Douglas Luiz

[commander]

he's not a 6, but he's by far and away the best 6 we have, if he was on the picth, I don't think they get the second goal. Luiz's positioning on the whole is very good (which we take for granted, but is shown up when he's off the picth and Mcginn, Ramsey or Sanson try to take over). 

But agree we need a big strong dominant midfielder, and Luiz next to them, let him fight it out with Sanson, McGinn, Ramsey for the 2 8 places (maybe chuck too). 

For me it's the most importnat position on the pitch, and like others I want a commanding presence there, but I would love us to keep Luiz as an 8 or as a 6 alongside another 6. I think his ceiling is really high. 

[commander]

Also with Gerrard formation, we probably need 2 6s because Cash and Digne rarely defend, they're so far forward. Liverpool often play with 3 6s as they full backs also play really high, they do't really have 8s as the front 3 are often out on their own.  

[sne]

2 minutes ago, commander said:

Also with Gerrard formation, we probably need 2 6s because Cash and Digne rarely defend, they're so far forward. Liverpool often play with 3 6s as they full backs also play really high, they do't really have 8s as the front 3 are often out on their own.  

Think the two 6's or double pivot is the formation he's best suited to. Obviously depending on who he plays alongside.

[lapal_fan]

50 minutes ago, TRO said:

 

I say it again, and its not picking him out, because he is not on his own, but he makes many non descript passes that have no influence, command, authority, (call it what your will) on the teams advancement.

If you rely on stats alone, you may miss the true picture.....its easy to stay back, play the ball around in your own back yard and run the passing stats up.

 

I hate this old adage that every pass has to be progressive, it doesn't.

Barca and now Man City do lots of "meaningless" passes and they win everything. 

Being comfortable enough on the ball to pass it 2/3 yards, get it back and do the same again is fine, it builds confidence. 

It also draws opponents out of their "safe places" and low blocks because the crowd get on their backs and spaces open up.

Drives me **** nuts up the Villa if we pass it around and the crowd start moaning, then we succumb to the pressure and lose the ball 99 times out of a 100. 

Apart from us being shit at throw-ins for the best part of my life, crowds moaning about non-progressive passes is a close second. 

[VillaParkAvenue]

17 minutes ago, lapal_fan said:

I hate this old adage that every pass has to be progressive, it doesn't.

Barca and now Man City do lots of "meaningless" passes and they win everything. 

Being comfortable enough on the ball to pass it 2/3 yards, get it back and do the same again is fine, it builds confidence. 

It also draws opponents out of their "safe places" and low blocks because the crowd get on their backs and spaces open up.

Drives me **** nuts up the Villa if we pass it around and the crowd start moaning, then we succumb to the pressure and lose the ball 99 times out of a 100. 

Apart from us being shit at throw-ins for the best part of my life, crowds moaning about non-progressive passes is a close second. 

There seems to be many fans around still who hate playing out from the back and keeping possession. Hard to understand why they don’t just support Burnley instead.

[TRO]

5 minutes ago, lapal_fan said:

I hate this old adage that every pass has to be progressive, it doesn't.

Barca and now Man City do lots of "meaningless" passes and they win everything. 

Being comfortable enough on the ball to pass it 2/3 yards, get it back and do the same again is fine, it builds confidence. 

It also draws opponents out of their "safe places" and low blocks because the crowd get on their backs and spaces open up.

Drives me **** nuts up the Villa if we pass it around and the crowd start moaning, then we succumb to the pressure and lose the ball 99 times out of a 100. 

Apart from us being shit at throw-ins for the best part of my life, crowds moaning about non-progressive passes is a close second. 

I don't disagree, but rarely does one observation, relate to the essence of a whole game.

I was countering the claim of his stats, not the relevance of non progressive passes, I accept, we can't be direct all the time...., albeit when you do it with bold regularity, it may start to raise eyebrows and a pattern emerges....I don't want to labour this point, but passing stats do not differentiate between Progressive and non progressive passes.....its like running stats, if they are litterd with too many idle minded runs, it kind of defeats the object of recording them...It kind of begs the question, what is to be gleaned from it?

What Man city do, is light years from what we do, and their objectives of progressing the ball are different too....They do squllions of things to get their wins, so lets not get bogged down with one.

Its not an "old adage" at all....its a view.

The premier league teams do not all play one way, there is a variety of formats, that managers choose, and they all have value, and one piece of criteria is, its usually borne out of what attributes they have in their squad that determines their set up....winning games does not have a set formula to follow.

Being shit at throw ins could be the inability to wins duels....there again, something to work on.

 

[sparrow1988]

Surely people can see that of our 3 central midfielders that Dougie is the best passer. It doesn’t matter if it’s short, long, backwards, sideways he’s the best passer. He is the only one apart from maybe Sanson that can regularly play a sharp pass to progress through the lines into feet to one of the front three. Or am I imagining things?

[ozvillafan]

2 hours ago, sparrow1988 said:

Surely people can see that of our 3 central midfielders that Dougie is the best passer. It doesn’t matter if it’s short, long, backwards, sideways he’s the best passer. He is the only one apart from maybe Sanson that can regularly play a sharp pass to progress through the lines into feet to one of the front three. Or am I imagining things?

You might be imagining things.

He can play a great pass, but lately I wince every time I see him with the ball in the opposition half. The amount of lazy turnovers where a pass is in between 2 Villa players or played soft (rather than firm to feet) and intercepted boggles the mind.

That's not to say others aren't guilty of that - both Ramsey and McGinn do their fair share - but for some reason I can see it coming with Luiz and it drives me batty.

[VillaParkAvenue]

6 hours ago, sparrow1988 said:

Surely people can see that of our 3 central midfielders that Dougie is the best passer. It doesn’t matter if it’s short, long, backwards, sideways he’s the best passer. He is the only one apart from maybe Sanson that can regularly play a sharp pass to progress through the lines into feet to one of the front three. Or am I imagining things?

You’re not imagining things, that is what he’s good at. Buendia and even McGinn  can as well but with a higher risk of missing.

[Zatman]

8 hours ago, sparrow1988 said:

Surely people can see that of our 3 central midfielders that Dougie is the best passer. It doesn’t matter if it’s short, long, backwards, sideways he’s the best passer. He is the only one apart from maybe Sanson that can regularly play a sharp pass to progress through the lines into feet to one of the front three. Or am I imagining things?

Nope you are correct, also our best fit defensive minded midfielder. Just like Watford recently we conceded soon after he came off

We have conceded 14 goals this season with Luiz off the pitch. He has missed 4 league games. He came off at 2-0 vs Wolves, didn't play vs West Ham and Watford when we shipped 7 in two games

[sparrow1988]

17 hours ago, ozvillafan said:

The amount of lazy turnovers where a pass is in between 2 Villa players or played soft (rather than firm to feet) and intercepted boggles the mind.

I find that is the case with all our players though. I think Luiz can do it better than the rest. 

Edited March 15, 2022 by sparrow1988

[KangarooVillan]

Just can’t help but feel that Dougie will be a really bad case of just don’t know what you have till it’s gone.

I saw people on the TF thread jealous we didn’t sign Bruno Guimeraes but Dougie is younger and has more than double the caps for Brazil.

Really starting to show quality consistently too.

[Xela]

I'd be disappointed to lose him as there is a very good player there. He's not playing in his preferred role at the moment, but still doing well. 

We've put 3 years into him, would be a shame for him to shine for someone else. 

Hopefully our South American social club at Villa will persuade him to stay. 

[JPJCB]

19 hours ago, ozvillafan said:

You might be imagining things.

He can play a great pass, but lately I wince every time I see him with the ball in the opposition half. The amount of lazy turnovers where a pass is in between 2 Villa players or played soft (rather than firm to feet) and intercepted boggles the mind.

That's not to say others aren't guilty of that - both Ramsey and McGinn do their fair share - but for some reason I can see it coming with Luiz and it drives me batty.

Completely agree. The original poster is right that he’s the best passer of the midfielders but he’s also the worst at playing under pressure.

so he’s great on the ball in our half when he’s got all the time in the world but far less useful in tighter spaces where he doesn’t have the pace/agility to make time for himself and gets things wrong as a result. Ramsey and McGinn (more specifically, his arse) are better at operating in tighter spaces

[OutByEaster?]

9 minutes ago, JPJCB said:

so he’s great on the ball in our half when he’s got all the time in the world but far less useful in tighter spaces where he doesn’t have the pace/agility to make time for himself and gets things wrong as a result. Ramsey and McGinn (more specifically, his arse) are better at operating in tighter spaces

I'd say completely the opposite, he's the best we have a being available for the ball in tight spaces and finding a way to get it to a team mate. In fact I'd say that's his strength - the ability to draw players in then nip the ball away. 

[JPJCB]

1 minute ago, OutByEaster? said:

I'd say completely the opposite, he's the best we have a being available for the ball in tight spaces and finding a way to get it to a team mate. In fact I'd say that's his strength - the ability to draw players in then nip the ball away. 

I think Ramsey is significantly better at this- rarely gives the ball away even in tight spaces

[OutByEaster?]

46 minutes ago, JPJCB said:

I think Ramsey is significantly better at this- rarely gives the ball away even in tight spaces

Weirdly I think that's Ramsey's weakness - he's strong and brilliant at running at people with the ball and running off it - but he sometimes turns into trouble and loses the ball.

Ball retention is Luiz strength - I think that's there in the way we use him - he's the player that transitions us from defence to attack and he's very good at that. 

 

[Sulberto21]

On 14/03/2022 at 15:30, TRO said:

He hasn't got "Authority" in his game.

I feel a bit sorry for him, because he is not a CDM, he's just deployed there to fill the role....and he doesn't want to be in that role either.

I think we have to be careful here.....he makes a lot of non descript short passes, that are semi meaningless.....and are made with no opposition player near him.

Stats can be misleading, if not interpreted in an analytical way.

As an example....Gabby is one of our all time highest scorers, but due to the amount games he has played, his prolificacy stats are pants.

And he makes a lot of passes through the lines even if they’re only 5/10 yards. 

[Sulberto21]

On 14/03/2022 at 17:21, TRO said:

I don't disagree, but rarely does one observation, relate to the essence of a whole game.

I was countering the claim of his stats, not the relevance of non progressive passes, I accept, we can't be direct all the time...., albeit when you do it with bold regularity, it may start to raise eyebrows and a pattern emerges....I don't want to labour this point, but passing stats do not differentiate between Progressive and non progressive passes.....its like running stats, if they are litterd with too many idle minded runs, it kind of defeats the object of recording them...It kind of begs the question, what is to be gleaned from it?

What Man city do, is light years from what we do, and their objectives of progressing the ball are different too....They do squllions of things to get their wins, so lets not get bogged down with one.

Its not an "old adage" at all....its a view.

The premier league teams do not all play one way, there is a variety of formats, that managers choose, and they all have value, and one piece of criteria is, its usually borne out of what attributes they have in their squad that determines their set up....winning games does not have a set formula to follow.

Being shit at throw ins could be the inability to wins duels....there again, something to work on.

 

Man City are much fitter than us and have better and more intelligent movement than us hence why their players have better passing in any direction and distance. They go back to go forwards on numerous occasions.

[TRO]

4 minutes ago, Sulberto21 said:

Man City are much fitter than us and have better and more intelligent movement than us hence why their players have better passing in any direction and distance. They go back to go forwards on numerous occasions.

but they all do it, its part of the format......we do too.

its not what I am talking about....I am relating to stats...and passive passing.