Written by thegazzyb
I’m very surprised to see that our players still haven’t adapted to how Evanilson expects them to play. Countless times he starts a run into the penalty area, just needing a pass to be played somewhere in front of him and countless times we stop, put our foot on the ball and pass it sideways and backwards, by which time of course Evanilson is well and truly offside and has to track back onside.
Our offensive play just keeps grinding to a halt around the edge of the penalty area, then we start passing the ball sideways and backward making it really hard to create a clear goal-scoring opportunity.
I feel pretty sorry for Evanilson currently. He seems to be doing everything a number nine should be doing but our players are just not looking to play him in.
There was a really blatant example of this at the weekend. He played the ball out to Semenyo on the wing and then bombed forward, waiting for Semenyo to complete the one-two. But instead of playing the ball back in front of Evanilson, leaving him with probably just the keeper to beat, Semenyo kept running with it, until he was eventually forced to check his run and all of the forward momentum of the attack evaporated once more.
There is A LOT of work to be done on the training ground to try to maintain the forward momentum in our attacks. Nine times out of ten they grind to a halt at the edge of the opposition penalty area and once there our offensive play becomes very static and very easy to defend against.
Instead of always looking to pass to feet ( I blame all of the rondos they keep practising ! ), we need to put some more speculative balls into the danger area, just to give Evanilson something to run onto occasionally.. Do that and I think he’ll start banging them in.
Neil Dawson
We lack, in fact, it’s the one position we have never nailed, a genuine number 10 (Maddison style) who can dictate a game, slide-rule pass a forward in and score themselves. We’ve always converted wingers to try and play there – Christie, Kliuvert, Tavs, Brooks but they move to the wings or we push a midfielder forward Gosling, Billing, Scott or we drop a forward back – King, Kermorgant, Pitman, Solanke. Both the converted midfielders and the forwards lack the composure and the vision.
Now we have lost the dynamic Solanke who was happy feeding off crosses or bursting in himself and replaced him with Unal and Evanilson who rely on a specific type of service we are a little stifled.
Our modus operandi is always to feed the wingers, and never to slide the centre forward in. They then cross and Evanilson gets out-muscled. This is the piece we have to resolve. I’m relaxed as this time last year we hadn’t solved a lot and it clicked. He scored a Champions League hattrick. There will be a way of playing to him that works.
USCherry
Here is what I don’t understand. Andoni Iraola has a system that made Solanke a goal machine in the Premier League last season. We sell Solanke, and rather than buying a like for like we buy someone who, apparently, needs different players around him to have him succeed. Why did we do this? – To join the conversation, click here.
Matt Stevenson with the Stats…
Here’s some xG and xA related stuff for AFCB.
For xG: Below the line is good – (only Semenyo and Cook) above the line is bad – most of the team but particularly Evanilson and Tavernier
For xA: Above the line means you have created chances that weren’t finished as expected (Semenyo and Evanilson mainly), below the line people have scored more than expected from your chances (Cook and Kluivert)
In terms of xG and xA per 90 minutes, which can be misleading due to small sample sizes
Dango, Evanilson, Sinisterra and Unal are all getting good xG per 90 minutes.
For xA Brooks is doing well, but this is only from 15 minutes. After this, Sinisterra, Dango and Billing (from 34 minutes) are creating chances. – To join this conversation, click here.