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Mousa Dembele

thfcsteff said:
I pondered this myself last night as I concluded that right now, with injuries being what they are, we are suited for a 3 - 5 -1-1 with Dembele right behind Soldado perhaps...

What's interesting is that no-one speculating is able to find a place for JD right now other than off the bench!
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I think JD could play on the left cutting in. He does have a vicious shot and although he may not be able to take players on im presuming by cutting inside, space will be created for whoever the LB is.
 
japenesegardenlover said:
The goal against Lyon last year was stunning, i wish he would do it more often.

Right now im thinking he is a slightly better version of jenas, Dembele is another like lennon who could do with a sports psychology coach.
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This is what I think Sig' needs. I reckon his confidence is shot at the moment as there were several times yesterday he could have had a crack at goal but played it into a congested pen area instead.
 
Moose needs to step up, I'd play him as a #10(at least temporarily) and hope he can do something from there as no one else is going to create brick in this team.
 
Over the years, we have bought so many top quality midfielders but almost all of them have turned into mediocre ones after 1 or 2 years. Hope that won't be case with Dembele. Really expected much from him as he was one of the much sough-after midfielder in Europe when we bought him. Hope he will improve this season.
 
Mulletperm said:
I agree. His ability to drift past players is wonderful, yet it's after this where he falters. He seems to invariably run into a dead-end, normally on the left just outside the penalty box, which is due I believe to him lacking a bit of vision.
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I noticed it again yesterday that Dembele lacks a bit of awareness of players around him when he surges forward, I spotted a fair few occasions where he dribbled forward and Soldado made space to receive a pass only for Moussa to continue dribbling and eventually being closed down taking the pace out of the attack or choosing a sideways option. It's not a new problem and he's not alone in this its something that stood out from last season in our play, it's like we reach the oppositions final third and suddenly run out of ideas.

We really need some creativity in the middle of the park, a great passer with vision, I'm not sure Siggy is the answer and I've not seen enough of Paulinho to know whether he is going to provide anything different from what we have already but it is an area of our play that really needs fixing.
 
Can you imagine Modric in our current team? We'd be serious title contenders.

----------------------Lloris---------------------
Walker------Kaboul--------Vert'----------BAE (I know, I know)
----------Sandro-------------Modric----------
-------------------Paulinho--------------------
Bale-------------------------------------Chadli
---------------------Soldado-------------------
 
Where should the Moose play?

It's something i can not figure out no matter how much thought i put into it.

Is his place under threat? I've predicted in the other threads that imo Capoue will be a starter.

Beyond that though we need him to be as effective as possible with the unique (bar Toure) qualities that he has. I've never seen a player at tottenham so strong at 1> running people off the ball 2> walking past opponents as if they're not there.
You would think that we need him as near to the goal as possible but i don't think it works out for him there. He needs to be facing forward as much as possible, but if too deep has too much in front of him to get past.

He is a potential deadly weapon, any opinions on how too use it?
 
central midfield to boss it with the way he keeps the ball.

He's the only player in our midfield who can hold the ball and keep it.
 
Mumorn said:
central midfield to boss it with the way he keeps the ball.

He's the only player in our midfield who can hold the ball and keep it.
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I appreciate that (although capoue may well be able to do the same), it's the attacking qualities i don't want to go to waste....we moan about players not taking people on but Moose does that with his eyes closed.
 
ricky2tricky4city said:
Where should the Moose play?

It's something i can not figure out no matter how much thought i put into it.

Is his place under threat? I've predicted in the other threads that imo Capoue will be a starter.

Beyond that though we need him to be as effective as possible with the unique (bar Toure) qualities that he has. I've never seen a player at tottenham so strong at 1> running people off the ball 2> walking past opponents as if they're not there.
You would think that we need him as near to the goal as possible but i don't think it works out for him there. He needs to be facing forward as much as possible, but if too deep has too much in front of him to get past.

He is a potential deadly weapon, any opinions on how too use it?
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I'm the same. He clearly has some great qualities - good at pressing and tackling, very accurate passer, very difficult to tackle due to strength and skill, very good at dribbling past opponents. But thery're somewhat of a strange mixture, and so I don't think he fits neatly into any specific role:

I don't think he has the required range of passing or enough of a natural desire to get on the ball to be a deep-lying playmaker (ala Modric)
I don't think he has enough creativity, shooting ability or desire to get into the goalscoring positions to be a true box-to-box player or more advanced playmaker (ala Toure or Hazard respectively)
I'm not sure he reads the game well enough to be a purely defensive midfielder, and that would also seem a waste of his dribbling ability.

All in all I think he would be best in a 4-2-3-1, playing alongside someone like Carrick (who will sit back and control the game) and behind someone with more end product in terms of creativty and being a goal threat.

At the moment I'm hoping that Capoue might actually be able to play that Carrick role, but if we play 4-3-3 with Paulinho as the other CM then whilst Paulinho would provide the goal threat that Dembele doesn't, I'd worry that we'd be lacking a bit of creativty in the centre. Alternatively if we played Holtby rather than Paulinho, in order to get that creativity, I'd worry that we'd be lacking a goal threat from that trio.

Maybe Siggy can step up and be the all-round no.10 that we need.
 
i think he'll be good behind soldado, as a foil for soldado. interchanging with Paulinho when necessary.
penetration from the wings.
creativity through the center is overrated.
 
africanspurs said:
how are we going to penetrate through the wings?
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penetrate as in crosses - late and early, cutting in to shoot and lay off, going to the by line and dragging one back etc.
i like what i see from chadli, rose, walker, townsend and lennon... and soldado+dembele+paulinho are so different that they would be a handful for any defence to manage.
 
Can Mousa drift past central defenders or full backs? Can anyone remember him beating defenders rather than midfielders?

I'm sure he can myself. I think he could be applied with more deadly effect. Pass the defender, or create some space away from the defender, and score. He has the potential.

I think most of the issue is psychological. He tends to hide a bit in games.
 
I think he lacks that ****y arrogance that would step him up to that next level in my view.
 
SpurMeUp said:
Can Mousa drift past central defenders or full backs? Can anyone remember him beating defenders rather than midfielders?

I'm sure he can myself. I think he could be applied with more deadly effect. Pass the defender, or create some space away from the defender, and score. He has the potential.

I think most of the issue is psychological. He tends to hide a bit in games.
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I don't think its at all psychological with the way he's been ghosting past players. I believe its avb's instructions for him to hold on to possession and just find a way to one of the other midfielders. if he's up there with soldado with paulinho i'm sure he'll find a way to get the ball to them.

do agree that he lacks that arrogance; most players like him will go down too easily but he tends to stay on his feet. if i were avb i'd ask him to take runs into the box with paulinho following up, and soldado waiting to pounce.
 
So. What's happened to Dembele?

It's clear that something is missing from some of the performances we've seen from him when he first joined us. In yesterdays game he was a passenger and to be honest it was like we were playing with 10 men.

Is it where he's playing? Lack of confidence? Or has his drop of the shoulder been sussed out? Or - were we (and others) over-rating him?

He does still ghost past players occasionally, but far too often will end up running into a dead end without looking up to see who is available. When he does get a pass away it is invariably backwards.

The problems with having Dembele in the team at the moment are that:

- He offers no goal threat
- His passing is poor
- He slows down counter-attacks by dribbling rather than playing the quick ball

Thoughts?
 
Not sure he works with Paulinho, they seem like competition to eachother in my opinion.
Perhaps AVB instructions can make them better together, but the way they've performed so far hasn't been good enough as a unit.
Rather see Holtby further up field of Sandro and Dembele/Paulinho, want to see much more support to Soldado up front.
 
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