This wide area defending from Iran 
This is fun
All the more lols when Iran beats USA.
Lol +10
More goals!
Thatās not a penalty. Iran was tackling people in the first half.
If itās a 1-1 game. Thatās never a penalty. Gtfo
I see VAR are choosing to follow the Premiership model for consistency
Now thatās a take!
Salah, Messi, Mahrez. Probably the criminally underrated Gnabry too.
Wouldnāt call Messi a RW at all, he hasnāt played there really in 15 years?
Right now heās in a front 2 for PSG with Neymar as a 10, they donāt play any wingers.
Mahrez has not been better than Saka for the last year, just not at all. Mahrez might play 2000 minutes this year. Maybe. Heās well closer to finished at the top level than a top 5 RW now. Antony, Almiron have been better for a while.
Salah you could maybe take for the goals still, but heās genuinely had one good game vs a half decent team this year in City. His form is a major reason Pool will struggle to get top 4 this year.
Arsenal are top with better metrics than City. Saka is their best player. Itās been 6 years since a team had better xG than City, but Arsenal are managing it and Saka is a major reason why.
Itās been at least a decade since it was easy to characterize the best forwards as being strikers, wingers, attacking centerfielders, etc. They tend to be very fluid up front and defy simple classification along the old framework of a number 9, a number 10, etc.
ā¦Thatās not how they play though. Just googling lineups is a poor idea because they are consistently wrong.
For Arsenal, they always put us in a 4231 when itās been 18 months since weāve played such. They always highlight Xhaka as a 6 when heās an 8.
Watch the matches? I actually watched that match!
PSG play a front 3 diamond, with Messi and Mbappe as a front 2 and Neymar playing in the hole behind them.
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Lol
Carry on.
Of course.
And even within the position there is huge variations. Iād call Saka more of a RM than RW generally, as they donāt have as high a starting position as Salah or more forward types. Saka progresses the ball way more than the guys like Salah who are getting on the end of things but have guys like Trent to do the job of progressing the ball.
That is my point though, Saka is a guy who touches the ball ~60 times a game and is double teamed every single game for Arsenal. Salah is the only other recent winger to attract this, but they have Trent do all the mid block stuff Saka does.
Do you think Neymar has been playing as a LW, or will you look at a basic heat/pass map rather than just googling PSG lineups?
Mahrez doesnāt even start for City BTW, heās over 30 and has 1 g/0a this year in a team with almost 40 goals.
Kulusevski and Raphinha should be mentioned in a top RW list, but Mahrez? Funny joke!
Yeah, itās really fascinating. One of the better football books I ever read was Jonathan Wilsonās āInverting the Pyramidā that talks about the evolution of soccer formations as the sport and rules changed over time. Itās really something, but it is now out of date because it stopped with soccer in the early 2000s. Since then weāve definitely seen more evolution, especially with forwards who are much more valuable now if they are fluid in the playing of different roles.
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Neymar is a LW / CAM. Saka is more RM than a RW. But i wonāt argue with an Arsenal fan high on hopium. It was a nice game by Saka today. Hopefully one day Gnabry can win all the silverware Saka has.
Itās why Ronaldo canāt start for United and no team even wants him now.
Canāt press or complete 80% of your passes? Youāre useless to an elite team.
Even Haaland, probably the best #9 in the world has made City look off in the games heās not at his best because he canāt rotate out wide in the way Mbappe, Jesus and more fluid players can.