The Conventional Unconventional Football Player
Football is in theory a simple game, you have 11 players on each side, 1 goalkeeper and 10 outfield players who are essentially segmented into defenders, midfielders and attackers, simple enough. But somewhere along the line of the great sport is long and illustrious history, the players have had their roles somewhat changed, with defenders made to attack more (especially the fullbacks) attackers asked to asked to do more defensively such as tracking back or pressing from the front and midfielders who do a little of everything depending on their role so not much has changed their, but hell even Goalies have been said to be more valuable if they can start off an attack.
Now I believe that this new way of thinking and strategy is fine but a bit dangerous when you consider the fact that we are starting to hype up people who are not that good at their actual jobs which brings me to the two players of focus, mainly Ederson of Manchester City and Trent Alexander Arnold of Liverpool, two players who excel at what they do in terms of the systems which they are apart of.
Trent is perhaps the best attacking RB in the world, but emphasis should be put on the word ATTACKING, because he lacks certain qualities on the defensive end that would make him the outright best RB in the world period, such as his inability to deal with players on crosses whether low such as Vinicius Jr in the UCL final or high balls like the one against Mitrovic on the opening day. He is not the best in one v one situations either as it can be seen in many situations that attackers tend to focus play down his side (Sane used to rinse him) and yeah he did not get enough help from Mo Salah defensively, but he is a striker and you shouldn’t always be relying on help, Aaron Wan Bissaka doesn’t need help so why should he? (To be fair AWB needs plenty of help in learning how to cross) But he fits the system that Klopp uses very well though I just can’t help but ask, why not make him a RM or RW? at best he would be a great RWB but as a RB he just doesn’t do job A1, and that is to be a good defender.
Ederson is not a good shot stopper, he’s barely decent at it, but again that is not his job under Pep, even though it bloody should be, he is meant to be the guy that starts off the attack, the sweeper keeper that breaks play makes a pass, the modern day Manuel Neuer (though he still plays) but ther is one key difference between Neuer and Edreson, Neuer could actually keep the goal. Ederson tends to make poor choices such as in the UCL semi-final against Madrid when he thought that Rodrigo would somehow miss a ball right in frint of him and he left the goal open and he has also shown the wrist strength of spaghetti held together by hopes and dreams such as with Matty Cash and on the last day of the season and against West Ham where he almost single handedly lost City the title, but again, he fits the system of Manchester City and don’t get me wrong, I would rather have him in the Midfield as opposed to circus act that goes on in the Manchester United midfield, but would I have him over De Gea? would sooner find me singing YNWA in wig at Coachella (I believe Coachella is stupid).
So yes we have two very good players at what they do here, but to call hem the best at either position is a travesty I feel especially when there are much better players who can play better at those exact same positions throughout the world of football.