joebocop
Player Valuation: £8m
I would say the opposite tbh, it was just stats. He often had very good defensive stats, relating to distance covered and tackles made. All stats that come about because we were poor in possession in the 1st place, which he was at least partly responsible for. Like I say, the fact we managed similar results with a midfield of Sigurdsson & Davies, suggests that his imput, stats aside, was limited.
I watched him often enough to realise that he was little more than an exceptionally hard working player. And often times, his propensity for chasing every ball, led to us being left wide open. The myth that he somehow protected our back 4 has been used again and again, and it simply isn't true. Our defence was often left dangerously exposed, and I said at the time, several times, the combination of him and Gylfi the ghost in a midfield 3, 4 or 5 left us very vulnerable.
It's all a matter of opinions though I guess.
We were better defensively every year with Gueye in the side than we were this year and we finished much lower in the league this year. So we didn't achieve the same results with Sigurdsson and Davies.
He was very one dimensional though, he happened to be really good at that dimension, but limited as an all rounder in my opinion. He was good at what he did. I liked him, but i always think of the two games Vs Newcastle when we were in the lead and they turned it around by over running us in midfield, that and team would often out grock up for sheer power and presence. To be fair though anyone playing with Gomes in a two has to get through some amount of defensive work.
Its why i like the combo of Doucoure and Allan together.
Whilst I don't completely disagree with this opinion. I think it's harsh to call him one dimensional when the thing he was good at was winning lots of tackles and covering lots of ground.
Either way I agree, from what I've seen of Allan and Doucoure I think we'll have a really great balance in midfield. Something we haven't really had since Martinez's first season.