Whole analysis feels so incomplete when you forget to include any mention on De Gea or Onana being the cause of high vs low line. Any decent editor would have catch that.
Another consideration for having a higher line is ball-playing ability, it's safer to trust the better on-ball players higher up the pitch. We could pull any number of montages of maguires blunders, some leading directly to goals conceded. Do that higher up the pitch and it's setting the defence up to fail. Not only that put it undermines trust and faith from the other defenders, you feel uncertain when your cb is known as being shaky on the ball.
Maguire is also just not as fast in recovery, if he's higher up the pitch chances are he's not getting back to stop a counter attack, which is also something that happens semi-frequently, with the pacier defenders (Dalot usually) having to cover it, but Martinez can do that himself. Martinez numbers being worse could simply be that the team try to play differently with him on the pitch and it's not a way they're comfortable with, there's a lot of issues with the linking up towards midfield, with Casemiro having a very poor season, and a single pivot CDM not giving the defence much aid when we play higher up the pitch.
All of this is to say, you similarly can't draw such a concrete conclusion because there's far too many factors to account for, and the story is much closer to, it's a team game, the team plays differently with the two players on the pitch, and they're currently better or luckier in one setup than the other, but the individual defender isn't the cause, the team is. Maguire might have a place as a squad player as, when not blundering, he's reliable if not slow, but he's also a serial loser, having had 2 relegations, and I suspect we're not winning titles with him. Martinez is much better on the ball, more reliable in recovery, significantly more athletic and more importantly has a much better mentality, he's one of few in the team that will die on the pitch, and the team is in short reserve for that.
Fantastic article Pauly. Yet again, we're reminded of how much better Harry Maguire is at defensive line conducting, that hasn't changed in ages.
Whole analysis feels so incomplete when you forget to include any mention on De Gea or Onana being the cause of high vs low line. Any decent editor would have catch that.
Another consideration for having a higher line is ball-playing ability, it's safer to trust the better on-ball players higher up the pitch. We could pull any number of montages of maguires blunders, some leading directly to goals conceded. Do that higher up the pitch and it's setting the defence up to fail. Not only that put it undermines trust and faith from the other defenders, you feel uncertain when your cb is known as being shaky on the ball.
Maguire is also just not as fast in recovery, if he's higher up the pitch chances are he's not getting back to stop a counter attack, which is also something that happens semi-frequently, with the pacier defenders (Dalot usually) having to cover it, but Martinez can do that himself. Martinez numbers being worse could simply be that the team try to play differently with him on the pitch and it's not a way they're comfortable with, there's a lot of issues with the linking up towards midfield, with Casemiro having a very poor season, and a single pivot CDM not giving the defence much aid when we play higher up the pitch.
All of this is to say, you similarly can't draw such a concrete conclusion because there's far too many factors to account for, and the story is much closer to, it's a team game, the team plays differently with the two players on the pitch, and they're currently better or luckier in one setup than the other, but the individual defender isn't the cause, the team is. Maguire might have a place as a squad player as, when not blundering, he's reliable if not slow, but he's also a serial loser, having had 2 relegations, and I suspect we're not winning titles with him. Martinez is much better on the ball, more reliable in recovery, significantly more athletic and more importantly has a much better mentality, he's one of few in the team that will die on the pitch, and the team is in short reserve for that.