The quest for a new CM

sharkey1001 · April 30, 2014

N.S.N.O. said:
sandro....has fallen out of favour abit at spurs, but is as good a defensive midfielder as there is in the league....

cleverly...as much as i think he's been poor at united, he done well with Martinez at Wigan....sometimes the expectations at United are too much on young players (fellaini wasn't bad for us was he?)....on last year of contract so would be cheap....

Great shout. i'd be happy with Sandro and Holtby, although Levy would probably ask £30m for the pair!

sharkey1001 · April 30, 2014

Roberto did say in pre-season that Gibson will be vital in how we are going to play... obv until he got injured.

Ara · April 30, 2014

So I havnt read every page but what I have read didn't make sense to me...why do you all want a CDM????? Our problem this year is goals from Midfield, we need to find a Gerrard Lampard type midfielder who scores goals...Barry Osman and Mcarthy have a total of 6 goals between the 3 of them in 36 games. Pienaar has 1 Del has 3, we need midfielders who can score goals.
Had we had a midfield who could score in place of Osman he would have scored at least 2 of 4 chances Osman had against spurs. An we'd of won that game.

Matthew mcdonnell · April 30, 2014

Tree13 said:
Delph's not a bad shout at all. Particularly if Villa go down... Isn't there a rule about having a certain number of "home-grown" players in your squad for European competitions too?

Not too sure about that mate but can only be a good thing having more of them

Matthew mcdonnell · April 30, 2014

Ara said:
So I havnt read every page but what I have read didn't make sense to me...why do you all want a CDM????? Our problem this year is goals from Midfield, we need to find a Gerrard Lampard type midfielder who scores goals...Barry Osman and Mcarthy have a total of 6 goals between the 3 of them in 36 games. Pienaar has 1 Del has 3, we need midfielders who can score goals.
Had we had a midfield who could score in place of Osman he would have scored at least 2 of 4 chances Osman had against spurs. An we'd of won that game.

Depends where martinez plans to use barkley, if barkley will be number 10 next season, then we need a commanding cdm to compete for top 4, our players like osman etc are too weak against strong beasts, like wanyama on Saturday for example. Yes we need goals from midfield but striker first, only as good as your strikers so we need a 20 goal season striker first.

Matthew mcdonnell · April 30, 2014

deipnosophist said:
Arsenal (away) was a mighty impressive game for him.

Yeah he was pretty much everywhere tbh

Tree13 · April 30, 2014

Ara said:
So I havnt read every page but what I have read didn't make sense to me...why do you all want a CDM????? Our problem this year is goals from Midfield, we need to find a Gerrard Lampard type midfielder who scores goals...Barry Osman and Mcarthy have a total of 6 goals between the 3 of them in 36 games. Pienaar has 1 Del has 3, we need midfielders who can score goals.
Had we had a midfield who could score in place of Osman he would have scored at least 2 of 4 chances Osman had against spurs. An we'd of won that game.

Matthew mcdonnell said:
Depends where martinez plans to use barkley, if barkley will be number 10 next season, then we need a commanding cdm to compete for top 4, our players like osman etc are too weak against strong beasts, like wanyama on Saturday for example. Yes we need goals from midfield but striker first, only as good as your strikers so we need a 20 goal season striker first.

I'm with Matty Mac on this, it all depends on where Martinez plans to use Ross. I also agree with Ara that it appears we can't expect much from Osman or Pienaar for goals.

Looking at the prem's top scorers you can see that Yaya and Hazard are the only non-strikers with significant goal tallies - I think Stevie G's figures are inflated by penalties, aren't they?: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/top-scorers

As for our goals from midfield, I offer Mirallas and Naismith; I would say are nearly up there with Oscar, Ramsey and Lallana. Certainly no harm in adidng another one, but I suspect Ross will grow into that role next year. Del and McGeady could also chip in next season.

Furthermore, we get a lot more goals from our fullbacks than most teams: Baines, Coleman and Oviedo have scored thirteen prem goals between them. This is a product of the tactics we use, and those same tactics see our CDM's covering back more often than their peers in other teams might. Whoever plays in the Barry and McCarthy roles, I don't see them scoring many in our system.

Having said all that, a Spurs cast-off or maybe De Guzman from Swansea / Villarreal would probably get us more goals from midfield, but in our system they'd need to be playing ACM or out wide to do that. This in turn would necessitate Ross moving back to CDM, or splitting time with a new signing at ACM.

Matthew mcdonnell · April 30, 2014

Tree13 said:
I'm with Matty Mac on this, it all depends on where Martinez plans to use Ross. I also agree with Ara that it appears we can't expect much from Osman or Pienaar for goals.

Looking at the prem's top scorers you can see that Yaya and Hazard are the only non-strikers with significant goal tallies - I think Stevie G's figures are inflated by penalties, aren't they?: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/top-scorers

As for our goals from midfield, I offer Mirallas and Naismith; I would say are nearly up there with Oscar, Ramsey and Lallana. Certainly no harm in adidng another one, but I suspect Ross will grow into that role next year. Del and McGeady could also chip in next season.

Furthermore, we get a lot more goals from our fullbacks than most teams: Baines, Coleman and Oviedo have scored thirteen prem goals between them. This is a product of the tactics we use, and those same tactics see our CDM's covering back more often than their peers in other teams might. Whoever plays in the Barry and McCarthy roles, I don't see them scoring many in our system.

Having said all that, a Spurs cast-off or maybe De Guzman from Swansea / Villarreal would probably get us more goals from midfield, but in our system they'd need to be playing ACM or out wide to do that. This in turn would necessitate Ross moving back to CDM, or splitting time with a new signing at ACM.

Yep, we do get a decent tally of midfield goals, but the fullbacks make up anyway, so given I'm not expecting a cdm to score many, van dijk would be perfect for us in that role, naturally a cb so has no problem covering and has insane power to drive the ball forward, if we can't afford that then we should try stones there