On the football, I’ve enjoyed watching our League Cup and Europa Cup games. One school of thought is that the teams we have played have been so subpar that we have had the freedom of the park, so would look good anyway. But there are some differences here. We aren’t playing this basketball-style game where we trade punches every 3 minutes. We had twice as many shots as last night’s opponents. We are building more consistently on the flanks (primarily thanks to Tierney); and we tend to have much more connected midfields, both internally and to other parts of the team.
On the strength of opponents, I’m not sold that playing a significantly reduced quality of opponent is the differentiator. United was just as toothless against us as it was against AZ. And some league opponents we’ve had a viscous offense against like Spurs and Watford have suffered absolute hammerings at the hands of Bayern and City respectively.
So are there differences in the set-up that are advantageous? Or still inconclusive?
