Some thoughts on our central trio against Spurs last week, in what was the stand-out midfield performance of recent years. You don’t restrict a potent force such as theirs in such a complete manner by sheer good fortune!
Nominally you would say that Vitally sat at the base, with Christian and Mathias set up just to the left and right of him and maybe (again, nominally) slightly in advance. In practice this was a fluid and coordinated effort with all three effectively operating box-to-box, but never simultaneously.
There was a maturity about this performance which might have suggested that the three had played alongside each other for years. The understanding was telepathic. Whenever one ventured forward, another quickly plugged the vacated gap. Whenever one drifted wide to occupy space in attack, or close down a player in defence, the other two would shift as a pair to fill the void, like air into a vacuum.
The three were individually a threat going forward: CE and MJ with their lethal passing; VJ with his ability to get on the end of pass. But crucially, they never ventured forward together, with one or both of the others intelligently offering defensive cover so that, against Spurs’ rapid counter-attacking style, they were quickly in shape as protective blanket to shield the defence.
Mathias for his part, played a slightly different role to Christian who is to large extent excused the specifics of marking and pressing, in favour of keeping his head up take in the big picture. MJ, though, pressed aggressively; harried and tackled well; and, critically, knew when not to tackle. For example, just before being withdrawn, on 77 minutes, he could clearly be seen to pull out of a tackle in our own box, when his instinct seemed to be, at first, to lunge in. Thankfully, therefore, no penalty ensued, and a tiring MJ left the field intact, following an impressive shift.
Stats (mine)…. involvements (usually referred to as “touches” by the experts): 40. Actual touches of the ball: 66 (including three headers). CE weighed in with 58 and 90 respectively, so when you consider that MJ only played 77 minutes and that approximately 15 set-pieces are included in CE’s numbers, probably not too dissimilar. Maximum number of touches per involvement: 5 (same as CE). So he didn’t dwell on the ball as he did sometimes in his early days as a Bee.
He takes the plaudits for his full and effective part in the work of the three musketeers in the middle, but what differentiated him, for me, was the vision and craft of his passing. Whereas Christian’s passing was largely (not entirely) risk-averse, Mathias’ was imaginative, progressive and sometimes executed with such exquisite shape, that it entirely merits special mention. Given the slightly more adventurous nature of his passing, it’s probably not too surprising that his pass completion stats slightly lagged those of CE (76% versus 69% according to who scored.com).
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Please don’t report me.
You know where we are if you need a shoulder. 
