87' Setford comes on for Kepa. I assume that's just for "morale" reasons, not something physical for Kepa. Edit: Nice confident aerial claim just seconds later.
FT ARS 4-0 WIG Well 2T became an exercise in preservation. Gone was the swagger, the fast-paced flurry of goals. In fact any goals for that matter. Oh well, that's fine. There's absolutely no reason we needed a bigger goal cushion. The bigger issue is injuries: Today we lost Calafiori in warm-up, White late in the game. Following closely on the heels of Merino perhaps for the rest of season, Havertz & Ode for who knows how long. Plus Saka clearly isn't 100%. At least the next match is Wolves. But I have this nagging feeling that the injuries are going to catch up with us.
Hoping Whites was just precautionary, hard to tell with Calafiori if he is back for Wolves or gone for a month with his history. But MLS and Mosquera absolutely composed in defence, Saliba did well after missing with illness, Norgaard was excellent all game, Eze was MOTM.
Why sub on Zubi? MLS played mostly in midfield - inverted. He was fine except he tried too many long passes that didn’t work. Mosquera looked a different level of quality than anyone else on the field. Eze was MOTM for his first half performance. Martinelli was a handful too.
Just caught up with Norgaard's interview w/ ESPN. He's really such a veteran/leader. Seems to me we could use these qualities on the pitch a it more. And with our injury luck that may just happen sooner than we think likely.
We are a better team when we attack more quickly and use central spaces. Our first half tactics would've kept piling them in. Sure it was Wigan, but we scored exactly 0 goals when we started going deep into corner zones after walking the ball upfield.
Only watched the first half when I got home late last night. Wigan notwithstanding, this did nothing to dissuade me from my pet theory that Saka is really a midfielder, and a potentially great one at that.
Thought the same at times: he'd be great at 8, but that's because he's probably so good that he'll be good as either a midfielder or a winger. He really needs to be the player in the half space with a fullback on the outside.
AND it seems we may need to come up with "something different" to fool or foil opponents who have "figured us out". Maybe taking Saka away from RW and playing him deeper or more centrally or even just to do more interchanging between RW & LW, could achieve that to a degree?
But more seriously folks, ESPN failed to fully cover this most essential part of yesterday's match-up... https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Ofe8G6tukSc Fantastic moves by the dino: PK's to the corner, knee "slide", Merino corner flag celebration, etc!
Its funny because I saw an image I forgot to post a while ago that pointed out Man City's recent drawing of lower ranking opponents in the FA Cup and League Cup, good to see that run end with a tricky match against Newcastle at Newcastle. I'm just glad we have avoided one of the big boys, this usually feels like the part of the FA Cup where we get a Pool or a Chelsea etc.
OK but I would still deem this a "luck of the draw" situation, as in good luck. Mansfield Town is a lower half of League One team. I'd rather go to them than Wrexham, not to mention Brentford. And speaking of luck, Mansfield's cup luck has to run out soon and I'm pretty confident that'll be on March 7th. p.s. Their coach is Nigel Clough. They have a small stadium with a grass pitch... hopefully England will dry out a bit between now and then. But I still think this is probably favorable to astroturf. Nevertheless we'll probably have to work on our direct/aerial game a bit the week before.
Last played Mansfield 97 years ago. Not a record though. https://bsky.app/profile/justoffthestriker.bsky.social/post/3mf2i7yxzvc26