James McCarthy - I'm not impressed

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butters said:
Alright, I agree with you and I worded it wrong, but in their defensive positions it is too much I think. We don't need two players sat in front of the defence. I guess while we are playing with one striker it's ok though, and we seem to be scoring plenty of goals. Maybe having two defensive midfielders invites too much pressure though and our defence isn't good enough to cope with it and prevent goals? Just an idea.
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I disagree, the two defensive mids works to perfection for us because the rest of our midfield are so attacking, and we have two very attack minded full backs. Take Barry or McCarthy out, and we lose half the effectiveness of Baines and Coleman. Or it means a player like Mirallas or Barkley has to curb their attacking instincts to drop back sometimes. Two defensive mids allows our attacking players to do whatever the hell they want. I think thats why despite having two good players in that position last season, Martinez bought another in Besic, and we still have Gibson too. We saw last season any time Barry or McCarthy were missing, we were soft in the middle. Against Man City, we tried to counter that with 3 at the back. Against Palace, we went all out attack in midfield, and neither were effective. Gibson's injury meant that when either of those two were missing last season, we had to change our entire system, and nothing worked nearly as well.
 

Tubey said:
I don't have to justify it, it's what it was. If I was desperate to justify it, I'd have been illogically criticising him last season throughout.

I'm just saying what I'm seeing, nothing more, nothing less. The lad was terrifyingly good last season, but he's been poor this season thus far - all I'm saying is that I've seen it before, which is true. I've also seen him be incredible; also true.
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You are not knee jerky and stupid enough to illogically go after him when he was playing as well he was last season.
However, "I've seen this before" after two or three games where he's not played well seems a little premature.
 
Knee-jerk or not, I dont see why its a problem to have a thread if a players form is concerning?

McCarthy hasnt been great. I wouldnt say its a simple thing of Barkley not playing etc I would just put it down to the whole team losing goals in the first two games to drop points - confidence wanes - Chelsea give us a seeing to - confidence wanes further.

When we are playing poorly and leaking goals we cant expect our players to be themselves. Its understandable that Jagielka is over thinking passes at the back, that McCarthy wants to keep it save and just retain possession with a sideways pass etc.

Once we put a little run together the players will regain confidence and will show collectively and individually how good they are.
 
bluemangroup said:
You are not knee jerky and stupid enough to illogically go after him when he was playing as well he was last season.
However, "I've seen this before" after two or three games where he's not played well seems a little premature.
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If I was saying "see, I told you he was like this, this is what to expect from now on", then yes, it'd be premature - but I'm talking about the performances gone, not performances to come.

His form is just a minor warning sign, that's all I'm saying. Remember, Lucas Leiva had a great season once and that was that - not saying McCarthy is going to fall off the cliff so dramatically in terms of form, but it's worth noting and keeping an eye on. That's not being knee jerky, that's just looking at what's in front of your own eyes.
 
bluemangroup said:
You are not knee jerky and stupid enough to illogically go after him when he was playing as well he was last season.
However, "I've seen this before" after two or three games where he's not played well seems a little premature.
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bit knee jerky to be going after Tubes when all he's stated so far is that he was unimpressed with him at Wigan

give Tubey at least a few more posts to see if he changes his tune before you conduct your pathetic and illogical vendetta against the man
 

could it not just be they've got a little less faith in what's behind them this season, they are now trying to cover the entire back four as well as helping make up for the loss of Ross by 'driving forward' as everyone on here expects them to do as well?
Could just be they are being overloaded, trying to do their own job and covering for 5 people?
 
Tubey said:
If I was saying "see, I told you he was like this, this is what to expect from now on", then yes, it'd be premature - but I'm talking about the performances gone, not performances to come.

His form is just a minor warning sign, that's all I'm saying. Remember, Lucas Leiva had a great season once and that was that - not saying McCarthy is going to fall off the cliff so dramatically in terms of form, but it's worth noting and keeping an eye on. That's not being knee jerky, that's just looking at what's in front of your own eyes.
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I'm not saying you are being knee jerky. I've not said that you are. But we are still just talking about a couple of poor games from the lad, not warning signs here. Him not being commanding enough could have been a case of him maturing at Wigan, him playing crap now could be a case of him warming up for the rest of the season, like most of the rest of the team seem to be doing.
 
davek said:
I think both Barry and McCarthy are struggling without Barkley in front of them. Too much is coming through the middle whilst they're also tasked with getting across and plugging gaps for attacking FBs.
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Surprised I haven't seen more agreement with this, it's exactly what I was thinking yesterday. Barkley doesn't play quite so far forward as Naismith and also has a much more domineering physical presence. We look really lacking through the middle at the moment, especially when the fullbacks are bombing forward.
 
His form has dipped since he started smoking

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I think it's fair enough to say he's not playing particularly well, but then again none of the team have hit their top form yet. Now we've got our first win out of the way and the fitness levels increase I expect we'll start seeing an improvement in most of our players as we return to the levels we began to expect last season.

The games over the next few weeks come thick and fast and McCarthy is going to be vital to how well we do in them.
 
johnstinkpants said:
Surprised I haven't seen more agreement with this, it's exactly what I was thinking yesterday. Barkley doesn't play quite so far forward as Naismith and also has a much more domineering physical presence. We look really lacking through the middle at the moment, especially when the fullbacks are bombing forward.
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It's because there's a collective blindspot over Naismith at the moment. If someone has scored it leads to a failure of any critical overview of that player within the team unit. Naismith has scored three and therefore the elephant in the drawing room is left without comment. We are pathetically weak in the middle at the moment, and a win against a relegation outfit like WBA doesn't begin to paper over that.
 
Nothing knee jerky here!
I appreciate how well he played last season.
However his form this has been terrible, tis just an opinion that I can gladly back up with stats I'm sure!
 

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