Just watched the highlights and Jesus Christ it’s even worse than what I remember. I wondered whether the emotions of the game meant I was over reacting and blasting our players unfairly, especially after a few people had a go at me on here, but I wasn’t being unfair at all. Those goals were so amateurish. Ridiculously poor goals to concede in a champions league quarter final.
The first goal. As Kroos is in possession, kabak is actually 2 yards behind Phillips at this point. When Kroos plays the pass, Phillips does the right thing and turns towards our goal because we weren’t in a position to play offside, but kabak doesn’t react to the pass and he stays flat footed meaning he’s miles in front of Phillips now. Phillips gets caught out horribly but kabak should also be in the position of where Vinicius plays himself in. That’s where he should be but he’s miles up the pitch instead.
Second goal. Kroos is on the ball again. He clips a ball down their left channel and Trent is in a lot of trouble. At this moment, Phillips and kabak are five yards IN FRONT of both Trent and robertson who have now turned towards our goal. Trent has a nightmare with his header but because our centre backs are so far ahead of him, they aren’t in a position to intervene and help him out. Robertson also had an opportunity to get goal side of asensio but he was looking to play the offside I think (if Trent never headed the ball). Trent will take the blame here because his header was that sh*te, but all four of them are at fault here and the two cbs positioning was shocking once again.
Third goal. A throw comes in and Robertson is holding their player up who has the ball. Their player passes back to Modric and when I was watching it live I thought he skipped past Fabinho too easily but that’s actually a bit harsh on Fabinho watching it back. Fabinho thinks about the interception but the ball is played in to Modric too quickly meaning he can’t intercept, so just one touch from Modric inside takes Fabinho out the game. There’s very little he could do there to be honest. At the time, I thought kabak was slow getting out to him and I was right. The reason he was slow getting out to him was because when the ball was played back to Modric, kabak is standing on the F***ing byline almost when he doesn’t need to be there. He should be 5 yards further up the pitch.
So when Modric has gone past Fabinho, and because kabak is so far back, he has 10-15 yards to make up on him, when it should have only been 5 or so. Phillips, his centre half partner, is 5 yards ahead of kabak where he should be but as Modric has the ball Phillips is completely ball watching. He isnt aware of the man in the box and as a result didn’t get tight enough. The scorer was originally trents man which I didn’t originally notice either. Trent is also ball watching and ignores the movement of his man and he clearly doesn’t give Phillips a shout either.
Three shocking goals to concede. There is very little room for error at this level. Positioning is crucial and if it’s not near perfect then a lot of time you will get punished like we did tonight. It’s basic defending being on line with the rest of the back four, ESPECIALLY your centre half partner. They were exposed massively.
What I will say though is, in the return leg somebody needs to sit on F***ing kroos. The positioning of our defenders was proper sh*te but the way Kroos had all the time in the world to play whatever pass he wanted was F***ing piss poor too. Our midfield and attackers have to be much more aggressive and not give them a second to breathe.
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