Messi Havertz

Very curious to see how Xavi lines us up for these next three games. We’re months into the season, and I get the sense that we’re nowhere close to knowing our ‘best’ XI, not in terms of personnel or deployment. I understand that reactive management is a legitimate practice, different opposing set-ups call for different approaches, but you’ve also got to be self aware of your own foundation (to build upon): do we have that? For instance: 1. How do your three best midfielders (Pedri-FDJ-Gundogan) function together? 2. Who partners Araújo? Then there’s the subsequent 2CB/3CB conundrum… 3. Who’s staking a claim for that RW spot? This one’s naturally more circumstantial, but without any consistency is deployment, it’s hard to see anyone stake their claim. 4. How long do you cross your hands and hope Lewandowski’s goals make up for his woeful overall displays? And that’s only the half of it… We’ve got three ‘must-win’ games on the horizon, yes, but bigger picture, this is about identity awareness more than anything else. Knowing what you want to be is one thing, knowing what you are is another. The former isn’t directly correlated to the latter, and that is precisely the rut we’re stuck in.