Cry at our Midfield

[johnny crossan]

mancini is negative and he has instilled that into our players,.....
his first and only concern is to stop our opponents ....

gibberish - he played all the attacking players available tonight and nitwits like you still slag him off<br /><br />-- Wed Mar 24, 2010 11:59 pm --<br /><br />

Was de Jong playing ?

Oh, yes he got booked, was totally by-passed as usual, chased a few shadows and shirked responsibility on the ball at every opportunity....we effectively played with ten men.

above all we lack pace in midfield IMO

 

[lastmanback]

mancini is negative and he has instilled that into our players,.....
his first and only concern is to stop our opponents ....

gibberish - he played all the attacking players available tonight and nitwits like you still slag him off

balance my good man balance. all or nothing don't work.
do you think a team of forwards wins games ?

 

[bluethai]

"Hughes" is negative and he has instilled that into our players,
his first and only concern is to stop our opponents without
any ideas on us inflicting our game on them.
we have not dominated many games since he arrived. we have won
games purly on individual performances by our forwards. midfield is
basically another layer in front of our defence, who are not linking up
fast enough with our forwards.

teams like hull, everton twice and even sunderland made us look
very ordinary, it's down to the manager to find a system to suit the
players he has. We have players who can and should be allowed to
play a better style and standard of football........
birmingham is a classic example not one of there players would get
in our side but mcleish plays to there strengths.

"Hughes" not up to it.

Just helped you correct some mistakes. ;)

 

[johnny crossan]

gibberish - he played all the attacking players available tonight and nitwits like you still slag him off

balance my good man balance. all or nothing don't work.
do you think a team of forwards wins games ?

we dominated Chelsea, Fulham and Sunderland for most of those games, tonight we were outplayed in midfield, at Hull I agree we were just awful.

 

[masterwig]

balance my good man balance. all or nothing don't work.
do you think a team of forwards wins games ?

we dominated Chelsea, Fulham and Sunderland for most of those games, tonight we were outplayed in midfield, at Hull I agree we were just awful.

Nonsense. First half they killed us. We played them on the break and took our chances well but they dominated the game.

 

[lastmanback]

balance my good man balance. all or nothing don't work.
do you think a team of forwards wins games ?

we dominated Chelsea, Fulham and Sunderland for most of those games, tonight we were outplayed in midfield, at Hull I agree we were just awful.

sorry I'm having argument with someone who thinks we dominated chelsea.
great result but never domination. we always beat sunderland for fun not
this time and fulham gave us the ball for 75mins and then frightened the shite out of us for the last 15.

 

[Marvin]

i want to cry after week in week out i watch the midfield get dominated by every team we face. we looked pretty good, but as usual we concede first to some stupid shit.

ireland looked good in my eyes and i feel sorry for him to get hurt.

defense was not even that bad, but we have tevez and bellamy vs the whole defense thats our problem right there. ireland went out and the midfield were shit yet again. we had no one to get us any decent chances but those 2 and ireland. barry and de jong are a bad pair for midfield. i wasnt even convinced with barry vieira.

i think its time to take some gambles on the team we put out.

100% correct about the midfield weakness, but not sure about your solution.
I'd prefer to go the other way, and play 2 out and out centre-forwards up front, and maybe Tevez in behind them, and drop the wide attackers.

Still this tam has got us to the brink of 4th so we are coping with it.

 

[lastmanback]

"Hughes" is negative and he has instilled that into our players,
his first and only concern is to stop our opponents without
any ideas on us inflicting our game on them.
we have not dominated many games since he arrived. we have won
games purly on individual performances by our forwards. midfield is
basically another layer in front of our defence, who are not linking up
fast enough with our forwards.

teams like hull, everton twice and even sunderland made us look
very ordinary, it's down to the manager to find a system to suit the
players he has. We have players who can and should be allowed to
play a better style and standard of football........
birmingham is a classic example not one of there players would get
in our side but mcleish plays to there strengths.

"Hughes" not up to it.

Just helped you correct some mistakes. ;)

let it go this is not a hughes thread.
he can be called many things but never played with a 7 man defence and
all 11 players in the 6 yard box for corners and free kicks just to end with
the same result stupid goals. zonal marking sucks............

 

[Blue2112]

I'd love somebody to tell me just why is De Jong considered to be our 'enforcer' in midfield. I've never seen him enforce fuck all. Did anybody notice that Moyes called Hittinger over only seconds before he went through the back of Ireland and effectively took out our only possible creative spark from the midfield. Wonder if Moyes had a word in his ear to do so. He got a yellow card for it but he did the damage. De Jong never takes anybody out of a game.

We desperately need to stop relying on only one creative midfielder in Ireland to pull the strings for every 90 mins we play when the reality is we should be relying on the whole of the midfield to create, defend, fight and tackle for every 90mins of every game.

Somebody please explain to me apart from the first half dozen games of the season what the fuck has Barry contributed.

Fair enough if these players were considered to be average but the fact is they are seasoned internationals and need to stand up an show us why.

We are far too much of a soft touch, any team that dishes it out soon gains the upper hand and its something we need to address next season. Time to be a right set of bastards first and foremost and earn the right to be respected and feared and stand up to any opponent.

 

[Neil McNab]

I see very little to De Jong's game that makes him worth a place on the bench, let alone the team. When Everton were on top they completely commanded the midfield, Moyes knew it, as soon as City managed to apply some pressure he threw another midfielder on and put an end to that. Barry is the only midfielder we have that is close to being good enough, it's amazing our forwards have kept our season going on the scraps they've had!

 

[Citizen Green]

It's correct in my opinion that we are short in midfield,

Barry & de Jong, whilst quality players, are to similar. Stevie Ireland is completely shot of confidence and looks a shadow of the player he was last season, Vieira imo has been a good signing and is always a positive influence when he plays, obviously however he is now to old to start every week and boss games for us.

So, in the summer this is the area where the most work has to be done, we should look to add a player who can unlock a team like Everton when are backs are against the wall, a player like Van der Vaart or Sneijder would be a great aquidition to our squad.

We also lack a box to box midfielder because Barry and de Jong tend to just sit and Ireland dosen't play enough these days. Again we need to go into the market and sign someone like Gago or hopefully get Johnson back to full fitness.

Once we sort these problems I think we will then easily finish in the top 4.

Oh and we need a new right back because Micah Richards is awful.

 

[Jocks Y-Fronts]

Attacking skilled midfielder required - urgently.

For sale - SWP - starting to beleive his old man that his future is elsewhere.

For sale - RSC - not good enough, offers nothing.

For sale - Patrick Vieira - see RSC

 

[johnny crossan]

we dominated Chelsea, Fulham and Sunderland for most of those games, tonight we were outplayed in midfield, at Hull I agree we were just awful.

sorry I'm having argument with someone who thinks we dominated chelsea.
great result but never domination. we always beat sunderland for fun not
this time and fulham gave us the ball for 75mins and then frightened the shite out of us for the last 15.

I said most cloth ears. OK slightly less than most at Chelsea but come on 4-2
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLgSyow8JL0[/youtube]

 

[Dave Ewing's Back 'eader]

de jong is the only one who can tackle in our midfield, ireland cant, barry either goers down or gives away a free kick patrick dead legs vieira well lets not go there.

Before we even kicked off this season I posted on here our midfield wasn't good enough and that De Jong was crap. I think both have been proved right, De Jong is the worst player at the club, Kolo aint much better. Tonight we played both and the result was a wobbly looking back four and midfield ineffective and over run.

We were overrun by a better midfield. Thank Jeez Fellaini was not playing. But their back four was not solid, their strike force was not wholly effective. Our midfield wasn't all that bad considering the chances we had but it doesn't dominate a game, and play other midfields off the pitch.

 

[Nils]

thank you lucas and neil, i'm not the only one then who thinks we play with ten men with the shocking de jong....

 

[lancs blue]

De Jong would be fine if we had a decent box-to-box midfielder (a fit MJ would be ideal as someone posted earlier). NDJ could then do what he's best at, breaking up play and give a short pass to the box-to-box player. As it is, he has Barry alongside him who doesn't really drive forward at all and whose medium to long range passing is inconsistent to say the least. Vieira doesn't have the legs to do the box-to-box role now but his passing is far superior to Barry's.

Last night our most penetrative "midfielder" was Toure when he broke out from the back and took players on, none of our central midfielders did that all night, Ireland included while he was on the pitch.

 

[PSmyth07]

Everything at Everton goes through Arteta. Just man-mark him out of the game FFS.

Our midfield lack intelligence, when Everton attacked they had Pienaar, Saha, Osman and Cahill. We had Richards, Zabaleta, Toure, Kompany, De Jong, Barry, Ireland chasing these players leaving shit loads of space in the middle of the park.

For most of the game they only had Saha up there and we had 4 players marking him. Terrible.

 

[Freestyler]

Barry doesn't get involved enough.

 

[hertsblue]

barry has been involved alot

Gave the soft penalty away at Fulham to get them back into the game and wasnt it him who gave the free kick away leading upto the goal :)-

 

[Clubber]

I don't agree with playing Barry and De Jong both in midfield together at home. We need a central midfielder who can keep the ball, is disciplined, and has very good passing and vision. I'm thinking someone like Banega, Gago, D'Agostino, they fit the bill for that. Michael Johnson would be useful for that if he wasn't always injured.

Priority on our summer shopping list, out of 1-5:

Goalkeeper (1) - Given is good enough, and Hart is very promising

Central defender (2) - Kompany and Lescott are a decent partnership, Toure and Onuoha are capable back-up

Right-back (3) - I feel we could do with a better right-back, Zabaleta is good going forwards, but lacking defensively, same with Richards

Left-back (2) - Bridge is good enough

Defensive midfielder (1) - Barry and De Jong are more than able in that department

Central midfielder (5) - The top area we need to strengthen

Attacking midfielder (3) - If Ireland doesn't replicate his 08/09 form than this is an area we should pay attention to

Right midfielder (2) - Johnson looks very promising, despite SWP's inconsistency, we're well equipped here

Left midfielder (3) - Petrov is good, but injury prone. An area we could strengthen

Forwards (1) - With Bellamy, Tevez, and possibly Robinho, we're good

Striker (2) - Adebayor and Santa Cruz are good tall strikers to have, a smaller, quicker striker might be useful though

Can't argue with this.