- Mar 10, 2005
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My problem with Aurier is more that if we play him exclusively to his strengths, his mere presence in the lineup affects the midfield negatively because one of the two CMs has to drift too far wide to cover for him when he bombs forward. We saw it time and again with Sissoko drifting wide leaving Dier or Winks or Ndombele completely exposed in the middle of the park, we are ridiculously easy to play straight through when this happens. The only way to stop this from happening is playing a back three with Aurier as wing-back, where the RCB can come over and cover and we still have two CMs who can then stay centrally.Don't get the Serge is the worst crowd. He was bad with moments of quality. He has improved and making fewer of the bone headed plays we were accustomed to. I say keep him to see if the present trend continues. Better recovery runs, staying on his feet and better positioning could make him a solid option. Jose is good at teaching defending principles
But I have to say his attacking contributions since Mourinho came in have been very good indeed.