awooga83 wrote:
Agree but that's part of the problem i have with our approach and Arteta's. Far too dominated by fear instead of trying to see if we can hurt them. Like when we got into that last 20 minutes to to get a goal but we just don't seem to do that.
To be fair, I think Arteta is trying to play a lot like City.
Although City are top of the table, they are not a rampant team. They lead the league by 12 points but have fewer goals than United. Today, they are 7-6 on shot attempts versus West Ham at the 64th minute.
A large part of City’s approach is possession to constrict the opponent. Possession is simultaneously attacking and defensive. If you look at the amount of possession they have relative to the number of shots they take, you realise that they do not have an offensively productive possession, but they keep you from attacking by having the ball and tiring you out. Even when they press, very often, they don’t recover the ball and launch a quick strike. They recover the ball and recycle it to their DMs and centre backs.
This feels very much like Mikel. The difference is we lack the technical security in the front 4 and the speed of movement from Xhaka and co.
