On Semedo’s static positioning:

Folks may say he’s providing “width” or holding “shape,” but during possession->attacking phase, it’s the wrong time to do it (where it is right is on defensive transition and counter attacks). Athletic already defend well as a 244 unit,

and he makes their job much easier by removing himself, allowing them to defend vs 9 only. Positional inferiority.

Notice how both Athletic LB/LF don’t worry about him because he can’t get involved, and the only way he can is via a long diagonal pass

(which they have ample time to track because the ball is in the air). Thus Athletic’s left flank can leave a healthy amount of distance between them and Semedo, allowing them to focus on the actual danger zones.

As such, the crime is that while Athletic had already removed him via good positioning, he did nothing about it, or even worse, didn’t know it was even happening.

In fact the only time Semedo tries this, our CBs don’t pass it to him precisely because of the high failure rate

(and their defenders have already caught up to him). He’s not being ignored per se, but the CBs are making the sensible decision to retain possession instead of giving it away cheaply.

There are two ways to go about this, and one is the elementary amateur method

(often very effective) of moving with the ball, even if you are the farthest man away. This means playing much narrower and decreasing the size of the pitch. This is advantageous because the moment he moves narrowly, the proximity itself

gives the defense no choice but to track both the ball and player (and hence giving the player an advantage), whereas in the above scenario, they are happy to direct their attention only on the ball because the player chose not to get involved.

The other is having a wing forward on his side who can play wider, so he can tuck in more. However we don’t have one, and it wouldn’t help out Semedo that much anyway because he doesn’t combine well with others (he even fails to link up with Messi in general).

So it is only marginally true he isn’t being helped. He just doesn’t help himself here. And because of this possession becomes stale and the team is burdened more than they ought to be.

In short, he needs to move narrow THEN wide, not start wide and then move narrow.

However in many ways this is typical of his confusing nature; running when he should be passing, passing when he should be running. The other salient point is, many people have pointed this out in his previous teams, and who on earth from this club thought he was a good fit?

@helloiniesta @IskewDATA Semedo is not something we want to discuss further but here it is. What did you think of him?