I'm not saying you're dense. What's frustrating is it appears that you're not actually trying to take on board what people saying, you're so desperate to refute it that you just blunder in making irrelevant points and false comparisons rather than trying to understand where they're coming from. I think part of the problem is you're over analysing it. You're seemingly desperate to pigeonhole it as some specific tactical analysis, when people are actually just making pretty general comments.
I don't know how I've ended up taking this on because I think he's good, he's up there with my players of the season. It's just that I can see why other people aren't happy, I understand what it is that they're asking for from him, and I agree (to an extent).
It's not about where we are on the field, or which of our players has the ball, or whether we're in transition or whatever other very specific conditions we want to impose. It could apply in any situation really. The point is simply that, on occasion (any given occasion), we could sometimes do with him making himself available to get the ball more often, and to take a little more responsibility for trying to make things happen. There are times when we have teams penned back and the ball is being shunted round between the full backs, Gana, Keane etc, and Sigurdsson does not appear to take it upon himself to get the ball and try to create something, despite him clearly being suited to it than the players we are tasking with that job.
Now you keep saying that's not how he plays, as if people don't understand that. They do understand it, they're saying they don't like it. It is EXACTLY the same as saying that Tosun needs to make more of a nuisance of himself, or that Keane needs to be more of a leader at the back, or that Richarlison needs to stay on his feet more. Just saying 'that's the type of player he is, end of', doesn't really add anything. It's just people giving their opinion on a player, people are welcome to disagree, but time and again the disagreement on this issue is just a point blank refusal to accept the other viewpoint, by saying it's just how he is. That doesn't really happen in any of the other cases, so i'm not sure why Sigurdsson is so special.
And before we have the other argument put forward, I also know that the manager might be happy with how he plays now, but once again, the exact same principle applies to all those other examples.
