Lars Sivertsen

But what you're looking for in the second half of the season, for me, is sort of, okay, this team is going to be different now.

It's not going to be Trent Alexander-Arnold pinging balls up to Mo Salah anymore, clearly.

It's going to have to morph into a different group, and you want to see these new signings.

find their place you want to see a system and a way of playing emerge that gives you a sense that okay moving forward slot is onto something here is creating something that makes us think we can fight for the title next season i don't think we've seen that in the second half of the season and they look really undercooked physically like there's been a lot of games where they just seem weak compared to this i wonder if the physical preparation hasn't been right it's like i've got a lot of question marks i'm not convinced and i wouldn't be shocked at all if they move on from him in the summer

Yeah, and with a long period of being very, very good for Atalanta, scoring a hat-trick in the Europa League final and just being part of their brilliant development the last few years.

No, it's great for him.

He's a very, very good player.

And also a good mid-season transfer, a good January transfer.

I think he's really added something to Atleti after coming in there.

We've touched on it already.

I don't think it's possible to get away from the flick line, the modern Maginot line here, because it has cost them again.

The Luckman goal comes from a ball in behind.

The red card for Garcia comes from a ball in behind.

And it does remind me of when Wilson wrote a piece a few years ago about how Guardiola's city had this sort of exhaust port.

They're like the Death Star in Star Wars.

There is this hidden weakness in there.

Now, the big difference is, of course, the exhaust port of the Death Star was a big secret, whereas with the flick line, everyone knows about it.

And I think, as Sid spoke about, like, last week we had this discussion...

Every single person we know about it, every analyst on the planet will tell their team, listen, they defend with a very high line.

We should try to get in behind.