players under the third manager
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Yes this lot. One shoulder bump and they drop to the floor and lose the ball immediately. The worse from your list is Shaw and Bruno.

It is really weird, players are Xavi, Scholes, Modric, Verratti are not big or strong players but it is so difficult to get the ball off them.
 
Idxomer said:
Our top three dribblers last season aren't in the team anymore for one reason or another and not one of them has been replaced.
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Pogba, Martial, and Matic(?). You can take it further and say we haven’t replaced a single one of our 6 players we let go on a free. Maybe Eriksen replaced Lingard.
——
I think another major issue is just how physically slow our team is. Like, do we have a single sprinter in our side? Teams can press us high when we try to play out on the ball because; 1. We haven’t got press resistant players who can play with the ball (as per OP), but also just as importantly imo 2. We haven’t got any fast players to take advantage of the space teams will leave if they get touch tight on us.

Who’s running in behind? 38 year old Ronaldo? Paperweight Fernandes? Sancho? The only player in the squad who has [had?] actual sprinting pace was Rashford and I haven’t seen him outrun a player in a long time.
 
Most mid table and smaller teams who can't afford such players were doing fine with 11 men who works together as a team.

You dont need shield and dribble if your teammates are moving around and create passing opportunities.

Many teams do wonder just by doing the basics right
 
DWelbz19 said:
Pogba, Martial, and Matic(?). You can take it further and say we haven’t replaced a single one of our 6 players we let go on a free. Maybe Eriksen replaced Lingard.
——
I think another major issue is just how physically slow our team is. Like, do we have a single sprinter in our side? Teams can press us high when we try to play out on the ball because; 1. We haven’t got press resistant players who can play with the ball (as per OP), but also just as importantly imo 2. We haven’t got any fast players to take advantage of the space teams will leave if they get touch tight on us.

Who’s running in behind? 38 year old Ronaldo? Paperweight Fernandes? Sancho? The only player in the squad who has [had?] actual sprinting pace was Rashford and I haven’t seen him outrun a player in a long time.
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Yeah, the team severely lacks physicality.
 
DWelbz19 said:
Pogba, Martial, and Matic(?). You can take it further and say we haven’t replaced a single one of our 6 players we let go on a free. Maybe Eriksen replaced Lingard.
——
I think another major issue is just how physically slow our team is. Like, do we have a single sprinter in our side? Teams can press us high when we try to play out on the ball because; 1. We haven’t got press resistant players who can play with the ball (as per OP), but also just as importantly imo 2. We haven’t got any fast players to take advantage of the space teams will leave if they get touch tight on us.

Who’s running in behind? 38 year old Ronaldo? Paperweight Fernandes? Sancho? The only player in the squad who has [had?] actual sprinting pace was Rashford and I haven’t seen him outrun a player in a long time.
Click to expand...

From last season according to whoscored, our top three were Pogba, AWB and Greenwood.
 
Idxomer said:
From last season according to whoscored, our top three were Pogba, AWB and Greenwood.
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Greenwood could definitely carry the ball, yeah. Had erased him from my memory but all of his strengths are massively missing from this teams profile.
 
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