The whole backline was excellent today. They were all locked in and you could tell concentration levels were very high - nobody wanted to make a mistake. Szobo get sman of the match but credit also to Kerkez for putting in a great display against a tricky opponent in a high pressure game. He wasn't asked to bomb forward so jury is out whether the positional issues will persist (I assume it will in short-term) but he looks very good in one on one situations. Also nice to see Ibou back to business as usual after a couple of very poor displays - hopefully he is okay.
The midfield was pretty poor and the forward line was pretty ineffective, though they had very little service. Things improved in the second half but still, the passing, movement, understanding, whatever on the whole just isn't there yet. Wirtz was getting called out by Neville for being too deep but I think, in part, that was due to him wanting to get on the ball. We were really struggling to keep it and progress forwards.
Thus far we've been reliant on out-performing our xG (I'm assuming, haven't looked it up) and we can't keep relying on wonder goals or last minute winners from 16 year olds.
We've got some easier games on paper coming up so hopefully we can build on this and start to build up real momentum. I'd also love to see Wirtz start influencing games more.
