This Italian ref has so far kept his cards in his pocket, which is nice to see. There've been a few fouls that might've tempted other refs.
63' Lens just missed another great chance, by about 2 ft. They're super dangerous on the quick break after a turnover.
66' corner by Ode right to Tomi's left foot. He made good contact but right into the keeper's leg. We haven't been getting too many good chances like that so we need to be clinical. Edit: <1min later another corner to Big Gabi inside the 6, but whose header was just not good enough. Damn!
Lens go up 2-1 after yet another break down the wing, good cross, precise finish by Wahi. A ruthless, clinical goal any team would be proud of.
White does come on, but for Zinny. Switches with Tomi. OK. Nelson for Trossard. And ESR for Havertz. These seemed like planned 70' rotational changes, and it's interesting that the game state didn't stop them. I guess we should give Mikel praise for sticking to that plan? Not being desparate to get a result with his starting XI?
I'm done with Zinchenko, been saying it for weeks. We are too vulnerable down our left and he has been a turn over merchant tonight to make things worse
Ironically the crowd got much quieter since they scored to go into the lead. Well, now they must've just read my mind and are kicking back up again.
89' Nelson with a shot from 10 yards. Ugh... if he'd only steered that a yard or two wider, we'd have gotten a result tonight.
FT LEN 2-1 ARS Well played to Lens. They got their tactics bang on. Ceded possession to us, played on the quick counter. And took their chances well. We suffered a few things tonight: our first defeat of the season, Saka going down to injury, and key starters loading their legs with many more minutes, and... Only 4 days rest before an existential 6-pointer against Citeh. Your guess is as good as mine. Oh, and we lost one more thing today... @And_ROOS ends his stellar MD thread service, dating all the way back to last season!
Adam Voge on Twitter has a different take: his view is that top players always play if the games matter, and Saka's minutes aren't appreciably different from top players at other clubs. Here's a more visual representation of how Saka ranks in terms of minutes played vs other star players at bigger clubs. As you can see, his time on the pitch isn't extraordinary by any means here. pic.twitter.com/v3wIwLHD1h— Adam Rae Voge (@adamvoge) September 15, 2023
OK, and that's clearly been Mikel's view, which he stated publicly once or twice: elite star players have to play 60 maybe 70 games a season, and Saka is no exception. I might have the numbers wrong, but whatever it is it's a big number. But it would seem that there are other metrics at play too. Like how frequently the player plays 90 or even 60-70 mins. Or what his average mins per appearance is. Or in the case of Bukayo in the last several weeks/months... the amount of kicks/niggles he's picking up, practically every match... which might in turn cause compensation/misuse in other areas of his body/legs (as mentioned by someone above) I'd say those niggles have been a pretty big factor in my thinking he could use a rest, along with the overall aggregate minutes load, which is what this guy's graphs show. (taking his data/source on face value as correct)