It's called playing quickly and keeping the ball moving. If a player - like Davies - is too ponderous teams have a chance to get back into shape and his passes become far too predictable. @CRIMHEAD
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It's called playing quickly and keeping the ball moving. If a player - like Davies - is too ponderous teams have a chance to get back into shape and his passes become far too predictable. @CRIMHEAD
Jimmy Bullard was making his debut for Gravesend at this point in his career mate. Davies is light years ahead of Jimmy Bullard.
Plucking Bullard as a comparison for Davies purely based on haircut is bizarre.
By the same logic Williams should be as good as Ramos because they both have beards.
I am still unsure on Davies but surely he is worth keeping as I assume he will be on relatively low pay. Cant really hold last season against him as it was a disaster for all but he needs to kick on this season and get more involved with games. Needs to keep the ball and use it better.
It was good to see him playing deeper in the friendly the other day. I tried to look at some stats around the key differences between his first season nd his second, where he played similar game time,
One stat really jumped out, wa the number of passes he was making per game dropped by about 50%. He still needs to make more passes for me (if he plays deeper) but I think it showed a player who was trying to force the game. By the end of the season, that was true of most of his game, he was running around the pitch looking to do lots of things without really doing anything very effectively. He lost a lot of the composure he had in his game from the season before last.
I think if he gets back to doing simple things that will allow some of the extra ability he has to shine through. He has a great engine, intercepts well and has a great eye for a pass in the final third. I suppose you have to give yourself a foundation to do that though which means getting a position defensively and getting the feel for a game on the ball. While we all moan about it, there's nothing wrong with just keeping the ball moving during periods of the game, it is a foundation.
I think he had a lot of that coaching with Unsworth but that has not happened with Koeman or really enough with Allardyce, it's nice to see Silva giving it to him and I think he will really benefit from being given a basis to work from. He showed a lot of that in the friendly the other day which was good.
More broadly, we have to accept young players development is not linear. Last season he took a dip. I think it's important to say, that a section seem to have it in for the lad. I was surprised at some of the criticism he got in games such as away at Manchester City and away at United where I thought he was actually quite effective. I was a bit baffled to see him getting stick in those games. I'm not against criticism either, I thought he was poor in the anfield derby in Koeman's season but he seemed to escape any criticism.
It's rare for players to go completely backwards though, unless injuries play a part. The long term trend should be good for him and I think he will kick on next season. Last year he started playing right back, he also played right wing back, right and left wing, attacking midfield and finally a kind of unusual box to box hybrid that emerged in Allardyce's system. At a time when the team were imploding, he was being shunted around the side it is easy to see how the chaotic season impacted upon him. Hopefully it will be more settled un Silva and that will help him.
He remains a very young player. At equivalent ages Barkley had played around 25 league games, Gerrard 41 (44 in all comps), Lampard 46 (60) while Scholes was just making his first appearances for Manchester United. Davies has 59 games (70) so is well ahead of most of them. Even Alli had only 70 games when he was a little older than Davies. So he is in good company, but he needs to ensure he kicks on next season.
One stat really jumped out, wa the number of passes he was making per game dropped by about 50%. He still needs to make more passes for me (if he plays deeper) but I think it showed a player who was trying to force the game. By the end of the season, that was true of most of his game, he was running around the pitch looking to do lots of things without really doing anything very effectively. He lost a lot of the composure he had in his game from the season before last.
I think if he gets back to doing simple things that will allow some of the extra ability he has to shine through. He has a great engine, intercepts well and has a great eye for a pass in the final third. I suppose you have to give yourself a foundation to do that though which means getting a position defensively and getting the feel for a game on the ball. While we all moan about it, there's nothing wrong with just keeping the ball moving during periods of the game, it is a foundation.
I think he had a lot of that coaching with Unsworth but that has not happened with Koeman or really enough with Allardyce, it's nice to see Silva giving it to him and I think he will really benefit from being given a basis to work from. He showed a lot of that in the friendly the other day which was good.
More broadly, we have to accept young players development is not linear. Last season he took a dip. I think it's important to say, that a section seem to have it in for the lad. I was surprised at some of the criticism he got in games such as away at Manchester City and away at United where I thought he was actually quite effective. I was a bit baffled to see him getting stick in those games. I'm not against criticism either, I thought he was poor in the anfield derby in Koeman's season but he seemed to escape any criticism.
It's rare for players to go completely backwards though, unless injuries play a part. The long term trend should be good for him and I think he will kick on next season. Last year he started playing right back, he also played right wing back, right and left wing, attacking midfield and finally a kind of unusual box to box hybrid that emerged in Allardyce's system. At a time when the team were imploding, he was being shunted around the side it is easy to see how the chaotic season impacted upon him. Hopefully it will be more settled un Silva and that will help him.
He remains a very young player. At equivalent ages Barkley had played around 25 league games, Gerrard 41 (44 in all comps), Lampard 46 (60) while Scholes was just making his first appearances for Manchester United. Davies has 59 games (70) so is well ahead of most of them. Even Alli had only 70 games when he was a little older than Davies. So he is in good company, but he needs to ensure he kicks on next season.
Think the number of games stat can be misleading as he was bound to get more games for us than equivalent players at bigger clubs due to it being harder to break into one of the top teams. Better players in front of you means restricted playing time. I am still not sure of his best position.
Seriously?
Have you seen how built Tom is for a 20 year old lad?
Anymore bigger (for all 3 of them probably, well maybe not Holgate, although he looks to of filled out a little) and they turn into Rodwell, he bulked up, got to much muscle and could turn properly
Thats a very fair point, and games at Liverpool are worth a greater weight than games for Everton as an indicator. That being said, Lampard was at West Ham who were similar, if not worse than where we are currently.
The key thing that Lampard, Gerrard and Scholes did, (and why the comparison is problematic) is that all 3 continued to improve year on year for the following 6 or 7 years, some dramatically so. With Lampard the move prompted it, for Gerrard its was Houllier giving him a run. Scholes it was when he was physically able to match the needs of the league.
Lots of players will get to 20 with a similar record, but few will continue to kick on (Rodwell for example has 71 games at the same stage)
I don't put those stats to say Davies will be as good as any of those 3. He should still get better as footballers generally do, but whether he improves as much as those 3 and year on year is obviously up for debate. I put it up as a counter weight to those who assume at 20 players should be putting in consistent performances every week or you'll never amount to anything. That is simply untrue, most young players are inconsistent at that age. It seems logical that the nightmare season we endured, and Davies endured would have undermined the performance of most young players.
Those excuses will have gone now though. It has been a relative stable pre-season, without incomings and with a manager who will do a lot of work on shape (which Davies needs). There will not be lots of new players who's styles we have to get used to, or embed in, This is a great opportunity for Davies to kick on. He needs to do so, and be significantly better than last season to have a long term future here, but I do have confidence he can do that.
CRIMHEAD
Player Valuation: £40m
I'm with you, man, I'm not all about sitting on the ball and doing nothing with it. Move the friggin ball, even teams that love possession pass it early and often. Davies is one of the few that can carry it upfield if need be, however, so I'm not in favor of cutting that out of his game. I always thought he had little problems being decisive and moving the ball, he just made bad decisions giving it away at times.
There are several players in our side with a good enough first touch to play faster, but several on this board are obsessed with a midfielder hanging on to the ball, as they think that's bossing the game or something prevalent in tactics 10 years ago. Thus the love for someone like Barkley vs. Sigurdsson.
I just want Davies to be able to observe a better player in front of him that moves the ball AND makes good decisions with it.
I know it's training but this just shows what I'm on about. Here the game is a simple one (two max) touch passing drill and look how ponderous he is?
4.06m
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