- Jun 13, 2008
- 21,889
- 32,561
Yeah, seeing a lot of 'he has to play this way' as if that's the tools available to him but I'm not buying that.
Take the raw ingredients available currently:
Skip the centre backs for now, we'll come back to that at the end, beyond that we have basically Dier (really struggling) and Davies as steady, defensive minded players. Wanyama I discount, as he is nowhere to be seen. Aurier loves to bomb forward and is positionally suspect.
As for the rest, in midfield you have Skipp and Winks who are your tidy pass and move players. Defensive duties not their strong points but their qualities in this aspect is they're quite tenacious and can press aggressively and win the ball back. Ndombele and Lo Celso are obviously ball players, Lo Celso is a tenacious presser rather than holder and Ndombele's defensive ability we see isn't great. Gedson we don't know so much about but we're led to believe he's a more technical attack minded player in the midfield also.
Then you have Alli whose best work is done when we're up the pitch and he can float around the penalty area popping up impacting play. Lamela wants to play pass and move to feet. Bergwijn and Moura also like the ball to feet rather than running in behind. We also have Sessegnon who on the left is a more attack minded player.
For the majority of this group, especially in midfield, their qualities would suggest going with proactive tactics and wanting to play on the front foot and getting the ball down and playing and then with fluidity of movement of players/ball you can possibly mitigate the missing striker. Just generally trying to have a go and impose ourselves on proceedings via footballing/attacking superiority. And maybe you could do this if someone had the bollocks to pension off Jan and Toby and for instance put Sanchez and Tanganga, who can at least move and recover if the ball goes in behind them, at the back and allow us to push up the pitch.
Passive, low block, keep it tight football just doesn't look on paper what you'd do with this group. Even get Kane, Son, Sissoko back and I don't think that really changes. You can of course argue that considering the vast majority of the squad came in under another manager this isn't much of a surprise, but even the transfers so far I dont think take the team in a different direction and in any case is it likely we see a total overhaul of the team?
Take the raw ingredients available currently:
Skip the centre backs for now, we'll come back to that at the end, beyond that we have basically Dier (really struggling) and Davies as steady, defensive minded players. Wanyama I discount, as he is nowhere to be seen. Aurier loves to bomb forward and is positionally suspect.
As for the rest, in midfield you have Skipp and Winks who are your tidy pass and move players. Defensive duties not their strong points but their qualities in this aspect is they're quite tenacious and can press aggressively and win the ball back. Ndombele and Lo Celso are obviously ball players, Lo Celso is a tenacious presser rather than holder and Ndombele's defensive ability we see isn't great. Gedson we don't know so much about but we're led to believe he's a more technical attack minded player in the midfield also.
Then you have Alli whose best work is done when we're up the pitch and he can float around the penalty area popping up impacting play. Lamela wants to play pass and move to feet. Bergwijn and Moura also like the ball to feet rather than running in behind. We also have Sessegnon who on the left is a more attack minded player.
For the majority of this group, especially in midfield, their qualities would suggest going with proactive tactics and wanting to play on the front foot and getting the ball down and playing and then with fluidity of movement of players/ball you can possibly mitigate the missing striker. Just generally trying to have a go and impose ourselves on proceedings via footballing/attacking superiority. And maybe you could do this if someone had the bollocks to pension off Jan and Toby and for instance put Sanchez and Tanganga, who can at least move and recover if the ball goes in behind them, at the back and allow us to push up the pitch.
Passive, low block, keep it tight football just doesn't look on paper what you'd do with this group. Even get Kane, Son, Sissoko back and I don't think that really changes. You can of course argue that considering the vast majority of the squad came in under another manager this isn't much of a surprise, but even the transfers so far I dont think take the team in a different direction and in any case is it likely we see a total overhaul of the team?