My problem with this is no player on the roster or the league for that matter can pick out the passes Pirlo does. You completely lose a dimension of our deadly attack if you bench Pirlo. I will concede, however, that we may just have to build up differently in the attack without him. I can fully acknowledge he is a defensive liability, but we have always known this. We need to find the midfield pairing with Pirlo that will work. I do think Ring can do it, but he definitely didn't this time around.
The Pirlo passes that I noticed (and yes, they were good) were long balls from deep midfield spreading out to either Wallace or Jack. That's great, and it gets us the ball in a dangerous spot, but we do not have Zlatan on our roster. Once the wingers got the ball, they would send in crosses that never reached the heads of our two small attacking DPs. This effectively took Maxi out of the buildup equation. If we have a DP #10, we need to use him. Villa/Maxi/Jack looked amazing in preseason when they played quick passes up the middle. I think we are more suited to a 4-2-3-1 right now, with the wingers pinched in a bit more to feed off of Maxi.
I think because Pirlo was a defensive liability, we saw Maxi tracking back to our third. Because of this, when Pirlo got the ball, Maxi was not in a dangerous position to be a real outlet. Hence the hail marys. I do think this can be fixed with some more positional discipline, but if Maxi isn't tracking back we could be pinned in our third for much longer. Oh and there's one other guy I saw in preseason who was nailing those same exact passes we saw Pirlo execute last night. James Sands.
Meld these 2 observations together and that's what I gleaned watching Atlanta last night. Notwithstanding their late game collapse, they moved the ball around cleanly and quickly and had RB on their heels for most of the night. They would get the ball in their half and be attacking with the same 4-5 passes we make but it happened fast. So much faster than us.
Also, they rarely got the ball in their back quarter and spent the next 45 seconds switching the field without moving forward. Actually never that I saw. It was like us but not frustrating, for 75 minutes at least.
Atlanta looked really good. Their speed in transition is amazing, and Almiron is a perfect fit. He is fast, but somehow manages to slow things down enough to have absolute control. Add in Villalba and Asad on the wings, and you have a midfield with pace and desire who feed off of Almiron perfectly. Then add in Martinez up top and ATL looks deadly. Sucks that they lost in the end, but they controlled the RB press for most of the game with quick, pinpoint passes and a fast transition. That's what I want to see from us. Pirlo needs to get the ball to Maxi, who needs to be the anchor of our attack. Let Pirlo follow up as a backwards outlet, but FFS get Maxi the ball where he can be dangerous. I just don't get how a team who can't score on a corner to save their lives thinks it's a good idea to just go wide and whip them in. That was never going to work.
EDIT:
It's very simple why we lost besides odd subs.
The CDM played CAM
The CAM played CM
The CM played CDM
I do think this was the main issue for us, and I think it's probably chalked up to this midfield having very limited game minutes together. If they can straighten this out then I think we'll be much better. There's just part of me that thinks Pirlo is the reason these positions got mixed up. Ideally, Ring = 6, Pirlo = 8, Maxi = 10, but I don't really think Pirlo is an 8. He's an anomaly that works well in a very limited set of circumstances. An 8 needs to run, and an 8 needs to tackle. Because he's limited in these areas is, IMO, why we saw Maxi tracking back, and probably why Ring tracked forward to fill the space left by Maxi. As others have said, try Hererra at 6, Ring at 8, and Maxi at 10 and I think we see a much different result.
