Our midfield far too slow

[Joey66]

Apart from both full backs not performing it was obvious that our midfield was so much slower than Chelsea's - Sig is the slowest Gomes not match fit - Tom Davies on his own ran ragged, and we have not yet replaced Ross Barkley type midfielder or Gana the defensive midfielder in the one we sold last summer ......
We have spent millions without cover its been our main problem all season imo - the front two have done their job usually scoring -I cannot see it getting any better we have also players at the wrong age Walcott 31 Sig 29 - we ended up playing the Chelsea youth set up, and even with a bench that looked good - we cannot gel also why did Baines deserved to be dropped imo he is faster than most playing in midfield and has a good shot on him - v good teams we will not beat a top six side with this set up as it is so slow in the engine room - I know we have had bad injuries, but with the money spent the loaning out of youth players who are faster and particularly at RB is Sidibe really better than John Jo Kenny?
Using that logic this falls on Brands imo as the last Manager paid the price......
I feel we will struggle to hold onto mid table - Carlo needs to get a grip of the summer budget and needs a chainsaw to get rid of deadwood imo -Nothing but the best will do.....

 

[APN_EFC]

Yes definitely
We are outpaced in a league which is full of pace and power in midfield. Any club that has a slower or sitting midfielder pairs them with powerful quicker ones. Ozil and Siggy type players are old now. Davies needs to learn from his mate DCL and over summer do some serious bulking up, fitness work and get some power into his runs and shooting, then he might come back transformed.

I think we cannot play Siggy, Walcott Schneiderln in the same midfield, and if we play Gomes now we need maybe HOlgate along side him for a while or a 5 at th back

 

[sharkey1001]

Yes definitely
We are outpaced in a league which is full of pace and power in midfield. Any club that has a slower or sitting midfielder pairs them with powerful quicker ones. Ozil and Siggy type players are old now. Davies needs to learn from his mate DCL and over summer do some serious bulking up, fitness work and get some power into his runs and shooting, then he might come back transformed.

I think we cannot play Siggy, Walcott Schneiderln in the same midfield, and if we play Gomes now we need maybe HOlgate along side him for a while or a 5 at th back

We need a solution to the midfield. Holgate could be a solution, however Mina and Keane have been awful together. Carlo wants a midfield 4, but the options available are awful, awful!

 

[Furey1878]

I understand why most people hate him but this is why Delph pretty much has to play when fit. He's our most athletic CM apart from Jean-Philippe Glass-man-bamin.

 

[COYBL25]

I understand why most people hate him but this is why Delph pretty much has to play when fit. He's our most athletic CM apart from Jean-Philippe Glass-man-bamin.

Well there`s a word I never thought would be included in a sentence to describe Delph - ATHLETIC

 

[Archie Knox]

Imagine Brands allowing Gueye to go on the cheap, buying a complete unknown for more than what we received for Gueye, and settling on that as our midfield for the season. What a kin idiot the fella is. Quickly coming round to the idea that he is indeed, as @davek says, an utterly useless tool.

Then..

• Spending shedloads on Arsenal reject Iwobi
• Failing to buy a proven striker for three transfer windows
• Thinking our centre back options of Keane, Holgate and Mina was good enough

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Are we all crap again now?

 

[Joey66]

Are we all crap again now?

That was humiliating to watch Bruce yes we were crap pure crap yesterday.....

 

[Kenshin]

It's not new information like.

We have known this for quite a while.

 

[tirion]

Apart from both full backs not performing it was obvious that our midfield was so much slower than Chelsea's - Sig is the slowest Gomes not match fit - Tom Davies on his own ran ragged, and we have not yet replaced Ross Barkley type midfielder or Gana the defensive midfielder in the one we sold last summer ......
We have spent millions without cover its been our main problem all season imo - the front two have done their job usually scoring -I cannot see it getting any better we have also players at the wrong age Walcott 31 Sig 29 - we ended up playing the Chelsea youth set up, and even with a bench that looked good - we cannot gel also why did Baines deserved to be dropped imo he is faster than most playing in midfield and has a good shot on him - v good teams we will not beat a top six side with this set up as it is so slow in the engine room - I know we have had bad injuries, but with the money spent the loaning out of youth players who are faster and particularly at RB is Sidibe really better than John Jo Kenny?
Using that logic this falls on Brands imo as the last Manager paid the price......
I feel we will struggle to hold onto mid table - Carlo needs to get a grip of the summer budget and needs a chainsaw to get rid of deadwood imo -Nothing but the best will do.....

Gomes is quite simply over rated, gives nice hugs though, Davies is championship lvl, nothing but the best is a throwback to a different world for us, unfortunately we have become that Relic Moshiri referred to maybe 3 years ago, no further forwards and with the possible exception of the manager a club in decline

 

[MarkHollis]

Imagine Brands allowing Gueye to go on the cheap, buying a complete unknown for more than what we received for Gueye, and settling on that as our midfield for the season. What a kin idiot the fella is. Quickly coming round to the idea that he is indeed, as @davek says, an utterly useless tool.

Then..

• Spending shedloads on Arsenal reject Iwobi
• Failing to buy a proven striker for three transfer windows
• Thinking our centre back options of Keane, Holgate and Mina was good enough

But he couldn't have predicted the Gbamin injury. The whole point of our transfer strategy is supposedly to buy "complete unknowns" which Gbamin arguably isn't and have them develop. It's exactly what we should be doing.

 

[Archie Knox]

But he couldn't have predicted the Gbamin injury. The whole point of our transfer strategy is supposedly to buy "complete unknowns" which Gbamin arguably isn't and have them develop. It's exactly what we should be doing.

You should never, under any circumstances, sell your most effective player and replace him with a completely unknown quantity. It'd be like us selling Richarlison and replacing him with some 25-year-old from France who nobody has ever heard of for the same fee.

 

[MarkHollis]

You should never, under any circumstances, sell your most effective player and replace him with a completely unknown quantity. It'd be like us selling Richarlison and replacing him with some 25-year-old from France who nobody has ever heard of for the same fee.

Yes keep an aging player by denying him his dream move instead of making a good profit. I'm sure we'd be very happy keeping him against his will another 2 years and see him lose mobility or pick up muscle injuries and have him leave for nothing when his contract runs out.

Gbamin also had a decent career before coming here with a certain skillset and playing a position well suited to our needs. Gana wasn't signed as the arguably world class player he is when we got him from Villa, he became that while playing for us, so it's not impossible to envision a similar upward trajectory for Gbamin if he can return to full fitness. It's sensible squad management, unfortunately we're Everton and Gbamin picks up what turns out to be a season-long injury.

Up and coming players like Kean and Gbamin are the ones we should be signing, Iwobi probably isn't (now looks even less suited to our system) and Delph in hindsight definitely isn't.

You could also he was our most effective player because he was covering up the deficiencies of our other crab-legged midfielders which long term isn't really sustainable either. We need a midfield that doesn't collapse because of one player's absence.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

That was humiliating to watch Bruce yes we were crap pure crap yesterday.....

It was, but we've known all season that our midfield is a weak spot this season.

 

[chippy1722]

They are slow in the speed of thought too, watching Chelsea play slick one touch football and then our usual slow side to side was embarrassing.
I don’t suddenly see us signing a new midfield after our last two windows. The problems we’ve had with transfers won’t suddenly change.