The Dissentient

Benfica lined up in a 424 press, Luis and Kökçü marking Pedri & Gavi while Aursnes joined Pavlidis in screening the central spaces and jumping on the CB's when they had the ball. To Cubarsi and Araujo's credit, they found Casado quite easily who was left free.

Barca as usual pressed with their wingers coming narrow which caused a lot of issues on Kounde's side. To Benfica's credit, they switched the ball quick from one flank to another, Balde often could recover but not Kounde, who was found wanting on the first goal.

Kounde had a patchy Nov-Dec period, he plays all the time and Flick's tactics expose our flanks tremendously, our fullbacks are also tasked to provide width and make over/under lapping runs often. So, when the team is not at 100% intensity and rest defense isn't...

on point, our defense looks extremely porous and gets outnumbered quite easily on transitions. Now Flick's tactics aren't going to change but at the very least what we can do is rest Balde and Kounde in the not so high profile games. Ofc, both not at the same time.

What is clutch? Scoring last minute goals after being poor across the 90'? Or putting in world class performances after WC performances, game after game, across the 90'. Only fools will measure Pedri's performances via those metrics, he in this current vein of form is...

the best midfielder in the world, no one comes close. He carries our midfield like no other, connects, creates, controls, defends and dictates, sometimes he also puts up G/A, simply generational.

On the substitutions, Flick subbed out both of his fullbacks(who weren't having the best of games) as soon as Bruno Lage took out both his wingers(not a wise strategy) adding in more offensive firepower but more importantly allowing Lamine + Raphinha freedom in central spaces.

In fact, both of the subs made at 74', Eric and Ferran contributed in the goals, Eric scoring the fourth and Ferran assisting the fifth. As much as there are defensive issues that arise from our pressing shape, fatigue, highline and narrow defensive block, what needs to...

improve is Cubarsi in the air and our CB's defending in the box. I felt Araujo had a good game in individual duels yet again but his awareness in this new system is not there yet, was the same at the start of the season for Inigo as well, will it be fixed with time, we will see.

As historic as this comeback was against Benfica, a game for the history books, it also serves as a warning yet again in many ways and a throwback to the Nov-Dec phase, something I've been hammering about all the time. Flick's tactics are not going to work if the players are...

fatigued, rotation is paramount, as is keeping your best players fit for your most important games. There's enough quality on the bench to win most domestic games if used wisely and if possible the club needs to address attacking and fullback depth this window.

Finally, Szczęsny's situation, in a small sample size of games he is proven to be better and worse than Pena but the game is of fine margins, you can't be gifting your opponents freebies like he did yesterday. Flick and his staff, yet again have to make a decision.

If the team learns from the mistakes, improves the systemic issues underneath, then and only then this win will serve as any sort of mentality boost for the side, otherwise it will fizzle out, as we found out during Nov-Dec after beating Madrid and Bayern consecutively.

This game should be used as a propellant and allow the teams to build but if the same transition dependent game plan persists with persistent and excess usage of the starters, we will continue struggling in the league, it will again show that lessons have not been learnt.