Cannon Zincheko provides us something unique. Kiwior for all his athleticism can easily be replaced. Maybe if he was homegrown and had not costed 20 mill yeah ok. But i rather recoup and offset the Calafiori fee.
Yeah. The way I think about these defenders is basically looking at two things. 1) we dominate possession and 2) most of our possession ends up in the back line given that we face packed defenses, and need to keep circulating the ball through the rear of the field
Basically what it means is in a typical game, it wouldn’t be unusual for our rear half of the team to hold 30-35% of the entire possession in a game for both teams.
Given that, it’s much more important to have defenders who are offensive protagonists than it is to have traditional defenders. It also explains why we and City spend so much on defense relative to teams lower down the table. Quick maths.
That’s why Cala is exciting. He and Timber give us alternative ways out from the back, typically through progressive runs, versus Zinchenko’s league topping progressive passing. In this context, Kiwior doesn’t do as much. He was actually probably most useful when we gave the ball up against City and he could double up Haaland. But this isn’t a situation we will face frequently.
