Country: South Africa
Player:Nketiah
Except for the top 4, literally every side tried to simply stop us from playing if not literally kick us off the park. In this era where teams open up a we bit more and even midtable teams try to be a bit more expanse that 08 side would be ripping teams to shreds.
Which teams opened up?
The mistake teams made against this Arsenal team is that they thought they could push up their lines and force our first phase into mistakes. That's why we got to 50/57 points in the first half of the season.
Go and look at the games against Sp**s, Liverpool, Chelsea in late 2022. They were trying to compete with us and got slaughtered. It was either a team couldn’t get to the ball, or teams were played through with ease when trying to press high.
A key reason why we dropped off in 2023, is because teams realised what they were dealing with and had to completely close off their lines to compete with us. Go and look at the games against Newcastle (literally showed the shift in the first half of the match), United, Everton, Brentford, Liverpool away and even City at the Emirates.