Centre Midfield

[Eggs]

Or we are uber desperate...

....I like to think decisions are being made on these youngsters, they are being given the opportunity to see if they can step up in training with first teamers. Adeniran cost £4m, he could be plodding along playing age restricted football so at least they are having a look.

Gibson and Gordon are the others. I seem to recall Silva saying our squad was too big, and once he gets rid of a few he would like to promote 3 Academy players each season. This seems part of the strategy, I think we’ll see this regularly.

 

[Barnfred 55]

I would posit that we knowingly took a gamble on Gbamin (almost an anagram) and Delph was the insurance policy in case Gbamin doesn't get it together in the PL. I could see us going to a flat 3 midfield on saturday to cover for the injuries. The OP was spot on - we are looking very thin in CM after just one game.

We are looking thin in midfield because we have 2 injuries and a suspension. Outside of Chelsea who are extremely strong in that area, who wouldn't be looking very thin under the same circumstances. Take Pogba, Fred and Matic out of the United starting line up and who would they play in centre mid. Same with City with Fernadinho, Rodri and Gundingan.

 

[Charles Hawtrey]

We are looking thin in midfield because we have 2 injuries and a suspension. Outside of Chelsea who are extremely strong in that area, who wouldn't be looking very thin under the same circumstances. Take Pogba, Fred and Matic out of the United starting line up and who would they play in centre mid. Same with City with Fernadinho, Rodri and Gundingan.

wholeheartedly agree. I think we have been unusually unlucky after preseason and 1 game to be down 3 CM's. I would still agree with he OP perhaps because the options are pretty weak rather than just numbers.

 

[Barnfred 55]

wholeheartedly agree. I think we have been unusually unlucky after preseason and 1 game to be down 3 CM's. I would still agree with he OP perhaps because the options are pretty weak rather than just numbers.

Fair enough. I disagree but it's all about opinions. If you assume that we will play a midfield 2 most of this season, we have Gomes and probably Gbamin as first choice. Gbamin looks like he will be good for us but may take a while to settle. But that would be true of anybody we brought in from outside the prem. When up and running I'm looking forward to seeing how they complement each other. We have Delph, who is also a quality player and Schneids who has actually been decent under Silva, as back up. And Davies is now cover, whereas in recent seasons we have been relying quite heavily on him.

I agree with anybody who says that losing Gueye weakens us defensively, but that would be true of every team in the premier apart from Chelsea. But replacing him with somebody who offers more offensively gives us more options. Only time will tell whether the benefits of that outweigh the negatives.

If I look at all the midfields in the premier, of the top 6 only City, Spurs and Chelsea are significantly better than ours. United, Arsenal and Liverpool are no great shakes. Leicester and Wolves possibly have better first choice but their depth is not that good.

Can we improve?. Most certainly we can and, as I said in my earlier post, I expect us to bring in one, maybe two centre mids in the summer so we can play 433 more often.

 

[Charles Hawtrey]

Fair enough. I disagree but it's all about opinions. If you assume that we will play a midfield 2 most of this season, we have Gomes and probably Gbamin as first choice. Gbamin looks like he will be good for us but may take a while to settle. But that would be true of anybody we brought in from outside the prem. When up and running I'm looking forward to seeing how they complement each other. We have Delph, who is also a quality player and Schneids who has actually been decent under Silva, as back up. And Davies is now cover, whereas in recent seasons we have been relying quite heavily on him.

I agree with anybody who says that losing Gueye weakens us defensively, but that would be true of every team in the premier apart from Chelsea. But replacing him with somebody who offers more offensively gives us more options. Only time will tell whether the benefits of that outweigh the negatives.

If I look at all the midfields in the premier, of the top 6 only City, Spurs and Chelsea are significantly better than ours. United, Arsenal and Liverpool are no great shakes. Leicester and Wolves possibly have better first choice but their depth is not that good.

Can we improve?. Most certainly we can and, as I said in my earlier post, I expect us to bring in one, maybe two centre mids in the summer so we can play 433 more often.

what a pleasant change to have polite discourse on this forum! congratulations Sir! you have bucked the trend!

 

[Barnfred 55]

what a pleasant change to have polite discourse on this forum! congratulations Sir! you have bucked the trend!

Ha ha. Are you the real Charles Hawtrey?

I think the only diffetence between most of us is our cups are either half full or half empty

Its the ones who insist we have empty cups that get on my tits.

 

[Charles Hawtrey]

Ha ha. Are you the real Charles Hawtrey?

I think the only diffetence between most of us is our cups are either half full or half empty

Its the ones who insist we have empty cups that get on my tits.

My pet peeve is folks who see the cup getting fuller but then get a bigger cup. i.e. those who do not appreciate progress.

 

[jceverton]

Fair enough mate. I see now that you were not referring to the central midfield specifically, but more to the way we set up as a team.

I agree that Silva, ideally, would prefer to play 433. But when he took over as manager last summer we arguably had only 2 quality players on the books who could fit seamlessly into that system. One of them, Gueye has since left the club and the other, Walcott, has completely lost his mojo in front of goal. We brought in a couple of players last season in Richarlison and Gomes who fit the bill but, with losing Gana, we still only had 2 quality players out of the front 6 to play that system, and we also need at least 2 quality back up. So we effectively needed to bring in 6 new quality players if we were going to be able to switch to 433 as our main formation. I think it's fair to say that is too much to achieve in one window, even if we had an open cheque book which I don't believe we did.

The other issue, as you rightly point out, is Sigurdsson, a high quality player but one that does not fit comfortably into a 433. Not only is he currently our most creative player but we also rely too heavily on him for goals. Silva has to replace his goals amongst our front 3 before we can even think about offloading him. Then he also needs to add more creativity to the midfield 3. Again, this cannot be achieved in a couple of windows.

We have taken steps forward this summer with players like Gbamin, Iwobi and Kean. Had we managed to bring in Zaha and Doucoure on top then you could argue it was job nearly done. But I honestly don't think we were ever close to achieving that.

I think you are spot on in that Delph was brought in as a short term measure, to help oversee the transition from 4231 to 433. I think you'll see a mixture this year. 4231 when we expect to dominate possession and 433 when we expect to play on the counter. It's going to take at least another 2 windows, given that our main transfer priority now is a quality back up central defender, but hopefully we will be there r thereabouts by the end of next summer. I think we've missed out on Zaha now as I believe Chelsea will be in for him possibly in January. But we need a similar goal scoring wide man like Neres or Lozano, plus a couple of midfielders like Sangare. This Jesus lad in January would be amazing if it happened, but that's pure fantasy at the moment.

Basically what I'm saying is that Brands and Silva needed at least 3 summer transfer windows to complete the transformation of this team to what Silva wants. In my opinion we are just about on course to do that and are possibly 3/4 players short of what he needs.

At some stage though, if we are to seriously challenge for the top 4 positions, either our young players need to take the step up to the next level, or we need to start bringing in players of the proven calibre of Zaha for serious money and on serious wages.

Some good points and agree with most of it. I wasn't expecting Brands and Silva to sort out too much last season given they didn't really have long together. I think all things considered they did a good job in the first season. This summer when we knew that Gueye was going I expected more in midfield and I think we could have got it pretty much done this window. Delph I can live with even if I don't think the strategy is right (too old, injury prone) but no reason why we couldn't have got Doucoure or similar. We seemed to leave it very late and to only focus on him, there are other midfielders that we could have picked up and then I think we could have gone straight to 433. Sigurdson is a problem and can't help feel that we'd be a better all round team without him in the side.

 

[davek]

Atrocious.

 

[billyblue80]

I think it's more the make up in there that isn't right. Very unfortunate Gbamin and Delph are out. You need legs around Gomes. Morgan and Gomes are too slow. You had Sig in there and it's very ponderous.i would start Delph or Davies next to Gomes with Iwobi ahead of them

 

[Zatara]

Fair enough mate. I see now that you were not referring to the central midfield specifically, but more to the way we set up as a team.

I agree that Silva, ideally, would prefer to play 433. But when he took over as manager last summer we arguably had only 2 quality players on the books who could fit seamlessly into that system. One of them, Gueye has since left the club and the other, Walcott, has completely lost his mojo in front of goal. We brought in a couple of players last season in Richarlison and Gomes who fit the bill but, with losing Gana, we still only had 2 quality players out of the front 6 to play that system, and we also need at least 2 quality back up. So we effectively needed to bring in 6 new quality players if we were going to be able to switch to 433 as our main formation. I think it's fair to say that is too much to achieve in one window, even if we had an open cheque book which I don't believe we did.

The other issue, as you rightly point out, is Sigurdsson, a high quality player but one that does not fit comfortably into a 433. Not only is he currently our most creative player but we also rely too heavily on him for goals. Silva has to replace his goals amongst our front 3 before we can even think about offloading him. Then he also needs to add more creativity to the midfield 3. Again, this cannot be achieved in a couple of windows.

We have taken steps forward this summer with players like Gbamin, Iwobi and Kean. Had we managed to bring in Zaha and Doucoure on top then you could argue it was job nearly done. But I honestly don't think we were ever close to achieving that.

I think you are spot on in that Delph was brought in as a short term measure, to help oversee the transition from 4231 to 433. I think you'll see a mixture this year. 4231 when we expect to dominate possession and 433 when we expect to play on the counter. It's going to take at least another 2 windows, given that our main transfer priority now is a quality back up central defender, but hopefully we will be there r thereabouts by the end of next summer. I think we've missed out on Zaha now as I believe Chelsea will be in for him possibly in January. But we need a similar goal scoring wide man like Neres or Lozano, plus a couple of midfielders like Sangare. This Jesus lad in January would be amazing if it happened, but that's pure fantasy at the moment.

Basically what I'm saying is that Brands and Silva needed at least 3 summer transfer windows to complete the transformation of this team to what Silva wants. In my opinion we are just about on course to do that and are possibly 3/4 players short of what he needs.

At some stage though, if we are to seriously challenge for the top 4 positions, either our young players need to take the step up to the next level, or we need to start bringing in players of the proven calibre of Zaha for serious money and on serious wages.

Atrocious.

I think it's more the make up in there that isn't right. Very unfortunate Gbamin and Delph are out. You need legs around Gomes. Morgan and Gomes are too slow. You had Sig in there and it's very ponderous.i would start Delph or Davies next to Gomes with Iwobi ahead of them

My take on the centre midfield is this:

1 -- Sigurdsson is playing as a 2nd striker. Its because he isnt someone who can come from deep and dribble with the ball...he also isnt much of a playmaker.

2 -- Gomes / Iwobi can both play in Gylfis place but come from deeper which theoretically gives us more shape.

3 -- In the centre I think Gomes / Gbamin / Iwobi is the way to go. However, at this time I wouldnt be shocked if all 3 were rotation options for us in 2 seasons. Big season for each of them to cement positions in the team.


I have faith in Gbamin and Iwobi as both have the physical aspects and mentality (based on short snippets of viewing). Gomes i think will be a rotation option in two seasons and i see him as a bit of a luxury player in the centre as he's either great or not very good.

We really lack two players in midfield, one who can play as another DM who is similar in size to Gbamin but can also drive forward as a DM (like Doucoure) and also a proper playmaker at 10 (Reinier Jesus?) which would give us a lot of options in the middle.

Brands doesnt like doing business in mid season but i think we really need to move on two players in the centre and try and find someone to pay us a big fee for Sigurdsson + get Schneiderlin off the books...

Delph is a short term fix for the box to box player...but we need more players.

 

[Rook]

Atrocious.

you are too kind

 

[CRIMHEAD]

My take on the centre midfield is this:

1 -- Sigurdsson is playing as a 2nd striker. Its because he isnt someone who can come from deep and dribble with the ball...he also isnt much of a playmaker.

2 -- Gomes / Iwobi can both play in Gylfis place but come from deeper which theoretically gives us more shape.

3 -- In the centre I think Gomes / Gbamin / Iwobi is the way to go. However, at this time I wouldnt be shocked if all 3 were rotation options for us in 2 seasons. Big season for each of them to cement positions in the team.


I have faith in Gbamin and Iwobi as both have the physical aspects and mentality (based on short snippets of viewing). Gomes i think will be a rotation option in two seasons and i see him as a bit of a luxury player in the centre as he's either great or not very good.

We really lack two players in midfield, one who can play as another DM who is similar in size to Gbamin but can also drive forward as a DM (like Doucoure) and also a proper playmaker at 10 (Reinier Jesus?) which would give us a lot of options in the middle.

Brands doesnt like doing business in mid season but i think we really need to move on two players in the centre and try and find someone to pay us a big fee for Sigurdsson + get Schneiderlin off the books...

Delph is a short term fix for the box to box player...but we need more players.

Sigurdsson did not play as a striker tonight. He also was the only one along with Coleman that creates anything in the first half.

That being said, there’s a reason why we were after Doucoure. You can’t play both Gomes and Sigurdsson in the same midfield.

 

[Zatara]

Sigurdsson did not play as a striker tonight. He also was the only one along with Coleman that creates anything in the first half.

That being said, there’s a reason why we were after Doucoure. You can’t play both Gomes and Sigurdsson in the same midfield.

I still think we should have gone for Sangare and played him and Gbamin as 2 DMs with either Gomes / iwobi in front of them.

Wouldnt have cost a huge amount and due to lack of pace in defence would enable us to play on a very fast counter.

 

[davek]

My take on the centre midfield is this:

1 -- Sigurdsson is playing as a 2nd striker. Its because he isnt someone who can come from deep and dribble with the ball...he also isnt much of a playmaker.

2 -- Gomes / Iwobi can both play in Gylfis place but come from deeper which theoretically gives us more shape.

3 -- In the centre I think Gomes / Gbamin / Iwobi is the way to go. However, at this time I wouldnt be shocked if all 3 were rotation options for us in 2 seasons. Big season for each of them to cement positions in the team.


I have faith in Gbamin and Iwobi as both have the physical aspects and mentality (based on short snippets of viewing). Gomes i think will be a rotation option in two seasons and i see him as a bit of a luxury player in the centre as he's either great or not very good.

We really lack two players in midfield, one who can play as another DM who is similar in size to Gbamin but can also drive forward as a DM (like Doucoure) and also a proper playmaker at 10 (Reinier Jesus?) which would give us a lot of options in the middle.

Brands doesnt like doing business in mid season but i think we really need to move on two players in the centre and try and find someone to pay us a big fee for Sigurdsson + get Schneiderlin off the books...

Delph is a short term fix for the box to box player...but we need more players.

The midfield was wrecked by the sale of Gueye and the failure to bring in an adeqaute replacement.

Villa....VILLA....waltzed through us last night.