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Squad not good enough...or unable to play a different style?
- Thread starter DubaiSpur
- Start date
parklane1
Tony Galvin
You mean CM?, i think he is good enough to play CM look how good he was there with Jan and Toby behind him a year or two back. To be honest i think its hard to judge some players on the mess our back four is at the moment.
Finney Is Back
Luka Modric
Fair enough.... I’d like to see at least one of them playing there for the rest of this season so we can find out if they’re actually good enough.I think i would give Rodon or even Tanguy the job, if we can persuade a real good CB in he could help those two progress. ( or that would be the plan anyway)
You mean about 4 years ago when he had Dembele holding his hand?
SteveAWOL
Chris Jones
Yup, great midfielders and defenders often aren’t really fully appreciated until they’re gone and the amount of covering that Dembele and Vertonghen did for their less capable teammates is now horribly apparent.
NoLimits01
Goran Bunjevcevic
A new Vertonghen would sort out the back four. Rondon and Tanganga can then rotate on the right to gain experience and Auria and Reggie can run the wings.
Sorted, who do we need to call?
LincsSpur
Øyvind Leonhardsen
Finney Is Back
Luka Modric
The problem with having Dier in the centre of midfield is that he is poor on the ball. We got away with it in the Poch team as very few dared to press us, that is no longer the case however and Dier at the base of a midfield is a pressing team's dream as he typically takes two touches to get it under control and also a long while to get a pass away. His slowness on the turn is also a big disadvantage here I think. I would say that centre back is the right position for him but it seems to me as though he needs a year or two in the championship to learn how to play there.
Let's look at the squad realistically
Top level players that fit a top 6 team and tactics -> Kane, Son, N'dombele, PEH
Promising players -> Reguilon, Bergwijn, Gio, Tanganga, Sessegnon & Skipp (last two is a bit of a cheat because out on loan but performing well)
Good squad players -> Lamela, Davies Lucas, Aurier, Vinicius (before, that would have been KWP, N'jie & Janssen as perspective)
Jury undecided on -> Dele, Doherty, Rodon (Dele seems to be the player most affected by tactics/formation, not adaptable?)
Not good enough -> Sissoko, Winks, Sanchez, Dier
Wrong end of their career -> Lloris, Toby
The problem has been
- A weird fudging season (the current top 6 team have lost 30 games between them, only two teams have lost less than 6 games in the league, and more away wins than ever)
- Injuries, Reguilon and Aurier's pace cover a lot of sins in the CB pairing (just like Rose/Walker used to), no Gio limits creativity options
- CB pairing and balance (we fudge up the whole system to cover for this, Poch did a bit of this in the end as well), our senior CBs (Sanchez, Toby, Dier) all suck in the air, only Sanchez has any pace, none really like to play left, one one isn't due a brainfart a game and none are particularly good against bullying attackers.
Said it before, you can build systems to compensate for slower players, for players who don't defend well 1:1, for players who don't like crosses, very little you can do if players just keep making individual errors (Jose and/or competition has improved Aurier, but Dier and Sanchez can't seem to play two games without a fudge up)
I agree with @NoLimits01 a top level CB could make the others usable (VVD made Lovren useable for another 2 season at Pool)
Top level players that fit a top 6 team and tactics -> Kane, Son, N'dombele, PEH
Promising players -> Reguilon, Bergwijn, Gio, Tanganga, Sessegnon & Skipp (last two is a bit of a cheat because out on loan but performing well)
Good squad players -> Lamela, Davies Lucas, Aurier, Vinicius (before, that would have been KWP, N'jie & Janssen as perspective)
Jury undecided on -> Dele, Doherty, Rodon (Dele seems to be the player most affected by tactics/formation, not adaptable?)
Not good enough -> Sissoko, Winks, Sanchez, Dier
Wrong end of their career -> Lloris, Toby
The problem has been
- A weird fudging season (the current top 6 team have lost 30 games between them, only two teams have lost less than 6 games in the league, and more away wins than ever)
- Injuries, Reguilon and Aurier's pace cover a lot of sins in the CB pairing (just like Rose/Walker used to), no Gio limits creativity options
- CB pairing and balance (we fudge up the whole system to cover for this, Poch did a bit of this in the end as well), our senior CBs (Sanchez, Toby, Dier) all suck in the air, only Sanchez has any pace, none really like to play left, one one isn't due a brainfart a game and none are particularly good against bullying attackers.
Said it before, you can build systems to compensate for slower players, for players who don't defend well 1:1, for players who don't like crosses, very little you can do if players just keep making individual errors (Jose and/or competition has improved Aurier, but Dier and Sanchez can't seem to play two games without a fudge up)
I agree with @NoLimits01 a top level CB could make the others usable (VVD made Lovren useable for another 2 season at Pool)
parklane1
Tony Galvin
Fair enough i thought you were agreeing with my post ( the one you quoted)that said i think his best position is CM
parklane1
Tony Galvin
I think that is a fair summing up and would expect most fans to see that.
90sSpursBook
Erik Edman
I've done some similar analysis:
The average age of the squad is now 26.8 - at the start of the 2017/8 season it was 25.6. I actually thought the discrepancy would be bigger. However, it's not really the age that is significant it is the collection of players who are either well past their peak and on a steady physical decline and those who have not progressed technically. I've tried to summarise who I think these are:
a) Beyond Physical peak and showing continued signs of regression:
Lloris (34), Alderweireld (31), Sissoko (31), Lamela (28), Rose (31), Hart (32), Bale (31)
Lamela is the outlier here as his age shouldn't be an issue but the sheer number of injuries has hampered his physicality.
b) Players who have seemingly reached their 'glass ceiling' and not shown any signs of progress and development in 2 years - how many of the following would get into any of the adversaries first XI or squads?:
Winks, Dier, Dele Alli, Lucas, Davies, Sanchez, Aurier
This then leaves you with:
c) Superstars and key players who can be relied upon to perform to very high standards:
Son, Kane, Reguillon, Ndombele, Hojbjerg, Lo Celso
d) Young players (U23) recently integrated into squad or now out on loan who have potential to become high quality:
Rodon, Skipp, Sessegnon, Tanganga
e) New players to squad yet to prove ability:
Doherty, Vinicius, Bergwijn
Early indications are that all 3 of these are probably not of the standard we require.
Whoever is the manager and whatever tactics they adopt it comes back to Jose's 'blanket' analogy - the quality is spread too thin and without enough depth to challenge in the way that we did in 2015-2018. This has been a serious mismanagement of assets and as we commented maybe a year ago this level of wholesale change will take maybe 3-4 transfer windows to rectify. In doing so Levy must also convince the star players (principally Kane and Son) that their time and energy is best served as part of this project.
The most frustrating this is that many of us knew this 2 years ago - Poch often referred to the 'painful rebuild' that was required. Those windows of inactivity are really haunting us now as we're playing catch up. Dier, Toby, Davies, Lucas etc will probably fetch 50% - 75% of the value they may have done 2 years ago which will then impact who we can replace them with especially against the pandemic backdrop which has affected our income streams more significantly that most of our adversaries.
This is a huge mess and for me lies on Levy's failure to recruit a DoF who could have overseen this transformation. Whilst Jose is not without fault - and there may well be merit in replacing him - he only has limited capacity to make the changes necessary and perhaps his very short-term approach to generating success is the best play we have in the short-term?
braineclipse
Steve Sedgley
I would put Aurier and Reguilon in a separate category or include them in the first personally based on their performances this season.
Other than that I agree.
I've several times heard football being described as a weakest link sport, whereas basketball is more of a strongest link sport. As in success in football is better predicted by how good your weakest player is than how good your best player is, though that obviously doesn't get perfect predictions. One or two top class players can make a real difference, but a bigger predictor is the quality of your worst players.
I think it's at least an interesting prism to view things trough. Right now I'd say that we have more weak links and they're at a lower level compared to the teams that are where we want to be.
Bedfordspurs
Mark Falco
Aurier this season has been as good as most RBS in the league IMO so gets a lot of credit from me at least
I think the comment about players yet to prove ability is harsh. We have one player in a new league and new language , one in a new set up playing a different version of his role and one who has played in our best wins and is still young too (look at sons first season and compare to Bergweins for a comparison)
Everything else is spot on IMO although I’ll add a lot would get in teams squads, but too many are playing too regularly for us which is a problem
Bedfordspurs
Mark Falco
The basketball comparison is brilliant
You saw it was the Bulls and what changed the with 2 key additions to the team on top of the main man
In football teams do target the weakest link and it stands out more
Whose city’s worst player? Hard to put a finger on it.... maybe Zichenko at left back and he is so comfortable still
Maybe back up keeper... I mean when you can add £50m players every season you build such a strong foundation
I don't think i can agree with that weakest link argument - the games littered with average players who rode the coat tails of more superior players. Leicester won the league with 3 top players and an average to poor squad.
I'm not sure it's weakest link as in worse player, but sometimes player fit for the system.
Probably a conversation for another thread by just like I felt Poch needed to stop trying to make the FBs play like Rose & Walker after Walker left and Rose's level dropped, I'm wondering about this Kane, Son +1, should we lose the +1, go for another midfielder (vs. another wide AM) as we often seem to be outnumbered in center midfield
3 top players, 5-6 journeymen who happened to have the season of their career, very little injuries, most other teams brick the bed and opposing managers/media gave them an easy ride .. once in a lifetime.
The better example is United adding Bruno, he has lifted that side all on his own, without him -> top 10, with him -> top 3
Agree on Fernandes.
Could probably argue Bale too under AVB.
I don't think that analogy stands up to any scrutiny whatsover - sorry Brain
Bedfordspurs
Mark Falco
United record without Fernades is horrendous
People talk about our reliance on Kane and it’s true but theirs on Fernandes is very comparable
They rarely even score if he isn’t on the pitch (even if he is playing poorly)