Gundogan as an attacking midfielder

Games that the two of them have started together as advanced midfielders in the past 2 seasons:
  • Liverpool 3-0 City
  • City 1-2 Lyon
  • Hoffenheim 1-2 City
  • Tottenham 1-0 City
  • City 2-3 United
  • Wolves 1-1 City
  • West Ham 0-4 City
  • Everton 0-2 City
  • United 0-2 City
  • Norwich 3-2 City
  • City 4-1 Burnley
  • Wigan 1-0 City
Hoffenheim and the 2-0 win against United were both shaky until one of them was either subbed off or moved to a different position. Everton was 1-0 until the final minute when Jesus scored.
Right, time to update the list. He technically played deeper today but the general premise that he shouldn't play with David (unless maybe as a lone DM) still stands. Dropped points are bolded. Close/nervy wins or wins where one of the two of them was subbed off/moved into a different position before we scored have got asterisks.
  • Liverpool 3-0 City
  • City 1-2 Lyon
  • Hoffenheim 1-2 City*
  • Tottenham 1-0 City
  • City 2-3 United
  • Wolves 1-1 City
  • West Ham 0-4 City
  • Everton 0-2 City*
  • United 0-2 City*
  • Norwich 3-2 City
  • City 4-1 Burnley
  • Wigan 1-0 City
  • City 2-0 Zagreb
  • City 0-2 Wolves
Out of 14 games - 7 losses, 1 draw, and 3 shaky wins. That just leaves the 4-0 win at West Ham (in which, if you'll remember, we actually gave up loads of chances), the 4-1 win against Burnley in the FA Cup, and the 2-0 win against Zagreb last week.
 
Injuries aside our best team is

Ederson
Walker Fernandinho Laporte Mendy
Rodri
Bernardo Kevin
Sterling Kun Sane

Of those 4 are currently injured.

Replacements should be Garcia for Laporte, Foden for Kev, Mahrez for Leroy and Zinchenko for Mendy.
 
Right, time to update the list. He technically played deeper today but the general premise that he shouldn't play with David (unless maybe as a lone DM) still stands. Dropped points are bolded. Close/nervy wins or wins where one of the two of them was subbed off/moved into a different position before we scored have got asterisks.
  • Liverpool 3-0 City
  • City 1-2 Lyon
  • Hoffenheim 1-2 City*
  • Tottenham 1-0 City
  • City 2-3 United
  • Wolves 1-1 City
  • West Ham 0-4 City
  • Everton 0-2 City*
  • United 0-2 City*
  • Norwich 3-2 City
  • City 4-1 Burnley
  • Wigan 1-0 City
  • City 2-0 Zagreb
  • City 0-2 Wolves
Out of 14 games - 7 losses, 1 draw, and 3 shaky wins. That just leaves the 4-0 win at West Ham (in which, if you'll remember, we actually gave up loads of chances), the 4-1 win against Burnley in the FA Cup, and the 2-0 win against Zagreb last week.

We would have dropped points in a lot of the games which we ended up winning anyway were it not for great substitute performance like Sane at Old Trafford, or Sterling against Zagreb.

That partnership is a total disaster and I don't think it's David Silva to blame.
 
Right, time to update the list. He technically played deeper today but the general premise that he shouldn't play with David (unless maybe as a lone DM) still stands. Dropped points are bolded. Close/nervy wins or wins where one of the two of them was subbed off/moved into a different position before we scored have got asterisks.
  • Liverpool 3-0 City
  • City 1-2 Lyon
  • Hoffenheim 1-2 City*
  • Tottenham 1-0 City
  • City 2-3 United
  • Wolves 1-1 City
  • West Ham 0-4 City
  • Everton 0-2 City*
  • United 0-2 City*
  • Norwich 3-2 City
  • City 4-1 Burnley
  • Wigan 1-0 City
  • City 2-0 Zagreb
  • City 0-2 Wolves
Out of 14 games - 7 losses, 1 draw, and 3 shaky wins. That just leaves the 4-0 win at West Ham (in which, if you'll remember, we actually gave up loads of chances), the 4-1 win against Burnley in the FA Cup, and the 2-0 win against Zagreb last week.
Well evidence enough not to play them together again, the way football is done on laptops nowadays it is an odd thing for them not to have noticed.
 
Well evidence enough not to play them together again, the way football is done on laptops nowadays it is an odd thing for them not to have noticed.

The backroom staff probably have. But Pep is the man in charge and has a serious hard on for Gundogan and I doubt anyone wants to rock the boat and question his selections.
 
Purely looking at the team sheet, you'd assume that the logic of him and Rodri starting together is to help cover a makeshift defence. Then the game starts, and you realise that the defence basically spent the entire game exposed (not that they didn't bring a lot of it on themselves).
Yeah that's the really peculiar thing.
You think...OK maybe Pep is playing 2 DMs to shore us up defensively. But then Gundogan ends up playing as an 8, when we have 2 better 8s sitting on the bench and Rodri gets exposed constantly out of position. They were always just 1 pass away from running against our centre backs. The entire match. That shouldn't be happening if we are sacrificing creativity to play Gundogan.

Which always brings me back to my original question about Gundogan... What is it he actually does? He doesn't create, he doesn't defend and he doesn't boss the midfield. He circulates possession but to what end? It just circulates and circulates until we lose the ball and get exposed defensively. It does my head in.

Today was especially bad because it seems like Rodri was expecting Gundo to sit deeper and Gundo was expecting Rodri to sit deeper. Maybe the intention was for them to rotate a bit and confuse the defense but they seemed to confuse themselves and both get caught upfield.
 
Last edited:
Right, time to update the list. He technically played deeper today but the general premise that he shouldn't play with David (unless maybe as a lone DM) still stands. Dropped points are bolded. Close/nervy wins or wins where one of the two of them was subbed off/moved into a different position before we scored have got asterisks.
  • Liverpool 3-0 City
  • City 1-2 Lyon
  • Hoffenheim 1-2 City*
  • Tottenham 1-0 City
  • City 2-3 United
  • Wolves 1-1 City
  • West Ham 0-4 City
  • Everton 0-2 City*
  • United 0-2 City*
  • Norwich 3-2 City
  • City 4-1 Burnley
  • Wigan 1-0 City
  • City 2-0 Zagreb
  • City 0-2 Wolves
Out of 14 games - 7 losses, 1 draw, and 3 shaky wins. That just leaves the 4-0 win at West Ham (in which, if you'll remember, we actually gave up loads of chances), the 4-1 win against Burnley in the FA Cup, and the 2-0 win against Zagreb last week.

Spot on - most of ur poor performances have been with him in the side. Gundogan also started the 3-2 loss against palace (he scored our first) -- like someone else said, it aint David Silva's fault -
 
Spot on - most of ur poor performances have been with him in the side. Gundogan also started the 3-2 loss against palace (he scored our first) -- like someone else said, it aint David Silva's fault -
Loads of other problems in that Palace match tbf... Stones at DM (!), Walker disasterclass at RB, Delph at LB, Jesus out of form, Nico playing poorly. Gundo has had loads of poor performances but that match isn't one that I would really single out as an example of him being a problem.
 

Don't have an account? Register now and see fewer ads!

SIGN UP
Back
Top
  AdBlock Detected
Bluemoon relies on advertising to pay our hosting fees. Please support the site by disabling your ad blocking software to help keep the forum sustainable. Thanks.