Reviewing the game turned up something surprising, a real problem with our crosses, not for their quality but the impossible task of connecting with another player in a goal scoring position. When they’re pulled back a little then there’s usually someone there, but too advanced or too far back. The alternative is a normal cross between penalty spot an goalkeeper, that is pointless, nobody there. Then there’s the deeper cross, similarly, none of our players arriving in time. It’s like our play is not designed for cross and header, if we get past the wingback to the byeline then we have to work it back and across the penalty box, it’s asking a lot, a very demanding and long-winded way to score.
It needs attending to.
Playing through the middle is much tighter but our touch is much more defined like with the Correa goal
The tackle on Ganso in minute 88 could put Ganso out for a while, it was a real shocker, even though he came back on, he might still need the medics on that.
Lenglet got left behind for pace twice by the Cartagena right winger.
Most observable though is the cavalier defensive rotations leaving nobody in charge and huge spaces everywhere.
Whatever is wrong, it can be fixed, but we need to be good at everything at Champions league level, we can’t afford to have weaknesses in free-kicks, corners, positional sense, goalkeeping or anything. It all has to be top quality.
Krychowiak is loaned out to West Brom by PSG, how I wish we could get him back alongside Nzonzi.