Matthijs de Ligt (11 Viewers)

JuveJay

Senior Signor
Moderator
Mar 6, 2007
72,082
Trial by fire. When you play his high line and leave your CBs exposed this often, they either sink or swim. It requires a good deal of athleticism and physicality imo to succeed as a CB in Sarri’s system. I think De Ligt has it and will eventually shine here, like Koulibaly at Napoli.
He also had Raul Albiol, who is not athletic but who is used to build from the back. He's more likely to be the comparison if Chiellini plays as expected. I think de Ligt is somewhere between an Albiol or Koulibaly.

There is also something fairly obvious to point out - he's a teenage Dutch defender coming to Serie A, he's going to make mistakes. Defenders and keepers are always in the firing line.
 

Post Ironic

Senior Member
Feb 9, 2013
41,819
He also had Raul Albiol, who is not athletic but who is used to build from the back. He's more likely to be the comparison if Chiellini plays as expected. I think de Ligt is somewhere between an Albiol or Koulibaly.

There is also something fairly obvious to point out - he's a teenage Dutch defender coming to Serie A, he's going to make mistakes. Defenders and keepers are always in the firing line.
Albiol really wasn’t anything other than serviceable for Napoli. They weren’t really a defensive stalwart team outside Sarri’s last season there.

De Ligt definitely isn’t the physical monster that Koulibaly is, but is a smarter defender than a young Koulibaly and is better with the ball imo. And yeah, mistakes are expected. He’s still a kid.
 

Gian

COME HOME MOGGI
Apr 12, 2009
17,474
I think he's more suited to partner Bonucci than Chiellini. He's often the last defender as Chiellini defends quite high up, whereas with Bonucci he stays behind and De Ligt gets in more 1-vs-1 situations higher up the pitch
 

frick

Senior Member
Apr 4, 2010
4,924
Am I the only one who thinks it's more on De Sciglio than him on the 2nd goal? :shifty:
Other than I thought he had a decent game, defense-wise.
 

Osman

Koul Khara!
Aug 30, 2002
59,104
Why does every goal has to be on someone? De Ligt was shaky in understanding what his unit around him were doing. But I dont blame anyone for that 2nd goal, yeah high line, but it was also a perfect pass, counter and finish. Job well done by Atletico.
 

Hust

Senior Member
Hustini
May 29, 2005
93,335
Why does every goal has to be on someone? De Ligt was shaky in understanding what his unit around him were doing. But I dont blame anyone for that 2nd goal, yeah high line, but it was also a perfect pass, counter and finish. Job well done by Atletico.
The guy making the pass had too much time to make the pass IMO.

Not much the CBs could do
 

duranfj

Senior Member
Jul 30, 2015
8,765
Am I the only one who thinks it's more on De Sciglio than him on the 2nd goal? :shifty:
Other than I thought he had a decent game, defense-wise.
Why does every goal has to be on someone? De Ligt was shaky in understanding what his unit around him were doing. But I dont blame anyone for that 2nd goal, yeah high line, but it was also a perfect pass, counter and finish. Job well done by Atletico.
Yep, it was a great ATM play and IMO the only problem was communcation between MDS and MDL cuz the italian should call out the diagonal run of Joao loud and clear... after a couple of weeks playing together, easy to inderstand why?

The first one is 90% on MDS so I don't know aboit what people is talking about
 

JCK

Biased
JCK
May 11, 2004
123,225
It's my belief that Sarri has a terrible to non-existing defensive plan and developing a very young talent into a proper defender is not the right place with how Sarri plays. You have your Koulibaly reference I have what I have already seen. I'll leave it at that.
 

JuveJay

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Moderator
Mar 6, 2007
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