It’s taken me some time to ‘put pen to paper’, which I finally did yesterday, after last Sunday’s defeat to Wolves; partly due to being busy but also trying to snap myself out of a certain amount of disappointment at the way we set up and went about our business against our visitors last Sunday, who thoroughly deserved all-3 points.
Even the best…
Do I love Pep
to bits? That’s
like asking if Puma have given us two awful
away kits in their first season with us. “Yes, of course!”, is the exclaimed
answer!
But as the team news filtered through on
Sunday afternoon, I began head-scratching and wondered if we had some late
injuries that I wasn’t yet aware of…or had simply misheard. You see, I was in
my local before the game and there were 8 Wolves fans in there. Whilst sat
outside in the reasonably sunny & warm day, 2 of ‘em came out and
began to read through our starting 11 on one of their phones and as I strained
my slightly-dodgy ears to listen, I could have sworn they mentioned 2
right-backs as well as making no mention of Bernardo Silva.
They
then went on to try to grasp any hope that they might get something out of the
game; with one fan saying that it’s okay to ‘write this game off’, while the
other gave credit to his own team’s defence and added that, “If we can just
sneak a goal…”.
Anyhow, as I left, I turned to the group
and said, “Enjoy the game lads”. I meant it…but not THAT
much and as the final whistle blew, I began to regret my kind, departing words…
Pep is a tactical genius and has ‘that
magic touch’ of improving so many players in so many ways. But even he has got
things wrong since he became leader of our team – a few faux pas in his first
ever season with us, as he was getting used to the league, and a cup, team-selection
error or 3 in at least one of the games where we faced Wigan,
spring to mind.
Last
Sunday, for me anyway, was definitely one to add to that [thankfully] short
list of ‘Guardiola bloopers’.
Why…WHY pick 2
right-backs and plonk one of ‘em on the left, even if Cancelo
did come with the ‘rider’, “…can play on the left”?! Then to discover later on
that Kyle Walker wasn’t fully over a recent
illness, so I’ve heard, makes that decision even more baffling!
And what did Pep put on his bench? 2 flippin’ left-wing backs in
the form of Angelino and Zinchenko!
Did he have it half-in-his-mind that he might have to withdraw Kyle early, who was having as-poor-a-game
as most of the rest…but perhaps hoped that, by then, we might be a couple of
goals ahead and, so, giving himself the option of bringing one of the
fair-haired defenders on and shifting Joao over to his preferred right side?
Would that be classed as…arrogant?
And why risk an apparently recovering
Walker and play Cancelo on the left when we already have a makeshift, central
defence to be slightly concerned about? I mean…WHY?!
I remind readers at
this point that, apart from not knowing before the game about Walker being
‘under the weather’, all of this head-scratching was going on with me BEFORE
the match and isn’t just ‘hindsight rambling’.
Then we had the central midfield conundrum.
So…you have arguably one of our best and
most creative players out injured, in Kevin De Bruyne; we’re at home and are about to go into an international break
where you want to, at the very least, maintain the status quo with regards to,
‘keeping up with the Scousers’.
Do you start with ‘the next best thing’ in
terms of possible assists and attacking threat or do you leave that on the
bench in case needed later on? Of
COURSE you start him!
I’m not in the camp of people, which seems
to be gaining more tents as weeks go by, who don’t like Ilkay – I think he’s a
“good” player and certainly has his uses, even by our high standards. In fact,
whenever we have a full-strength team, he’s still good & experienced enough,
in my opinion, to feel confident that he should, at least, make the bench; even
if a lot of fans would prefer to see Phil Foden there
more often and instead of the German international.
But to consider him ahead of Bernardo for
the Wolves game just beggars belief and I honestly believe that if we’d
have started with Joao on the right, Oleksandr on the left and had a wing /
midfield 4 of Raheem, David, Bernardo & Riyad
behind Sergio that we would have put
last Sunday’s game out of sight before any possible counter attack from our
well-organised visitors. I might be wrong – and there’s no way to test that, of
course – but I’m confident that would have been the case.
Pep Guardiola 0-2 Nuno Espirito Santo (make the sign of the cross now)
Damage done?
What can you say? We’re flippin’ 8 points
behind Liverpool and although we’ve been in
that position before much later on in the season, our rivals, apart from
being good as they are, worryingly seem to be getting through games with a
good degree of luck; with very few (if any) VAR
decisions against them and with opposition teams misfiring against Liverpool a
lot of the time.
I don't like it when a team appears to be getting more than their fair share of fortune and unless
we see a radical change in all of those factors with The Reds, I think we’ve
now put ourselves in a position that might be too much to recoup…
But, of course, it is a very, VERY
long season ahead and all of those factors could start to equal
themselves out - not forgetting also that we’ve had injuries, two of
them very bad, to three, VERY key players and Liverpool have not had
likewise.
So…let
us pray to the Gods of football.
The 2-week break.
Usually I bemoan such things, especially at
this stage of the season where we’re only 8 league games in and we’ve ALREADY
had one international break before this latest one!
However, I think it’ll be to our advantage
in that it’ll give Pep, his staff and those players who won’t be travelling to
meet their international colleagues time to evaluate last weekend’s failings
and ‘things in general’. It’ll also give time for the physios to work with
those who need a little TLC.
I also don’t think Liverpool will welcome
the domestic break, unless I’m misreading the situation; as a lot of us know
that when you’re ‘on a roll’ you don’t want it to end…and coming back
together to face a trip to a desperate Manyoo
side at Cold Trafford might not be the ideal
situation.
Some of that might sound like ‘desperate
talk’ but, hey…even the best require some help whenever the need arises.
Final word…
Despite injuries and a couple of ‘blips’ in
this short season so far, we’re still in fine fettle Blues. And, of course,
we’re still living the dream! Which club - and “when” if ever at all - are
going to repeat the achievements of our wonderful football club from last
season?!
Thanks, as always, for taking the time to
read and let’s look forward to our next game a-week-on-Saturday.
