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Centre Midfield

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Re: Gana's replacement

We has someone on the list who could play that role, ironically the person Gana originally replaced. We should have thought twice, before disposing of for a measly 8m - without an adequate replacement.
... you wanted us to keep James McCarthy when £8m was being offered?? :confused:
 

Embarassing people deciding gbamin ain't up for it. Barely trained with us and new to the league.

Delph has quality so only thing light weight about him is that's he's injury prone.

Schneiderlin is obvs not first choice but is good cover.
 
Even though our 2 CB's and goalkeeper are topping the MOM poll.

We were completely controlling the game until Gomes went off.

It did change after that, but some of that can be put down to a bit of the fact that Gbamin was making his debut and was a bit sloppy and got caught in possession a few times.

Apart from that though, saying we were “overrun” is a tad hysterical.
 
Ha Ha Ha.

As predicted.

"There is no one...in the whole of world football, there is no one...literally".

Low bar.
And you as well. The difference is that I've already done all the research, I know what's out there. I can say with credibility. You can't. Which is why you have zero credibility.
 
We were completely controlling the game until Gomes went off.

It did change after that, but some of that can be put down to a bit of the fact that Gbamin was making his debut and was a bit sloppy and got caught in possession a few times.

Apart from that though, saying we were “overrun” is a tad hysterical.
We had 65% possession and way more chances even though we were down a man. Overrun? Did someone seriously write that?
 

And you as well. The difference is that I've already done all the research, I know what's out there. I can say with credibility. You can't. Which is why you have zero credibility.
Here's a quick snippet for those curious, all based on last year's stats...now if you look at the last two years, it's even more ridiculous how disruptive Gana was - there really isn't anyone like him:
  • For players that played more than 1000 minutes, Gana is #1 in the PL in defensive actions per 90. He also has the highest % of defensive duels won (68%) of the players that are over 9 duels per 90, which is insane if you think about it.
  • He also averages almost 17 forward passes per 90. Ndidi has some good defensive numbers, not as good as Gana's, but there's no comparison in how they support the attack.
  • In the top 5 EU leagues, there is literally no one that can say the above - # of duels, % wins, and forward passes. No one. A couple guys in other positions are close. Gianluca Mancini at Atlanta has everything but not the defensive duel numbers – he’s still almost an entire duel below Gana, AND he plays CB. Bernardo at Brighton wasn’t way off, either, but again he’s a LB. But they still weren’t better numbers-wise and they STILL aren’t midfielders.
So Brands was smart - he tried to look for more of a #6 that could sit back, protect the backline, and could distribute from the back. Gbamin is a good option.
 


This has been a problem going all the way back to Martinez with the McCarthy and Barry partnership from his second season on wards. The forward players need backing up more to give the opposition something else to think about. Especially in home matches against poorer teams one of the midfielders needs to be prepared to push a lot higher up the pitch.
 

Yeah, it's a fair analysis. I wrote basically that exact same thing as I was watching the game. The worst part is that Palace didn't do any of the diagonal pressing that I expected them to do until the second half. Now the wind hurt our ability to switch fields and change the point of attack quickly, but one of Sigurdsson or DCL has to come back to the ball and show some passing depth in our shape. I thought DCL did a bit of that at times in the second half and I want Sigurdsson closer to the goal so he can create and score - he had some shots later - but we can't have in essences 2 CFs just sitting in the middle of the field that far up towards the goal unless they are targets and we are firing crosses into them, which is archaic.
 
This has been a problem going all the way back to Martinez with the McCarthy and Barry partnership from his second season on wards. The forward players need backing up more to give the opposition something else to think about. Especially in home matches against poorer teams one of the midfielders needs to be prepared to push a lot higher up the pitch.
This is why pushing Gomes farther up the field sitting in front of Delph and Gbamin will be a viable option in some cases. But regardless, we did create chances in the first half.
 

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