So what should we expect from our newest addition?
Part 1 - Why Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
Firstly, it is said he lacks production - i.e. goals and assists. However, if your only measurement of attacking performance is goals ( or even goals and assists) then you will run into trouble pretty quickly when trying to understand the value and usefulness in important players. Let me give you an example.
Lukaku is brilliant at scoring goals. He is powerful and hard to stop. So what is the easiest way to stop him?
- Control the supply to him. Force him to receive in non-threatening areas only.
Okay so how easy is that? At Everton that pretty much meant stopping Barkley. How easy is that?
- Very easy. He is tactically one of the stupidest players I have seen. You can easily separate him from Lukaku and push him into non-effective areas and force him into taking risks in areas of little to no rewards for doing so.
So therefore if your best link player is Barkley, you can completely nullify an attack by simply nullifying Barkley which is remarkably easy to do. This is what happens when Liverpool play Everton. We simply cut the tether between those players and then shut down all their secondary supply lines to Lukaku. He starts drifting...
