There have been games this season where Odegaard has been simply superb( against PSV in CL and Bournemouth). I do think having better passers around him will help though. Both Rice and Jorginho are safe passers. Havertz is an ultra safe passer. I think he has also been struggling a bit with fitness though. I would like to see him rested tonight. He needs to get back into full fitness before we can see the best of him.
So when Ødegaard is absent and we play bad, we’re playing bad because he’s not in the squad. When he’s in the squad and we play bad it’s because of no Partey. When Partey’s in the squad and he plays bad it’s Partey’s fault. When will people see he’s been bang average this season
Doesnt matter as long as the team does well. We know how good he is and a vital part of the team so doesnt always needs flashy numbers
hate to say it but we’re less entertaining to watch than last season, Odegaard being a casualty of that shift as indicated…
hopefully we’ll find a happy middle between attempting to prevent conceding goals, and providing fun football, i don’t think we’re too far off
That’s my worry. I don’t want us to turn into snoozefest arsenal, and the trade-off be a ton of trophies. I don’t want us to turn into boring ass man city. Grab a trophy or two, but if we are always on top, it’s going to get boring really quickly. A perfect medium is what Klopp does. Idk how Luverpool can stay exciting and in the running for trophies.
Our midfield hasn’t been stable since the start of the season (the partey at RB mess at the beginning lol?), mixed in with two new midfield partners, ode’s injury and opposition teams generally parking the bus comically deep every game is what id attribute it to.
Even with the above points, I still think our attack has been far less fluid that it could be, the connections don’t seem to be there yet.
Bit of a shit headline for this article imo, as Sam does kinda go into all the above in the article while not really going into what data shows our defensive shift is doing to affect Ode. Rice not passing to him isn’t really a direct correlation to a team’s defensive shift?
same could be said about almost every player in the EPL