andy4efc
Player Valuation: £60m
Exactly this. So risky having both Mirallas and Deulofeu starting, leaves us so open at the back.
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Exactly this. So risky having both Mirallas and Deulofeu starting, leaves us so open at the back.
dannyboy
Player Valuation: £60m
This argument would make perfect sense if only for the fact Kone has played instead of Mirallas. What defensive cover is he offering? Bugger all judging by the goals we'd been leaking with him in the team.
kenada_blue
Welcome to Barcelonaton FC
Barkley makes the midfield tick
dannyboy
Player Valuation: £60m
He does and I love him being in the team, but there are times this year when I think we'd have probably benefited from having three solid midfielders in there.
Agree he can be as erratic as both Kev and Deufofeu in tracking back, don't think any of them naturally think that way. As the seaon has gone on he does seem to have done less of it though - tiredness possibly?
One defensive area I do think Kone is better than Kev and particularly Deulofeu is defending corners - he seems more prepared to mark and jostle with opponents in the penalty box, probably as a result of his striker experience.
andy4efc
Player Valuation: £60m
Well the argument still works really? We've been leaking goals and for me thats one of the reaosns. When Cleverley is out there, yes we are less threatening wide because he comes in but we do look stronger defensively.
I also think having Kone, for some reason unknown to any living species, seems to distract more attention away from Lukaku.
Steven Verhoeven
Player Valuation: £1.5m
And attacking
Personally think the Kone complaints are a bit over the top really. As usual its not as black and white as Kone is crap and Kev is boss.
Kone had some decent performances and Rom seems to work well with him. Despite his recent poor play, the ball was sticking up front with him and he was good at finding those pockets of space that Pienaar would do.
The key is, whilst he was not outstanding in everything he did, he was contributing to the team and IMO contributing in a way that the boss sees as very important.
I think Kone stayed in the team a bit too long before recently, when despite generally receiving the ball well as before he seemed tired and slow of thought, taking too many touches or picking the completely wrong pass when an easy option was. Could do with some shooting practice too!
Whereas Kev is for me a bit of a stupid footballer. All instinct and not much of a football brain. Which is good when you need it...the quick burst and a shot or attempting to take on his man, and we are lucky to have that option in the squad like we had on Saturday, but he aint the player to do much of holding the ball up and linking well with his team mates.
As many have said, could be most coaches would very rarely go with a combo of Kev and Deulo.
I don't expect him to move though, and I think we will see him more in this half of the season. We normally only get about half a good season of full fitness out of him anyway....no? If this half will be it, then great! Bang in those 6-7-8 goals Kev and we will be flying.
We have 6 out and out defensive players. And Howard. How many does one need? The two DM's offer almost nothing going forward. Their jobs are(and used to be) to protect the fullback when they bomb on. Would you not say that the ease of how we get split apart is that we stand off players for unfathomable amounts of time and the DM's dont offer as much protection as they should like in the first season? Having a winger track back is all fine and dandy if you want to play a very defensive game and with good marking and defensive shape. We have no defensive shape and our marking is generally described as 'just wait until they get to the 18 yard box and then try to close them down'.
I wouldn't call our fullbacks out and out defensive players. Both Coleman and Baines get forward a lot and under Martinez they get forward together, not uncommon to see them pass to each other round the opposition penalty box which is unusual compared to other teams who gererally prefer them to alternate their forays forward. I would also disagree that in recent games Barry and Besic have offered almost nothing going forward, it was a glorious chance for Kev at the weekend laid on by Besic and in the league game versus City Barry had a nice assist.
I agree we sometimes stand off players and the defensive shape of our back six could see some improvement, especially at set pieces. However whoever we play at defensive midfield is generally pretty high in both the distance covered and tackles made compared to other teams - I don't think the weakness really lies with them.
Overall don't believe it is as simple as saying 5 attack, 6 defend. If you compare our wingers, strikers and attacking midfield they put in far less of a defensive shift than most other teams and that includes clubs that have high scoring figures so aren't in the Tony Pulis brand of football. Silva for instance, despite his creative side, is a right snide in the tackle. Kane and Vardy are competing for top scorer but they also put in challenges when they lose the ball. Even in Barcelona you see Saurez trying to regain possesion, think the weakness defensively is a whole team issue.
Sideliner
Player Valuation: £5m
I think our wingbacks Baines and Coleman are playing more as wings than as defenders and neglect their primary job which is defense -
they are caught out of position too many times (especially Baines)and then fans expect wings to do defensive duty while their primary job is attacking -
i would rather play 2 wings , 1 wingback and 1 proper left or right back - than playing 2 wingbacks and only 1 wing -
How many goals have Baines and Coleman scored or assisted this season ? not enough to allow them the luxury of attacking rather than defending -
both our wingbacks are relatively short - which also creates a problem in areal defense
they are caught out of position too many times (especially Baines)and then fans expect wings to do defensive duty while their primary job is attacking -
i would rather play 2 wings , 1 wingback and 1 proper left or right back - than playing 2 wingbacks and only 1 wing -
How many goals have Baines and Coleman scored or assisted this season ? not enough to allow them the luxury of attacking rather than defending -
both our wingbacks are relatively short - which also creates a problem in areal defense
Ihaters
Player Valuation: £35m
True but on the plus side you can see Mirallas is willing to track back, the more he plays, the better at it he will become.
He's a winger..I suspect most other fans don't concern themselves with wingers defensive ability...Ozils tracking back ability, or how good Couthino is at crosses.
We play 2 DM's, 4 defenders and a keeper, and still have to worry about our front players being defensive enough
Whilst there's a lot of love for how we see two full backs in the box at the same time crossing to each other.. personally I think its a bit too gung ho, but not the reason we concede most of our goals, mostly its because we either back off and let them shoot.. or we are duffers at corners.
If Mirallas was good at corners, the corner taker would simply float it towards one of the other 9 players that can't cope with them. (Jags is still boss)
Cleverley isn't really that solid though mate. He isn't particularly great in the tackle but does track back more. But I'd have Barkley in any day of the week if it was a straight choice, as good as T-Clevz has been
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