Bürki Akanji Hummels Zagadou Hakimi Can Witsel Guerreiro Sancho Haaland Brandt Despite all what was written, Can gets his start in midfield and Brandt is pulled forward. It's not Brandt's best position but he has the tendency to be a bit careless with the ball. I'm not that opposed to strengthening the midfield against Leverkusen. I want to give Can a chance and hope it wasn't money wasted. I think this is a position where he can be more useful for us against certain teams. Brandt is better for offensive purposes, of course, but I surely think and hope Can isn't useless concerning that aspect. On Leverkusen's side, besides the guys we've known from previous games, I'd look out for Diaby who can be very dangerous. Despite Leverkusen's loss, he looked good last week.
1:0 Leverkusen after 20 minutes. Another one of those defensive collapses we know too well. Hummels answers right away after a corner.
2:2 at halftime. Offensively we are doing ok but we could have played several situations better. Defensively it's not convincing.
3:2 Sancho. Goal called back because Reyna made an absolutely useless foul. But the goal would have been scored despite the foul. Still 2:2.
Guerreiro scores after Havertz should have scored and only hit the post. Lucky chain of events for us. But well played by Sancho and Hakimi to set this up.
Lead restored after Reyna showed why total newbs shouldnt be subbed on in the middle of undecided games. Same reason why Guardiola never plays the kids. Our defence is shit but Leverkusen's defence is worse by a small margin.
Leverkusen scores two quick goals...we were begging for it with minutes of Favre ball and just waiting for them to score and putting our trust in our ability to defend.
I am confused. Guardiola not playing the kids is a very bad thing. Dortmund playing the kids is good. Anyway typical Favre, we have given up this season by keeping him in charge. All we can hope for is top 4 and we will get knocked out by PSG.
Reyna cant play the whole second half in important game like this ahead of Hazard or Gotze, its ridiculous. He didnt do anything except denied our goal. Our defence is horrible, its like every time ball goes into our half, its dangerous... Well bye bye Bundesliga.. I guess Favre wont be hear next season, but the problem is that he had to go in this winter pause, big mistake...
Brandt is extremely important for us, i would say he is currently more important than Reus for our game
He had to go in the summer and at latest before the international break in October. The sad thing is there is no chance we are going to keep this great team together. Sancho might already be our best player and he will leave. Hakimi will leave, Weigl has gone and Dahoud will go.
We didn't even create a chance in the last 10 minutes after falling behind. Headless football without a plan. I also don't get why Brandt was subbed at the half. I didn't see him as bad, maybe an injury issue. At the top of my head, balls between our CBs to guys with too much space and missing the offside trap, and corners/long balls into our box. 2 each of those situations, I think.
In 21 games we conceded 32 goals.. Sorry, but you cant compete for a title with that kind of defence.. We have 13 games till the end and its very possible that we will concede more than 50 goals.. That amount of goals average concedes teams that are 8-15 positioned
There's no one answer, it depends on the player qualities and position. Pep plays Foden in an advanced role in meaningless games every now and then, to keep English fans happy and reduce the defensive load. The nearer you play to the goal, the more costly a misplaced pass is and the more experienced a player needs to be. A winger misplacing a pass is not as bad as a CM or CB fcking up a backpass. Player wise: if they rarely foul and misplace a pass, sure. Reyna is not that level yet in his previous games he gives the ball away which is dangerous vs Bayer. Position: playing a teenager at striker or winger is OK, a lot of coaches do it because these positions have less defensive responsibilities. AM, CM, fullback, centerback all require more defensive skills to read the game, not foul when tackling and stamina to press. Notice we play Mor, Dembele, Gotze, Sancho, Pulisic as winger and loaned out FBs and midfielders Passlack, Toljan, Burnic.
Nothing wrong with using the youth and errors are part of the learning process. You usually build them up and ease them in carefully. But a coach also has to consider the dynamics of a game and the opponent. Even in the first half it was clear that we cannot defend shit. The solution obviously wasn't to take out Brandt and bring a young winger. I have to assume there were injury issues, or maybe Brandt's appearance, playing against his old team, was seen as too passive. Hazard did nothing to deserve this kind of reduction of minutes. He's a smart, team oriented player that also works hard against the ball. On the positive side, Favre has to see enough in training to trust Reyna so there is something to look forward to. If Brandt had no issues, it's tinkering around a bit too much, though. That's also in relation to the formation. It seems it was a 4-1-4-1. It often looked like the usual 3 in the back but Hakimi seemed to be a winger and Akanji at times was an RB which was a big fail. Hakimi had very few good scenes and Akanji as RB worked out neither defensively nor offensively.
I really don't know who to blame here, but our defense looked like it wasn't even there. Every ball in behind the defense was basically a 1-on-1 with the keeper. 4-3-2-1 has the advantage of having 3 central midfielders who can help buildup AND width which allows us to use 2 of our talented wingers. But on the downside, having 2 CBs has sucked for us all season. Is it individual mistakes? Slow CB's? Is it that both Akanji and Hakimi were played out of position? Is it that the defensive midfielders don't track back runs from the midfield? Question marks for Favre: I see no reason to take out Brandt at half-time, unless he was injured. Reyna did well, but why take out Brandt when he's in amazing form? Also, why play 2 players out of position (Hakimi & Akanji) and bench Hazard, for whom I think the 4-2-3-1 would have been ideal? Also, how many goals did Volland score against us?
On the positive side, that team goal finished by Guerreiro just shows how good we can be in attack with the talent we have, as well as the goal that was cancelled. Reminders of BVB style football. But defense matters too :/