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Mousa Dembele

DubaiSpur said:
We are supposed to be over that sort of reliance on one player, in theory at least. We're supposed to be a stronger team now.

Still, I concur with you, which in itself is...somewhat disheartening. One injury to Dembele and our midfield looks like absolute sh*te, one injury to Kane and we are thoroughly, utterly boned for the rest of the season. One injury to Toby....and Christ, I don't even want to think about it.
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Ita scary but not unusual for any team to have a reliance on their genuine better players
 
DubaiSpur said:
We are supposed to be over that sort of reliance on one player, in theory at least. We're supposed to be a stronger team now.

Still, I concur with you, which in itself is...somewhat disheartening. One injury to Dembele and our midfield looks like absolute sh*te, one injury to Kane and we are thoroughly, utterly boned for the rest of the season. One injury to Toby....and Christ, I don't even want to think about it.
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I don't think we lost because Dembele was not playing. We lost because for some reason, our players all had a pretty bad second half. They were all off form. This will happen. Our front 4 seemed to run into each other, run into the path of the ball and steal the ball of each other more times than I have ever seen. It was quite bizarre, but actually I think this will be the kick up the ass they need. Missed opportunity to get into the top 4, but we're still in with a shout.
 
As it was just sickness (apparently), 3 or 4 days full training should mean he's available to start against the Saints, he's only missed one week. Very good news!
 
Denmark Spur said:
Back in training today

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...tml?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490

Brilliant news :)
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Good, very good! We missed him badly against Saudi Sportswashing Machine, even more than I thought of before the game. What a turnaround he has done for himself (and the Club), now stay healthy, Dembe :)
 
I don't understand the decision to move Dembele deeper just as he was finally starting to go on a decent run of goal scoring form, him playing CM also seems somewhat at odds with Pochettino's ideal of having a transitioning midfield capable of moving the ball up the pitch quickly.
 
Yoof said:
I don't understand the decision to move Dembele deeper just as he was finally starting to go on a decent run of goal scoring form, him playing CM also seems somewhat at odds with Pochettino's ideal of having a transitioning midfield capable of moving the ball up the pitch quickly.
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Yea he's far better in the AM positions for me.
 
I like him alongside Dier, gives us a very solid platform to build from, and Dembele's ability to dribble out with the ball from a deeper position opens things up for us. Alli can get the goals in the more advanced position. Didn't he swap to a deeper position in the game away at Arsenal, with it working really well? Then he played there again v West Ham. Probably two of our best team performances this season.
 
Yoof said:
I don't understand the decision to move Dembele deeper just as he was finally starting to go on a decent run of goal scoring form, him playing CM also seems somewhat at odds with Pochettino's ideal of having a transitioning midfield capable of moving the ball up the pitch quickly.
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I liked him a lot more in the AM position too. Thought it made sense against Arsenal and Chelsea to move him deeper to make us more solid, particularly given Alli's inexperience at this level. But after that I don't quite get why we want him playing deeper.
 
He makes the difference at the moment: without him, we run into aimless cul-de-sacs and can't get ourselves out of trouble when our opponents press us( witness our futile long balls being thrown back at us with regularity by West Brom and Saudi Sportswashing Machine)....but with him, we're secure, because the players know that they just have to give it to him and he'll spin, pirouette and power his way past challenges, keeping possession and ending the oppo's attempts to keep the tempo up.
 
DubaiSpur said:
He makes the difference at the moment: without him, we run into aimless cul-de-sacs and can't get ourselves out of trouble when our opponents press us( witness our futile long balls being thrown back at us with regularity by West Brom and Saudi Sportswashing Machine)....but with him, we're secure, because the players know that they just have to give it to him and he'll spin, pirouette and power his way past challenges, keeping possession and ending the oppo's attempts to keep the tempo up.
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He's finally using that strength on the ball, ability to keep possession, to better effect.

The other thing is with him/Alli/Eriksen, they swap positions, so it's really difficult for opposition players to settle in to marking/controlling space
 
Raziel said:
He's finally using that strength on the ball, ability to keep possession, to better effect.

The other thing is with him/Alli/Eriksen, they swap positions, so it's really difficult for opposition players to settle in to marking/controlling space
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The thing is, Eriksen and Alli looked lost without him against Saudi Sportswashing Machine, and that's with them swapping positions: I really think they just rely on his ability to keep the ball in impossible scenarios.
 
DubaiSpur said:
He makes the difference at the moment: without him, we run into aimless cul-de-sacs and can't get ourselves out of trouble when our opponents press us( witness our futile long balls being thrown back at us with regularity by West Brom and Saudi Sportswashing Machine)....but with him, we're secure, because the players know that they just have to give it to him and he'll spin, pirouette and power his way past challenges, keeping possession and ending the oppo's attempts to keep the tempo up.
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Surprised you said that because a fair proportion of Aldereiweld's long balls in those games were absolutely top notch. Perhaps even more surprisingly Walker produced one or two very classy long balls forward. On top of that - until the second half against Saudi Sportswashing Machine at least - we were also winning the ball back high up the pitch following some of our more wayward balls due to our excellent high-pressing game.

The only time it persistently went wrong for us was second half against Saudi Sportswashing Machine when we were tiring and got pressed back into our own area, when the first priority was to hack it out to clear our lines, but that's a different kettle of fish.
 
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