The Midfield Three

[TRO]

10 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

We were playing with a defensive midfielder - he was covering for the fullback who had gone forward. In that system you then rely on one of the number eights to provide cover for a runner from midfield.

I guess you could say that Luiz could have gone with Maddison, but it's not often you see a player turn his back on a man with the ball and run away from him - the right sided Leicester midfielder would then have had the whole pitch to run at and we'd have been relying on Ross Barkley to chase him down from a position a long way away from him.

The job of a defensive midfielder is to provide cover - that was happening. I don't know what else you're looking at. 

 

 

I think the job of a defensive midfielder is much more than just cover.....He is there to stop the marauding raids from the opposition and protect the back 4....and after winning the ball back, start attacks....that should be his job.

Read and Digest the expected attributes of a CDM  .....https://medium.com/@aniketsrivastava81/explaining-the-role-of-a-cdm-central-defensive-midfielder-90843b8b4315#:~:text=They are capable of performing,as to nullify opposition threats.

I have not played the incident back, to forensically analyse it.....but I am going by what I see in General.....we are playing 2 CDM's for god sake, when we play 4-2-3-1......what exactly are they doing?

" whoscored" have Dougie down as Weaknesses....Passing and Tackling........How on earth can you have a CDM who is weak at tackling?.....His strengths are listed as Dribbling and Blocking, fair enough blocking is ok, but dribbling is not a pre-requisite of a CDM, its nice to have, but not a prime attribute.....we are playing general Midfielders in a specialist role.

Now just because, I am talking about Dougie....John McGinn has such a case to answer too, in that role.

[sparrow1988]

18 minutes ago, TRO said:

For me that is the job of a Defensive midifielder, shared by Aaron Clark of Post match Pint.

Not in this instance, it's a counter attack for them. In a counter attack it's a case of all hands on deck to try and limit the damage. Barkley and Luiz are closest to Tielemans? and Maddison. Luiz covers the left hand side of the pitch and in that case Barkley has got to cover the middle. I'd even argue that Traore should make a sprint back to make up numbers.

 

Watch this clip of Atletico being hit on the break in the CL (Apologies in advance for the music). Tell me here who is the defensive midfielder that has the nose for danger and stops the other team creating a clear cut chance.

 

[TRO]

6 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

These statements don't fit together.

We were playing a no.6 and two no. 8's.

In the situation we're looking at Barkley is the midfielder who should have picked Maddison up - you're saying the problem is that Barkley didn't pick him up, but that we shouldn't blame Barkley for that?

 

No....my understanding is we are playing 4-2-3-1

4 is the defence.....2 are CDM/holding midfielders......3 are attacking midfielders and 1 a striker.

my understanding is....its the 2 whose job it is the stop the opposition, in and around midfield, to win the ball and start attacks and too protect the defence...its also their job to help pick up second balls in the middle and help win the initiative.

I see 2 generally passive midfielders, trying to do that job.....who are generally too far away from marking or responding to danger.....they just back off and retreat as oppsed to attack and disrupt.

John McGinn used to do it when he first arrived....he is not doing it regularly enough now.

now unless, i have picked something up wrongly.....that is my view.

[OutByEaster?]

2 minutes ago, TRO said:

I think the job of a defensive midfielder is much more than just cover.....He is there to stop the marauding raids from the opposition and protect the back 4....and after winning the ball back, start attacks....that should be his job.

That's what he's doing, in this case by covering for the full back and engaging a man coming forward with the ball.

Quote

I have not played the incident back, to forensically analyse it.....but I am going by what I see in General.....we are playing 2 CDM's for god sake, when we play 4-2-3-1......what exactly are they doing?

We're not playing with two defensive midfielders - we did for a while, we changed it against Leicester, brought Barkley back into a deeper position and gave McGinn more freedom to get forward. 4-1-4-1 or 4-1-2-3 depending on how you want to describe it.

I think that's a better formation for us - but it relies on all three of the midfielders being willing to put in basic work. 

 

[MrBlack]

3 minutes ago, sparrow1988 said:

Not in this instance, it's a counter attack for them. In a counter attack it's a case of all hands on deck to try and limit the damage. Barkley and Luiz are closest to Tielemans? and Maddison. Luiz covers the left hand side of the pitch and in that case Barkley has got to cover the middle. I'd even argue that Traore should make a sprint back to make up numbers.

 

Watch this clip of Atletico being hit on the break in the CL (Apologies in advance for the music). Tell me here who is the defensive midfielder that has the nose for danger and stops the other team creating a clear cut chance.

 

Hardly a secret, just make sure every midfielder is fit and determined enough to run the length of the pitch at full speed to get back and defend.

Maybe they take turns in kicking the ball at the nuts of the player who got back last during the post game warm down.

[sparrow1988]

1 minute ago, MrBlack said:

Hardly a secret, just make sure every midfielder is fit and determined enough to run the length of the pitch at full speed to get back and defend.

Maybe they take turns in kicking the ball at the nuts of the player who got back last during the post game warm down.

I don't think that would even be necessary. If Simeone was shouting at me to run back to cover, I'd probably be faster than those 6 players.

[TRO]

3 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

That's what he's doing, in this case by covering for the full back and engaging a man coming forward with the ball.

We're not playing with two defensive midfielders - we did for a while, we changed it against Leicester, brought Barkley back into a deeper position and gave McGinn more freedom to get forward. 4-1-4-1 or 4-1-2-3 depending on how you want to describe it.

I think that's a better formation for us - but it relies on all three of the midfielders being willing to put in basic work. 

 

Ok....I accept your point, so tell me.

Whose job is it to win the ball back, turn it over, call it what you will.....but we need the ball to attack, who is doing that job in midfiled?

I keep hearing the word, cover and I know what you mean, but is sounds passive and non commital.....i see cover, I want to see challenges and duels, attempts to win the ball.

 

[AVFCDAN]

1 hour ago, nick76 said:

The problem is that we are well out of form at the moment.  These same players were playing when we were the better team in most of our games in the first half of the season and that includes some top teams.  We can’t dismiss that because we are out of form at the moment.

We have been worried all season that Man City would use their ~35m clause so he must be good.  McGinn was linked with Man Utd less than a year ago.  So these players are top 8 material without a doubt but unfortunately they are all out of form at the same time but were in form together earlier in the season.

Can we eventually buy better players? Of course we can, there’s no doubt about that but we shouldn’t dismiss them so easily on quality when they are eighth in the league with essentially two games in hand just because they are having a major dip in form over the last half dozen games.

I'm sorry but i have to disagree. I don't think we are out of form at the moment this is just the general level of the team, we have flirted with the top 4 most of the season, that isn't realistic when you take into account the quality of our players and manager. The recent dip in form is just the table levelling itself out, much in the same way Southampton are in horrible form at the moment, they aren't that bad in the same way they weren't as good as their first 15 games form.

[Tomaszk]

5 minutes ago, TRO said:

Ok....I accept your point, so tell me.

Whose job is it to win the ball back, turn it over, call it what you will.....but we need the ball to attack, who is doing that job in midfiled?

I keep hearing the word, cover and I know what you mean, but is sounds passive and non commital.....i see cover, I want to see challenges and duels, attempts to win the ball.

 

Everyone's, no matter the formation.

[TRO]

39 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

We were playing with a defensive midfielder - he was covering for the fullback who had gone forward. In that system you then rely on one of the number eights to provide cover for a runner from midfield.

I guess you could say that Luiz could have gone with Maddison, but it's not often you see a player turn his back on a man with the ball and run away from him - the right sided Leicester midfielder would then have had the whole pitch to run at and we'd have been relying on Ross Barkley to chase him down from a position a long way away from him.

The job of a defensive midfielder is to provide cover - that was happening. I don't know what else you're looking at. 

 

 

Thats what I mean.

on another note.....if he covers for the full back, why do we sometimes expect the winger to track back, when he gets the grief...do they just choose to do what they want, now and again?

[TRO]

1 minute ago, Tomaszk said:

Everyone's, no matter the formation.

ok.....so what do you expect for a No6?

[MrBlack]

1 minute ago, AVFCDAN said:

I'm sorry but i have to disagree. I don't think we are out of form at the moment this is just the general level of the team, we have flirted with the top 4 most of the season, that isn't realistic when you take into account the quality of our players and manager. The recent dip in form is just the table levelling itself out, much in the same way Southampton are in horrible form at the moment, they aren't that bad in the same way they weren't as good as their first 15 games form.

Injuries were always very likely to have a much worse impact on us than any other team in the top half such is paucity of depth.

Thankfully, our backup players have been showing more ability than last year (Ramsey and Marv especially), so we may not be as badly impacted as I expected we would be over the course of the season... although losing our best player is a killer. You can't replace what jack brings, so hopefully whatever mysterious injury he has isn't too bad. 

[TRO]

16 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

He ran off the back of Barkley who didn't follow him in. 

 

But Barkley was also the closest man to Lingard when he scored his first or 2......why is Barkley as an ATM having to be that far back?....its not his prime function.

Right now Barkley is pants, but it is not my point....my point is, players whose job it is, are not doing it and others getting blamed.

[useless]

Asking Barkley to play as a 'No.8' is probably part of the problme, he's never been that type of player, if we wanted a no.8  we would have better off signing Loftus Cheek, or someone else, frankly it's a luxury to have Barkley playing in central midfield at all, not many teams will play with such a player in central midfield.

if anything if he's going to be in the team it should be instead of one of the wingers, at his best he'd probably do a decent enough job in Grealish's position, seems to have gone over a lot of people's heads that that's where he played a lot of his football for Chelsea, especially when he first joined them, in a 4321 system he often played on the left hand side as one of the two behind the striker cutting in on his right foot.

[OutByEaster?]

Just now, TRO said:

Whose job is it to win the ball back, turn it over, call it what you will.....but we need the ball to attack, who is doing that job in midfiled?

I keep hearing the word, cover and I know what you mean, but is sounds passive and non commital.....i see cover, I want to see challenges and duels, attempts to win the ball.

I think the answer is everyone. I accept that you'd like to see one or more midfielders specifically asked to tackle everything in sight, but I don't think that's the way the manager wants to play, he wants to steer people into areas and outnumber them.

In the way we play, the people who win the ball back through tackles are our fullbacks, Cash and Targett for example have made more tackles than Rice and Coufal at West Ham.

3 minutes ago, TRO said:

On another note.....if he covers for the full back, why do we sometimes expect the winger to track back, when he gets the grief...do they just choose to do what they want, now and again?

We should be expecting our wingers to track back - in this instance, El Ghazi, Targett and McGinn had all gone forward down the left hand side and were well beyond the point at which they could have got back - McGinn and Targett were headed back but had no chance to get near to play. When all three of those are forward, there is a big responsibility on both Luiz and Barkley to track back or stop an attack at source. Barkley makes no effort and Luiz tries to get to press the man on the ball believing he'll have cover. Madisson was Barkley's responsibility.

I'm not against us getting in a CDM in the summer and letting Luiz and McGinn occupy the two number eight positions - but at the moment, I think we'd be better off with three in the middle rather than two and a passenger.

 

[TRO]

36 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

These statements don't fit together.

We were playing a no.6 and two no. 8's.

In the situation we're looking at Barkley is the midfielder who should have picked Maddison up - you're saying the problem is that Barkley didn't pick him up, but that we shouldn't blame Barkley for that?

 

they wasn't mean't too.

[OutByEaster?]

9 minutes ago, useless said:

Asking Barkley to play as a 'No.8' is probably part of the problme, he's never been that type of player, if we wanted a no.8  we would have better off signing Loftus Cheek, or someone else, frankly it's a luxury to have Barkley playing in central midfield at all, not many teams will play with such a player in central midfield.

if anything if he's going to be in the team it should be instead of one of the wingers, at his best he'd probably do a decent enough job in Grealish's position, seems to have gone over a lot of people's heads that that's where he played a lot of his football for Chelsea, especially when he first joined them, in a 4321 system he often played on the left hand side as one of the two behind the striker cutting in on his right foot.

Absolutely agree - he's a player that doesn't fit in the role we're asking him to do - I've said before that if we want to play Barkley there we'd be best suited to drop Traore and Trez and bring in Sanson and Davis in a 4-3-1-2. In many ways what we're asking Barkley to do is unfair on him given that its no at all part of his natural game.

 

 

[KentVillan]

27 minutes ago, TRO said:

I think the job of a defensive midfielder is much more than just cover.....He is there to stop the marauding raids from the opposition and protect the back 4....and after winning the ball back, start attacks....that should be his job.

Read and Digest the expected attributes of a CDM  .....https://medium.com/@aniketsrivastava81/explaining-the-role-of-a-cdm-central-defensive-midfielder-90843b8b4315#:~:text=They are capable of performing,as to nullify opposition threats.

I have not played the incident back, to forensically analyse it.....but I am going by what I see in General.....we are playing 2 CDM's for god sake, when we play 4-2-3-1......what exactly are they doing?

" whoscored" have Dougie down as Weaknesses....Passing and Tackling........How on earth can you have a CDM who is weak at tackling?.....His strengths are listed as Dribbling and Blocking, fair enough blocking is ok, but dribbling is not a pre-requisite of a CDM, its nice to have, but not a prime attribute.....we are playing general Midfielders in a specialist role.

Now just because, I am talking about Dougie....John McGinn has such a case to answer too, in that role.

Can't you see that Luiz is covering Targett on the left (when he picks up Tielemans) and then you're expecting him to also pick up Maddison who is in the space left by McGinn?

What superhuman CDM are you aware of who can cover that area of pitch?

[KentVillan]

37 minutes ago, OxfordVillan said:

For me we’ve approached certain games over confident, too arrogantly. I feel we’ve turned with the attitude that “you’re below us, we shall blow you away with our marauding football”. I suppose some of this is perhaps inevitable with the plaudits we were getting, we’ve bought into our hype. It’s a learning curve. But we’ve got to get back to the raw basics of hard work and discipline, players that are really earning the opportunity to play. We had two very decent performers pre-Covid outbreak at VP in Nakamba and ElGhazi, both of whom have been tossed aside in favour of others who really haven’t been at the races and deserved their starting place in the team. This is the premier league, teams that want to succeed cannot afford to wait 6,7, 8 or 9 games for players to find some form. You’ll get found out. 

Everyone was playing well pre-Covid!

Nakamba played well against a dog  Newcastle side. El Ghazi's best two games were West Brom () and Crystal Palace (). A penalty against Wolves and a tap in against Chelsea don't suddenly turn him into Cristiano Ronaldo.

I like AEG, and I'm not that fussed about whether he starts or not - he's a decent enough player who does make things happen in the final third. But the idea that dropping AEG and Nakamba is the reason for our recent loss of form is just classic VT "grass is greener" nonsense. Players always seem to become world class when they spend more than a couple of games on the bench.

Sanson has been signed on a perm for £16m. He's 26 and has played at the highest level (Europa League runner up + Champions League appearances). Surely he's the one who needs to start a game at some point.

[Bazmonkey]

26 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

Can't you see that Luiz is covering Targett on the left (when he picks up Tielemans) and then you're expecting him to also pick up Maddison who is in the space left by McGinn?

What superhuman CDM are you aware of who can cover that area of pitch?

Luiz is covering Targett and thats the problem.

That should be Mings' job as everyone should shuffle across.

Mings is too deep and this means Luiz has to do it...leaving Maddison free in the middle.....Luiz would have been able to be goal side if Mings was in the correct position.

Too Centre halves are too deep...creating the space for leiceter to play in.

CDM....means Central...looking at the pictures above...its a catalogue of errors..... the fact one throw in takes four of our players out the game is more a concern....lack of communication and leadership.

We seem to have lost shape and bit of composure when it comes to defending in recent games.