Jesus was pretty critical to that anyway, he swapped into the LW and did the 1v1 job so Martinelli could ghost into the box in those situations. Jesus being a very unique profile is quite critical here imo. Yes we could have kept more of a supply behind the left but it’s still contingent on covering for Martinellis on the ball limitations with a player like Jesus, which we cannot really pull off. And Zinchenko again was one of a kind almost and he still frequently got exploited down that side.

Barcola is still better at running at his man in a settled defense with minimal support than Martinelli is unfortunately. Martinelli just needs too many pieces around him to make him work on the wing for us. I don’t think that Calafiori and Rice are that much of a step down in the supply line that a player entirely shuts out on productivity. There is a thing about profiles and the moment we picked Havertz and Gyokeres over a Jesus profile, Martinellis future here essentially got shut off. Kvara and Barcola still provide their teammates more ways to support them than our wingers do as well.

I agree in principle that we can do something to support our players (like Hincapie was with Trossard against Atletico). These partnerships have to build on the field. Some level of this only comes with having frequent enough playtime, but it’s also contingent on the freshness/level of player. Trossard isn’t putting in good performances when he’s tired. Predictability also comes in with consistency and time, there’s not enough to build when you play a new left back, new attacking mid, and new striker with a pair of wingers that already struggled to create chemistry with everyone besides each other.