AbouCuéllar
Author of A-M essays 📚
Yeah, that's an interesting comparison, Di María and Saka certainly have some similarities. But Di María is a much better passer tbf and just more of a midfielder.I gotta shout out my man @razörist here. He made an interesting comparison. The way Di Maria was used in Madrid’s La Decima season, in a 4-3-3 is how we could use Saka. I think his potential in that role is huge.
Around the 70th minute yesterday we went to a 4-3-3 with a midfield of Partey - ESR - Ødegaard. Ødegaard and Saka would interchange and we started playing some free flowing football. With the likes of Saka and ESR getting into promising positions.
Uncle Mikel said he eventually wants us to play in a 4-3-3 shape. I think now we have more players suited to a 4-3-3 midfield than a 4-2-3-1.
I do like the idea of going with a rather radically attacking 4-3-3 against lesser sides though, the 4-3-3 you say we went to yesterday. Burnley next week could be a good opportunity to try it, honestly, though I suspect Mikel will try to fight fire with fire (not something I'm much of a fan of, but yeah) by trying to match their physicality and playing Lokonga alongside Thomas.
Saka is fine on that LW though, he gets into channels and creates problems, and while he doesn't get involved as much in the game as he would at RW facing the play and being able to be a bit more creative, that's just the reality of having two left footed wide players who are best on the right.
I'm not seeing how Sterling is not going to end up fed up at City at this rate; might be a good idea to look into selling Pepe and buying Sterling, as he'd basically do all that Pepe does for us, but allow us to play Saka in his best position on the right and Sterling on the left.
But for now Saka-Auba-Pepe looks our best front 3, and I think you're right, in certain matches, providing full fitness, we should try to stuff all our best players into the lineup with a 4-3-3 with Thomas-ESR-Ødegaard, and Saka as always helping out in midfield duties. But that can only work against sides like Burnley that don't complicate too much our getting out with the ball in our own half. Burnley, Newcastle, maybe Southampton?-- there aren't too many teams that fit this description in the league. Maybe Tottenham under Nuno honestly.
But it's one of the things I really love about the White and Tomiyasu signings. This is now at least an option, whereas against Villarreal for example it was just a disaster, in part because we just didn't have the defenders with capability on the ball and composure to make it half viable.