Douglas Luiz

[VillaChris]

1 minute ago, TRO said:

I think he had a poor game against Brighton.....i am not exactly sure he is a DM.

I was concerned McGinn and Luiz would be fatigued and Imo they were.

He'd just come off a 14 hour flight from Montevideo so not easy.

He's become so crucial to us he has to start like Jack I think otherwise it gives opposition a boost.

I do wonder if time has come to tweak our shape a bit for home games and put in another defensive minded midfielder to allow Doug to push on a bit more. Obviously in short term that means Nakamba until January.

Mind you Newcastle and Burnley won't exactly press us or attack through the centre like the last three have so I suspect DS will leave things as they are.

[sparrow1988]

9 hours ago, VillaChris said:

He'd just come off a 14 hour flight from Montevideo so not easy.

He's become so crucial to us he has to start like Jack I think otherwise it gives opposition a boost.

I do wonder if time has come to tweak our shape a bit for home games and put in another defensive minded midfielder to allow Doug to push on a bit more. Obviously in short term that means Nakamba until January.

Mind you Newcastle and Burnley won't exactly press us or attack through the centre like the last three have so I suspect DS will leave things as they are.

I once flew back from Oz (21 hour flight) after 5 months travelling landed at 7am, had to go meet the guy I had sub-letted the flat to in order to collect the keys, met friends for something to eat at 2 o'clock and went on the piss afterwards finishing up in the early hours of Sunday morning. I gave the performance of my life that night. The least Doug could do is run around for 90 mins.

[TRO]

9 hours ago, VillaChris said:

He'd just come off a 14 hour flight from Montevideo so not easy.

He's become so crucial to us he has to start like Jack I think otherwise it gives opposition a boost.

I do wonder if time has come to tweak our shape a bit for home games and put in another defensive minded midfielder to allow Doug to push on a bit more. Obviously in short term that means Nakamba until January.

Mind you Newcastle and Burnley won't exactly press us or attack through the centre like the last three have so I suspect DS will leave things as they are.

Chris, I have no doubt that all the players on International duty was leg weary.....but we have seen traits of these games before.....and I don't subscribe to the theory that we can keep scoring our way out of errors at the back....the opposition is not that dumb.

Dean Smith was reluctant to blame that by the way, said it was the same for everyone on International duty, and he has a point.....we was simply not sharp enough to 50/50 balls and I have seen that before too.

I am absolutely convinced we need a defensive minded and equiped player in the two in midfield.....I agree Dougie needs to be deployed further forward and I think McGinn is more natural, further forward, but they can't all play there.

In my opinion, The squad lacks players with a natural tendency to defend and contain and that does not mean cloggers or stoppers, it means intelligent thinking readers of the game, who can control the centre of the park and release our offensive players with sharp crisp passing....players who have a natural appetite to deny attacking talent from having a free run through the middle....a enforcer or disrupter.....an absolute must for me.

I am well aware that our start has been off the page, brilliant.....I am also aware our stock has risen and we are being talked about in a much better light.....we have improved as a team.....but In my opinion, some of our vulnerabilities are still evident.

Dean picked up on the 2 errors for both their goals......The second one where March was in acres of space to pick up the cross field ball, was reminiscent of the Danny Ings Goal for Southampton.......we have to read these situations much better, else it will just keep happening.

All teams make mistakes and if we didn't make them we would be top of the league, which is unrealistic we all know that.....but we make similar mistakes too many times.

Its very annoying when I could see this happening and said so before the game.....I said on here that we needed McGinn and Luiz to have good games and that was a tough ask in view of their previous games on international duty.

I have said on here before....I am not convinced either play is a dedicated DM, and I have not changed my mind......we need to bring in at least one quality one in.

I am sure Dean knows the issues, I guess we just have to be patient until he gets around to it.

[MrBlack]

With Pep agreeing a contract extension it does make it more likely they'll try and come back for him. Strange that Dean claimed not to be aware of the clause. I don't buy the excuse that he doesnt get involved in contracts, just evading the question and not wanting to confront the possibility in public. Hopefully behind the scenes he's aware and doing everything to avoid the possibility that we lose him for below market value at the end of the season. 

[Follyfoot]

On 23/11/2020 at 10:12, sparrow1988 said:

I once flew back from Oz (21 hour flight) after 5 months travelling landed at 7am, had to go meet the guy I had sub-letted the flat to in order to collect the keys, met friends for something to eat at 2 o'clock and went on the piss afterwards finishing up in the early hours of Sunday morning. I gave the performance of my life that night. The least Doug could do is run around for 90 mins.

Can you play defensive midfield ? 

[sparrow1988]

deleted

Edited November 24, 2020 by sparrow1988

[sparrow1988]

51 minutes ago, Follyfoot said:

Can you play defensive midfield ? 

Ha. It's been a while but I used to play CM for the local club at home with a focus on being the more defensive of the two CMs we had. And to be honest at around midnight on that Saturday night, I would have taken on the world so I see no reason why I couldn't give it a go now.

[TRO]

Dougie may turn out to be a fine footballer, but DM he is not.

To play at a good level at DM you have to be durable and robust and a  good reader of the game and be dominant in close quarters, winning tackles or snatching the ball in transition.....you have to be a good organiser and good passer and be able to sniff out danger......to win aerial balls like Jedinak did in his earlier time, with us. You have to be able to protect the back 4 and start attacks after winning the ball......it's a position, if done properly, starts you controlling the game....They are not eye candy, but they are a players, player.

I don't think we have a decent one in whole squad.....not a proper quality DM......sure we have players filling in the role, but not a dedicated one.

why do we not have one? one of the mysteries of the universe, probably because they don't see the importance or think we are doing ok there......and I don't think we are consistent there, hence the peaks and troughs results.

Edited November 24, 2020 by TRO

[villalad21]

2 hours ago, TRO said:

Dougie may turn out to be a fine footballer, but DM he is not.

To play at a good level at DM you have to be durable and robust and a  good reader of the game and be dominant in close quarters, winning tackles or snatching the ball in transition.....you have to be a good organiser and good passer and be able to sniff out danger......to win aerial balls like Jedinak did in his earlier time, with us. You have to be able to protect the back 4 and start attacks after winning the ball......it's a position, if done properly, starts you controlling the game....They are not eye candy, but they are a players, player.

I don't think we have a decent one in whole squad.....not a proper quality DM......sure we have players filling in the role, but not a dedicated one.

why do we not have one? one of the mysteries of the universe, probably because they don't see the importance or think we are doing ok there......and I don't think we are consistent there, hence the peaks and troughs results.

The Brazil set up is perfect for Dougie.

They have Casemiro behind him to do all the dirty work which is allowing Luiz to show his flair and all his technical attributes.

We are crying out for a physically dominant midfielder. We really are.

[Vive_La_Villa]

2 hours ago, TRO said:

Dougie may turn out to be a fine footballer, but DM he is not.

To play at a good level at DM you have to be durable and robust and a  good reader of the game and be dominant in close quarters, winning tackles or snatching the ball in transition.....you have to be a good organiser and good passer and be able to sniff out danger......to win aerial balls like Jedinak did in his earlier time, with us. You have to be able to protect the back 4 and start attacks after winning the ball......it's a position, if done properly, starts you controlling the game....They are not eye candy, but they are a players, player.

I don't think we have a decent one in whole squad.....not a proper quality DM......sure we have players filling in the role, but not a dedicated one.

why do we not have one? one of the mysteries of the universe, probably because they don't see the importance or think we are doing ok there......and I don't think we are consistent there, hence the peaks and troughs results.

He was fantastic at all of this after lockdown last season and one of the main reasons we stayed up. 

[villalad21]

53 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

He was fantastic at all of this after lockdown last season and one of the main reasons we stayed up. 

He did fine because the rest of the team stayed in a defensive shape which resulted in us being hard to break down. We played in a different way post lockdown than we are doing at the moment.

He isn't physically dominant enough to do the job on his own. Playing another defensive minded midfielder next to him would help a lot, but we don't seem to do that. McGinn and Barkley are both attacking minded midfielders.

If we want to keep playing this high line, risk football we need a proper DM that is strong and can dominate his opponents.

Edited November 24, 2020 by villalad21

[Indigo]

Luiz is a 6 regardless of what his physical stature is. He's largely played in that position in both his club and international appearances  (he plays there alongside Casemiro with a 10 in front for what it's worth), and even said himself that it's what he sees himself as. Think some are having a bit of myopic view of what a "DM" is in modern football as these days it can take many forms, be it as a deep lying playmaker or your more limited "destroyer" types. I think it would've certainly helped to have maybe signed a more physical presence in midfield (though we couldn't do it all in one window) to offer a different sort of skillset that would be necessary in certain games but ultimately not only is Luiz a sitting midfielder he's a quality one at that.

[TRO]

16 hours ago, villalad21 said:

The Brazil set up is perfect for Dougie.

They have Casemiro behind him to do all the dirty work which is allowing Luiz to show his flair and all his technical attributes.

We are crying out for a physically dominant midfielder. We really are.

Spot on , mate.

[Mjvilla]

On 24/11/2020 at 18:21, villalad21 said:

The Brazil set up is perfect for Dougie.

They have Casemiro behind him to do all the dirty work which is allowing Luiz to show his flair and all his technical attributes.

We are crying out for a physically dominant midfielder. We really are.

Except the worst Brazil defensive performance in the last 3 games (only 1 of which casemiro has played), was in the game casemiro played.

Small sample size I know but dougie hasn't played many games for Brazil! 

[Vive_La_Villa]

On 24/11/2020 at 19:31, villalad21 said:

He did fine because the rest of the team stayed in a defensive shape which resulted in us being hard to break down. We played in a different way post lockdown than we are doing at the moment.

He isn't physically dominant enough to do the job on his own. Playing another defensive minded midfielder next to him would help a lot, but we don't seem to do that. McGinn and Barkley are both attacking minded midfielders.

If we want to keep playing this high line, risk football we need a proper DM that is strong and can dominate his opponents.

Mcginn managed to support him in the 3 away games we won.  Changing Luiz Isn’t going to solve all of our defensive issues.  We need to defend better as a team when we are trying to break teams down and lose the ball. I’m sure we will. 

[KenjiOgiwara]

On 24/11/2020 at 17:05, TRO said:

Dougie may turn out to be a fine footballer, but DM he is not.

To play at a good level at DM you have to be durable and robust and a  good reader of the game and be dominant in close quarters, winning tackles or snatching the ball in transition.....you have to be a good organiser and good passer and be able to sniff out danger......to win aerial balls like Jedinak did in his earlier time, with us. You have to be able to protect the back 4 and start attacks after winning the ball......it's a position, if done properly, starts you controlling the game....They are not eye candy, but they are a players, player.

I don't think we have a decent one in whole squad.....not a proper quality DM......sure we have players filling in the role, but not a dedicated one.

why do we not have one? one of the mysteries of the universe, probably because they don't see the importance or think we are doing ok there......and I don't think we are consistent there, hence the peaks and troughs results.

I agree, but I think the important bit here is that Deano doesn't want to play with a DM. It's not the style of football he wants, thus we are running a more DLP in Luiz. 

[tomav84]

On 24/11/2020 at 16:05, TRO said:

To play at a good level at DM you have to be durable and robust and a  good reader of the game and be dominant in close quarters, winning tackles or snatching the ball in transition.....you have to be a good organiser and good passer and be able to sniff out danger......to win aerial balls like Jedinak did in his earlier time, with us. You have to be able to protect the back 4 and start attacks after winning the ball......it's a position, if done properly, starts you controlling the game....They are not eye candy, but they are a players, player

you are right in describing the perfect DM but they don't grow on trees...there probably hasn't been a player to fit the above perfectly since makalele. we definitely have players that fit SOME of those attributes though. your first point i think fits marvelous' strengths, i think he reads the game well and breaks up play brilliantly...but can't pass to save his life. luiz definitely is a good passer and starts attacks but struggles to read danger (i.e. brighton's 2nd goal on saturday). if a player existed today that covers all the points you raised, they'd be at one of the elite clubs with silly transfer fees being discussed

we do have 2 players at least who have some of the core attributes for this position, and their weaknesses are coachable, with age on their side. bearing in mind jedinak and whelan were the last players we had in this position, we have certainly had quite the upgrade IMO.

[AntrimBlack]

On 23/11/2020 at 20:59, MrBlack said:

With Pep agreeing a contract extension it does make it more likely they'll try and come back for him. Strange that Dean claimed not to be aware of the clause. I don't buy the excuse that he doesnt get involved in contracts, just evading the question and not wanting to confront the possibility in public. Hopefully behind the scenes he's aware and doing everything to avoid the possibility that we lose him for below market value at the end of the season. 

Well, we were all aware of it, and in fact had a lengthy discussion about it.

[sparrow1988]

7 minutes ago, AntrimBlack said:

Well, we were all aware of it, and in fact had a lengthy discussion about it.

Has there been discussion here about a buyback regarding Douglas Luiz? I must have missed it.

[lexicon]

On 24/11/2020 at 22:59, Indigo said:

Luiz is a 6 regardless of what his physical stature is. He's largely played in that position in both his club and international appearances  (he plays there alongside Casemiro with a 10 in front for what it's worth), and even said himself that it's what he sees himself as. Think some are having a bit of myopic view of what a "DM" is in modern football as these days it can take many forms, be it as a deep lying playmaker or your more limited "destroyer" types. I think it would've certainly helped to have maybe signed a more physical presence in midfield (though we couldn't do it all in one window) to offer a different sort of skillset that would be necessary in certain games but ultimately not only is Luiz a sitting midfielder he's a quality one at that.

This. I think he's one of these players that go under the radar, like most defensive players who aren't 'pashun'/blood and guts types, because he does things so naturally and well. His positioning and reading of the game is generally excellent - he thwarts the opposition so many times in a game, but it's not a thundering tackle or something of that ilk, it's matter of movement and pressuring them into mistakes.

He was one of many in the Brighton game suffering from the international 'break' due to the travel/extra minutes and he didn't perform as well as he can, but it was far from a typical performance. 

He's easily one of our best players and we're lucky to have him. It's sad that not everyone can recognise what he does, but the same thing happened with Barry and Petrov.