Valbuena
From then, Marseille gradually became more positive and dominated possession over the 90 minutes. Joey Barton and Jacques Aliaxys Romao stayed in deep position sat the start of the game, but Barton gradually pushed forward as Marseille went in search of an equaliser. The wide players stayed wide.
The most exciting player, as always, was Mathieu Valbuena. A tremendously talented player on the ball but a creative midfielder who, like Mesut Ozil, Toni Kroos or Santi Cazorla, relies more upon his appreciation of space and his ability to vary his position, this was a great demonstration of Valbuena’s talents. As mentioned many times before, he’s the perfect ‘central winger’.
When Marseille were struggling at the start of the game he dropped deep to become the third central midfielder, but when he realised his side were controlling the game (from about 30 minutes onwards) he stayed higher up between the lines and drifted from flank to flank, casually helping to provide overloads and stretch the play. He played a number of crosses towards Andre-Pierre Gignac in the box, and played a couple of one-twos to get himself in good positions.
Statistically, Valbuena’s contribution was immense: he played the most passes (81), created the most chances (5) and had the highest pass completion rate (98%). The final statistic is the most remarkable. It’s simply amazing that a creator can (a) play in such an advanced position where he’s constantly under pressure from opponents, and (b) be the primary man responsible for creating chances with clever threaded balls, yet still retain possession so reliably. You won’t find that ‘hattrick’ of those statistic-leading contributions in such a big game again this season.
