striker has a thankless task though in this system

three centre backs, two defensive wings backs who never put crosses in, two holding midfielders, and then three attackers who have to create nearly everything themselves.

Oliveira gets the ball 90% of the time with his back to goal, about 40 yards out - often at chest height. There are hardly ever runners in behind, and often he is completely isolated. I think the best we could hope for from a striker in this system is that he retains possession, makes some space for Maddison and scores maybe 1 in 3, or 1 in 4. I think expecting 20 goals from a forward is too much.

None of which is to say that the formation is wrong - it's clearly not because we're playing our best football and getting best results of the season. Just that Oliveira isn't going to score many playing like this - at least not compared to earlier in the season when we were much more open and he was scoring every week.

Posted By: Mecagoenti on February 10th 2018 at 17:11:06

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