...and I don't know if that's what he#s been coaching into doing, but he cut back instead of driving forwards as we've seen him do in the past so many times last night - frustrating when we know he can do that (when he's on form)
Harrison is reasonably pacey when he wants to be, but his control and particularly his decision making seems to suffer the faster he goes!
Having said that I would have probably brought Dobbin or Harrison on for McNeil at half time last night as he looked out of it. A few of them seem to be running on empty - as I said, earlier, the malaise at the club can't be helping that.
you mention the ball over the top to McNeil who was a yard ahead of his man but still didnt feel he had the pace to go past him
Similar to the last couple of games where Harrison has been goal side of his man only to get caught easily
Pace in wide areas is definitely an area where we need to improve
We've lost Richarlison, Gordon, Iwobi and Gray in recent recents replacing them with free transfers, loan signings and lads bought on credit
...he likes to encourage his keepers to "change the tempo of the game" either by a quick kick or throw, or by holding onto it and calming things down (I know that's not exactly revolutionary but it's a key part of his philosophy)
I thought that was a clear tactic last night - particularly in the first half, and it was actually reasonably effective at times - I particularly recall 2 in quick succession, the first straight to DCL (who nearly latched onto it directly but it was a bit too far and went to the keeper) and the second out to McNeil who brought it down, when he actually might have been better off running on it - but we weren't picking up enough of those second balls off DCL, so it just didn't work, and we were particularly poor first half, but I think there were a few factors in that - the primary one for me being that Doucoure was still nowhere at his best, which was understandable after a layoff (and I think it was still the right decison to play him)
It's a weird anomaly that we (both team and fans) are often much better when we're "up against it", yet when there is any kind of expectation that we might get a decent result, we just don't seem to be able to cope with it!
could that be more of a comment on how the rest of the team played and not DCL. The amount of times we went route one last night was shocking, mostly from Pickford. One dimensional, straight balls with little to no aim or fore-thought on the next step. Pure hit and hope.
So it could be argued that no other player has won that many aerial duels as they play bloody football on the deck and think its a bad stat to have won.
nt
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