I say this to myself every game, but I swear it’s all in his head. I remember moments last season where De Jong didn’t look like a footballer. Now we trust him more. But everyone can see YEN is missing basic fundamentals to his game. {Like, how do you have that frame and not know how to use your body?!?} Sometimes i wonder if him being on this Sevilla team is making both parties go backwards…
He never got settled on the left, and now seems to overthink everything. But yes, he’s doing too much. But his recent dip in form has forced him to look for his teammates more. I hope he keeps that in mind.
100% this. It took us a full 10-15 minutes just to get ourselves out our own half! Lopetegui always tweaks things for the better in the 2nd half, but as today has shown, sometimes it might already be too late. We have to begin our matches with the intent to kill. Is it a weak mentality? or bad management?
Overall i think Lope will need to be more ruthless with some of these players. I can’t fathom how C. Fernández was almost out the door, and we’re starting YEN who often times mishandles simple passes. LdJ is currently our best CF, and it shouldn’t be a question who starts. As much as i love Rakitić, either him or Jordán will have to sit, cause they essentially fulfill the same role.
Lastly, someone has to show themselves as a go-to player. We lost that with Banega, and now our plays break down stupidly due to a lack of ideas. This is why i always back Suso. I see him a lot in good positions and not receiving the ball. Bar the Chelsea game, he has been instrumental in the flow of our forward moves, and knows what to do with the ball even if we get in a jam. A lot of times he’ll win fouls and make sure we keep possession. The more trust we put in him, the better we’ll improve as a side. But he needs another playmaker on the field, cause the ball will tend to stick with the kind of midfield we’ve been playing.
I just feel like all our weaknesses were unravelled in this one game: Vaclík, Sergi Gómez & YEN.
I honestly don’t think our loss has anything to do with vaclik, Sergio Gomez and YEN. Our lack of attacking pattern of play is becoming evident. Since we lost Reguilon and Banega, we have been relying too much on Navas as our attacking outlet. We must wake up and work on attacking drills, try playing through the middle and left with quick passing associative play. We can’t win our matches playing so defensive and working so hard for our points. I think it’s all down to the coach. Fernandez is struggling because of this, we should have left him at Granada for one more season.
I was very envious of the way eibar played through us today. Just take a look at kike’s goal. Bryan was also a delight to watch. This was the same player who played in our team some months ago. Why is he thriving in the eibar team? It’s because they have a defined style of play where players know what to do and where to be at when they are transitioning from defence to attack. If he was in our team, he will struggle. Our lack of style is the main reason why ocampos is doing too much. I honestly think we should have lost that game against Cadiz. Granada exposed us. Time to go back to the drawing board. By the way when will Idrissi be allowed to play?
Obviously cannot blame Vaclik for the fact we wasted chances and took ages to create anything but bugger me, their goal, he didn’t even out his arms up until the ball had passed him, and it was straight over his head.
He is so bad in one on one situations it’s a joke.
Pozo played at RB and performed very well in overall. He excelled at the defensive duties and although he didn’t make much attacking runs, with Navas or Suso as a winger he could’ve linked much better. Someone mentioned here that it’s a pity for Pozo to become a RB, however, I don’t think so. The modern right full back, as can be seen from the Navas case, is nowhere near the classic RB of Cannavaro style, or Cafu etc. The modern full back is all over the wing, that’s why players like Navas are a gem… or even Reguilon, who we miss dearly for our tactics to function well, even more than Banega at this point - only one wing without proper sub will not cut it.
Therefore, it would’ve been much better if we kept Pozo and removed Aleix Vidal. I mean, we still don’t know what Vidal can offer in this system as he is nowhere near in getting minutes, though he’ll be forced too because of Navas, but Pozo could’ve performed better imo.
Also, totally agreed with Coolio on his overall assessment, we don’t have a defined style of play, and the one that we had in post-pandemic time last season is missing because we don’t have Banega and Reguilon, exactly. We failed to replace them properly.
Not really. Inter had Javier Zanetti and Ivan Cordoba who played RB when Cannavaro was there, and Real Madrid had Michel Salgado.
At the risk of being an arse, according to Transfermarkt in 676 career games, Fabio Cannavaro played 3 games at Right Back. 4 games at Left Back, 2 as a Sweeper and thus 667 as a Centre Back.
Can’t log in from the office at work because I don’t remember the password and the password reset is not reaching my email for some reason, so opened this to post from the office lol - while the main account is autosaved/login from home pc.
@SurreySevilla that could be a true statistic technically, but if you have seen Cannavaro, he often covered the wing back, even for Italy. He was very disciplined tactically, for the defensive part. He was an immense defender, even when operating on the wing, but that’s it. It was more of an example of an old school defender who was ultimately defensive-minded, especially the ones in Serie A, but that was football back then. The modern full back’s defensive abilities are appreciated, of course, but if they do not complement it with attacking abilities and making forward runs often, especially in certain systems like 4-3-3 or 3-5-2, it won’t work (at least not properly).
That’s why Pozo will excel at full back imo, and Navas is already doing so, even if both were wingers at first. I can think of many other wingers that could do very well at full back positions. Some of them from the top of my head: Douglas Costa, Perisic, Lucas Vazquez, Lozano, Bale (he started there after all), Portu, Adama Traore and even our own Ocampos if he were not to be so full of him self (less selfish and with the proper professional mindset like Navas).
What we lack is creativity. I thought Rakitic would add some flavor to our attacking schemes. Turns out he is too fragile and refrains from duels. And the killer pass is still missing.
Why can’t we play a direct passing style? Even Eibar manages to play directly. We hustle around too much with so many unnecessary passes. Our ball time is high but it never turns into quality. I keep saying that, slow build up play lets the opposing side organize well at the back. We have to play more direct football.
I know it is hindsight but in the grandscheme of things it is looking at the moment like we would have been better off keeping Bryan (who played well again!) and Pozo at the club and using money to buy Campaña rather than trying to be all nostalgic with Rakitic.
I think Sevilla asked for his price and the response was 40m? That would comfortably smash the transfer record and Monchi probably thought it was too much.
The most head-scratching decision is why did we let Gil and Pozo play against us, both thrived and showed what could have been, but as mentioned the lack of defined style and loss of Banega along with Reguilon really robbed the main foul-getter and attacking outlet of the team. Rakitic did not need to play that role at Barca and is evidently like a fish out of water here, might need some adjusting but as of now Suso would be the chief go-to guy. Oscar should be able to do a similar if not more advanced role but needs consistent minutes to get his rhythm going.
I know someone mentioned that Navas has to play or else the team would be handicapped, I get that but it doesn’t mean he needs to play every single minute of every match, I would be comfortable starting Vidal in this match and only put on Navas at halftime if things weren’t going right. Sending Pozo out on loan and adding Vidal into the squad meant both Monchi and Lope knew he could contribute and the stats from last season showed while he’s not the Vidal of 2015 he can still be a serviceable player. If Monchi really doesn’t like the alternatives then why not go for a backup like the ones we identified such as Corona? He must have a list of potential targets on hand.
I know having Idrissi would be a welcome addition on the left but he hasn’t played in La Liga and is coming back from injury so to expect him to hit the ground running is a bit unrealistic, give him time and hope that Ocampos gets his head back into place, him and Suso on the wings work, just need a third player to get the oppositions attention and pull the strings from deep.
Ruts are inevitable so while the results are disappointing there’s no need to panic just yet, the team still has the away draw versus Chelsea to build on but if they fail to get a positive result against Rennais and Bilbao questions will be asked.
4 games at Left Back, 2 as a Sweeper and thus 667 as a Centre Back. 
