At which point in that post did I specify he was absolutely terrible specifically last season? Clue - I didnt.
I dont think he was any good last season, thats for sure. A little promise late on but I wouldnt say he offered any performances of particular note. He was, however, improved on the season before.
But you go ahead, misrepresent some more, its about all youve left to dig at - because fundamentally you see my comments are nothing like as OTT as youd like to paint them.
And, the final thing youre clinging to, comments about DM. Comments you contextualised yourself at length and THEN argued against. Shall I clear it up? Or will it just offer you something else to hang a twisted argument on?
fudge it, why not.
He has been very poor defensively, lets get that straight. Because he has been fundamentally terrible before, in all aspects. Over time he has improved. At times, to my mind, from TERRIBLE to POOR to MEH to ... Where others see some sort of match winner.
As he improved he showed a capacity for defensive work. Which I acknowledged. Because my biased view is so entrenched and that.
I dont recall ever saying a holding role was easy. Thats on you. I didnt say he was a tactical dunce in defensive areas, another one thats on you.
What I did say, was I thought to get the best from him - to best utilise his strengths - was to play him in a defensive role. Hunt the ball down, protect the back line, give it simply. At no point have I said it was easy. Though it is much simpler than playing CM/B2B/whatever.
You operate in a much smaller area of the pitch, with the whole game ahead of you, and a limited number of responsibilities.
And sniffing out trouble, closing it down, and playing it off is well within his ability (as you have repeatedly stated), as Chelsea showed. His weaknesses in position arent exposed, because so long as he stays deeper he'll be fine (even out of position he has the ability to recover if he is already deeper). His ability to win the ball, muscle people off the ball, chase people down is fully utilised. And his lack of ability on the ball is not exposed.
Where in this you take it I think he is an idiot, and a DM position is an idiots job I dont know, but as I said, it seems a deliberate ploy to misrepresent me.
Hold the phone...you DON'T think he was terrible last year? And in fact...he showed some promise towards the end? I'm curious as to what particular games he showed promise in late on, given that our performances generally took a bit of a slide during the run in, and why these performances were demonstrably better than say Madrid away (1-1), Madrid at home (3-1 win), Burnley away (3-0 win), West Ham away (3-2 win), Apoel away (3-0 win), Everton away (3-0 win), but it's not that important...we seem to be moving towards some sort of common ground.
I just got the idea that you were referring to last season since my entire activity in this thread near enough has been saying that his performances last season weren't that bad. I feel like some of the below has given me the idea that you were saying he was terrible last season too...
"Last year he might have played, and we might have got results, but that was most certainly despite and not because of him, IMO.
This year, he is doing a job. There is much he could do better, much I would like to see that he doesnt provide, but he is much less a liability and general detriment to things."
---------- (posted about a month ago)
"And right up to this season he has been a fudging liability. Now he has stepped up to being somewhere about average, mostly by virtue of cutting out the brainfarts rather than improving his game."
---------- (posted about a month ago)
"I am delighted he is putting in performances now that arent a complete liability."
----------- (posted about a month ago)
"I knew this was going to kick off again today.
You know where this comes from? Him being absolute fudging brick for a long time, people justifiably saying "He has been absolute fudging brick" and other people feeling the need to go OTT in defence of him. They never had a defence. And its those same people now trying to give it "I told you so" that drags it back up.
There is no "I told you so". He was fudging awful. He is much less awful at the moment. And most people, conveniently tagged "Sissoko haters", recognise that. Because they were being objective then, and are being objective now.
The I told you so rude boys are the ones who never had any objectivity on the subject, which makes the smugness now rather peculiar."
---------- (posted after the West Ham game this season)
"Not at all. You have literally redefined "fine" and "7/10" just to make allowances for him.
And no, I really dont want to do this whole dance again. Point being, simply, its pretty poor taste to try and take a couple of decent performances as justification for two seasons of over reactive defence of him.
As I said - those who have complained, and now are saying "He did well" (or whatever) have always maintained an objectivity lacking elsewhere."
---------- (posted earlier this season)
That is why I thought you were referring to last season when you called him absolutely terrible. That I guess was only the first season. Where as last season, the one I spent a long time saying, effectively, he wasn't that bad, a 6 or 7 out of 10 most games, you have referred to him even in the last month as 'a liability and a general detriment', 'a fudging liability', 'a complete liability', 'fudging awful', and accusing my 'two seasons of over reactive defense' when last season, as I said repeatedly he was a 6 or 7. Granted, the word 'terrible' doesn't appear in any of those quotes, but some harsher words do.
As I said, I went through this thread yesterday and read on from the Juve pre-season game onwards. Most people were then coming round to the idea that he wasn't that bad then. You still had a couple of folks giving it the 'he was bloody awful today' but a lot of people, not just me, seemed to recognize it as nonsense and say 'hang on a minute, that criticism isn't deserved'.
I have never said he was anything more than a decent squad option last year, I've never denied that he started off terribly for us, and having read back my own posts, I've been completely consistent up to now in what I was saying. I just find it funny that so many people are happy to say the words 'he is proving me wrong', and yet they are so difficult for you. We've been through many iterations of the argument (and I do laugh at myself for the time wasted, because if anyone is still reading these debates they really are gluttons for punishment) through Poch praising him and it not really meaning what he is saying, through to this idea that we couldn't possibly sell him or loan him out...that we had to keep playing him because we had 'no other option', through to now with the disagreements on whether he is good defensively or otherwise. And I struggle to believe that anyone can't look at the history of Sissoko's time here and the history of the arguments and say 'you know what, the people that said he wasn't that bad, and that there was probably a reason he was kept around, there was probably something in that, given how he is now playing'.
That is all anyone who has defended him has ever said. There has been no over the top defense. Purely that he had some qualities, he had a tough start, but there was clearly something in him that's now being shown. And it just looks like you went a bit overboard in your criticism of him, so certain that he was a dud. No one blindly defended him, no one said he was anything more than he was, just that there was something there. A few people (not me) who seem reasonably informed about football matters also seem to deduce that there was something in him, particularly if he was kept around, if the players talked about him positively, and if we still seemed to win just as much when he played vs when he didn't. Especially when this particular Manager has been so quick to bomb out anyone that doesn't meet some very precise standards.
You may have been overly harsh on him, but as you say at the top of your post, he was actually showing promise last year in your mind, so we are reaching common ground.
