A lot of talk about Gyokeres scoring, and especially about Super Max's amazing performance. And rightly so. And a bit of talk about the probably not given in the first half as well.

But the fact that Arteta brought Max on in a very tense match that was sitting on a razor's edge is interesting in itself. I didn't think the Mikel of past seasons (and even earlier this season) wouldn't have done that. He'd have been too cautious. I feel like this is an attitude change that isn't really being talked about - Arteta trusting his young players even more and being willing to take a big gamble.

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 2 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

True, but I wasn't thrilled with the other subs. When I saw Ben White warming up on the touch line I was encouraged. When he put on Mosquera instead I was sad. Mosquera is an even more defensive fullback than Timber. It wasn't what I thought we needed while we were struggling to break through their defensive block. I justified it to myself that maybe he was doing that to free up Calafiori on the other side. But, then he took up Calafiori and put on another defensive fullback in Hincapie.

In the end, maybe Zubimendi for Dowman was the attacking change, and the other changes were to balance out attack vs. defense. Still.... I really think we're missing something by not using Ben White, at least sometimes. If he's warming up, surely he's fit enough to play the final 30 minutes, isn't he?

[–] ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world 3 points 13 hours ago

Yeah those fullback subs were odd.

Maybe Mikel wanted to stretch the pitch out length-wise? Like, lure Everton's wingers deeper into the final third so they weren't double-marking Saka and Noni (it whoever we played on our wings)? Our wingers could also take advantage of pockets left between their wingers and fullbacks. Seems like an unnecessarily risky move though.

[–] ordnance_qf_17_pounder@reddthat.com 5 points 20 hours ago

Very good point. The way we were playing, we needed someone like Max to run at the defence and make something happen. Something positive. And Max delivered in a massive way. Kudos to Arteta for trusting him, it paid off!