ŚLIZGAWKA

Edit: slight disclaimer that this is very much a mix of what they've said and me adding my own extrapolation/views. The key points are all what they've said, but mainly the point on our midfield is where I've added my own views.

Some big takeaways I had from this and listening to the associated podcast:

Frank has not learnt to organise a press and midfield trap since his Derby days. As Cox said on the podcast, it's often as though he's asked all three mids to do the exact same thing - it's why you see in the screenshots posted in the article that the mids are so close yet so far away from the ball or players they should be concerned with. Built into this is exactly why Kante looked good vs shit teams and now looks over exposed - it's his positioning as well as how Frank wants them playing. It was fine when teams weren't really throwing many players at us, cuz the defence could be well organised still and eventually Kante might get back - but soon as you have good teams, or teams who can move the ball around decently quickly in the middle of the park, he's buggered. It's also why Jorgi has been made to look poorer at times this season. It's why it seems the club should not sign Rice just yet no matter what Frank believes - as it stands, no player could be Frank's number 6 against good opposition without being made to look foolish, due to the way our press and midfield are organised.

Mendy is not as good as everyone immediately heralded - the patch where he had around 5 clean sheets in 6 games, he only actually faced 9 shots on target. No wonder things were going so well. He's now seen his numbers regress (stabilise?) and his numbers now appear as bang average.

Werner is poor with his finishing - but he's been genuinely out of position and the Athletic writers seem to think this has been part of his recent poor general play. People like to point out "well he came off the left a lot for Leipzig" - but as the article notes, he still spent 78% of last season in a centre forward position, and the drifting left was mostly to unsettle CBs before coming back inside - he's spent 63% of this season's minutes in a left wing role though. That is definitely a difference. It also appears that he's not getting the same central support he used to when carrying the ball and is not getting the opportunities to carry it centrally like he used to.

However, Tom Worville remarked in the podcast that whilst our average xG for this season is 1.4 per game (which loses out to last season's xG of 1.76 per game) we are still scoring 1.7 goals per game - so despite Werner's blushes we are still outperforming our xG. In totals, the article states that that's 28 G from 23.9 xG and we've conceded 19 G from 14.8 xG (which appears to be from pre-Villa and City) while our xGD was fourth best in the league behind City, Villa and Liverpool.

So whilst Kepa, Willy and Mendy are letting us down at one end and Werner is at the other - we're still scoring more than we're really creating and so it's not Werner's lack of clinical finishing that is screwing us. Nor is it necessarily the keepers screwing us either, as they suggested on the podcast - the two balance out and we should still be higher on the table.

niby beczka że "wielki trener" który nic wielkiego nie osiągnął, ale obawiam się że z takim potencjałem ludzkim mógłby zrobić za rok chelsea 16/17 conte, która może rozwalcować każdego