Jorginho

[Andrew___K]

Yeah but that doesn't mean he wasn't good. It means Busquets was better.

Personally, I think Jorginho is better in 'Guardiola pivot' role than Yaya ever was. Reminds me of Busi in his best form.

 

[mccity]

Personally, I think Jorginho is better in 'Guardiola pivot' role than Yaya ever was. Reminds me of Busi in his best form.

So do I. Touré still would have been great though.

 

[Dax777]

Younger Toure surely wasn't 'perfect' for that role as 21 yo Busquets has benched him easily in 09/10.

Pep wanted Busquet who was deemed, correctly so, as the future of Spain's central mid. But he wasn't half the player Yaya was at the time.

 

[mccity]

Pep wanted Busquet who was deemed, correctly so, as the future of Spain's central mid. But he wasn't half the player Yaya was at the time.

I do fear sometimes worry that people will remember 13/14 freekick scoring, locomotive train Yaya as the only incarnation of Yaya, as opposed to the one we had prior that was less of a goalscorer but more of a genius level pivot.

 

[Andrew___K]

Pep wanted Busquet who was deemed, correctly so, as the future of Spain's central mid. But he wasn't half the player Yaya was at the time.

Lol. Busi quickly became a much better pivot than Yaya and won the competition fairly. Are you accusing Pep in using a worse player over 'superior' Toure? Because of nationality? Seriously?

 

[Neville Kneville]

Jorginho would be a fantastic addition.

One of the key features of Napoli's passing play this season was to hold possession in deep areas by bringing everyone back, playing neat one touch football and luring the opposition into a high press, opening up space in behind and springing fast transitions into attack. To do that in the central midfield role means you have to be the smartest, the most press-resistant and best passer out of the bunch.

This is something we could really do with. Whilst Fernandinho has his strengths and has proven himself to be a key asset going forwards, there do exist a small number of games where we would require an alternative option. Unfortunately, compared to the other players we have, Fernandinho is a bit lacking in the creative and the positional* (for a possession system) sense. 9 out of 10 times this isn't a problem; his defensive astuteness, all round ability, discipline, work rate, aerial ability (which really helps the centre backs), midfield security, and his leadership work perfectly for us. But in those rare games where we're being very heavily pressed, like against the red version of Everton or Napoli he can (not necessarily will btw) become a weak link. Obviously very few games a season, but having someone that can dispel the press and take all the pressure off of our other players is a massive difference maker both offensively and defensively, as it allows us to play the way we do with far less disruption.

*Also why Fernandinho may not be the most effective pushed further forward. Like against Brighton recently. He could be ok there but he's best in the role he has.

Gundogan is an option, but in those games he'd be far more useful further forward (like Napoli away) and besides I think this current incarnation of Gundogan is a bit lacking composure wise to play the deep role against a very strong and heavy press, especially if we're away.

Jorginho is as close to a pure specialist we can get who can come in and provide us with that option. Moving forwards I believe Pep's goal is to have a squad filled with players who can be easily rotated tactically just as much as any other reason. It would help create a competitive environment, protect the players's fitness, and most importantly push us towards Pep's presumed dreamland whereby the team has complete tactical flexibility.


Funnily enough, a younger Touré would have been perfect for the role. A big 'if only' really.

I agree with most of what you say re Jorginho but I don't actually believe it's possible to fully resist a flat out pressing team, like Liverpool, who will run so hard for 30 mins they can't walk for two weeks afterwards.

Imo you just have to accept you will get caught & defend well when it happens. Almost every goal we have conceded v Liverpool was preventable by competent defending (& goalkeeping).

We defended like clowns & went to pieces which is catch 22 as it meant we were more likely to get caught again.

Jorginho is possibly the best around at finding an 'out' ball from nowhere, but if we are as shakey as a team, as we were at Anfield, he will get mugged just the same & the defenders & keeper will have to rescue him too.

Imo that's where having Fern in addition to Jorginho, might come in.

But if we played as we can, as a team, we wouldn't need that & wouldn't actually 'need' Jorginho. We would just beat Liverpool, full stop (apart from ref intervention).

I'm all for us signing Jorginho but it's a team game & if Jorginho breaks the press, passes it to KDB who immediately loses it, then the defence behave like schoolkids, we still likely lose.

 

[Dax777]

Lol. Busi quickly became a much better pivot than Yaya and won the competition fairly. Are you accusing Pep in using a worse player over 'superior' Toure? Because of nationality? Seriously?

Yes. It may not have much to do with Nationality. But considering their age difference it seemed the prudent choice to promote Busquet. But yes, Yaya was still a far better DM at the time.

 

[Txiki Txiki Bang Bang]

@Dax777 your point on this Yaya Busi situation is so on point. I dont get the comparison, even the barca fans on barca forum would tell you that 2008-2010 yaya was twice the player busi was at the time.

 

[mccity]

Imo in hindsight it was right to bring Busquets through, although Touré was obviously great at the time. But don't let that distract from my original point that Touré of old would have been great for the pivot role.

I agree with most of what you say re Jorginho but I don't actually believe it's possible to fully resist a flat out pressing team, like Liverpool, who will run so hard for 30 mins they can't walk for two weeks afterwards.

Imo you just have to accept you will get caught & defend well when it happens. Apmost every goal.we have conceded v Liverpool was.preventable by competent defending (& goalkeeping).

We defended like clowns & went to pieces which is catch 22 as it meant we were more likely to get caught again.

Jorginho is possibly the best around at finding an 'out' ball from nowhere, but if we are as shakey as a team, as we were at Anfield, he will get mugged just the same & the defenders & keeper will have to rescue him too.

Imo that's where having Fern in addition to Jorginho, might come in.

But if we played as we can, as a team, we wouldn't need that & wouldn't actually 'need' Jorginho. We would just beat Liverpool, full stop (apart from ref intervention).

I'm all for us signing Jorginho but it's a team game & if Jorginho breaks the press, passes it to KDB who immediately loses it, then the defence behave like schoolkids, we still likely lose.

I think there's a lot of sense in this, particularly in how Liverpool's press will always happen and there's not much that can be done. Unfortunately, and this is where difference of opinion may come in, I'm not convinced we'll ever be able to avoid the defending like clowns when we're sliced open.

I'm only assuming here, but I imagine think Pep's systems at a fundamental level are identical; whether we're playing Liverpool, Burnley, 10/11 Barcelona, 11/12 Madrid etc.. So what I mean is, in part of that, we're going to play by holding the ball as much as possible and our means of restricting opposition chances is through excellent possession play, as opposed to better and more intelligent defending. Which is I suppose a product of the way we're coached.

So against the likes of Liverpool, we need a different way of beating the press otherwise we risk trouble (obviously). What we lack at the moment, is either a complete ability to play around their press (like Napoli), or a complete ability to just simply shrug off the press (like Tottenham). A problem we kind of have at the moment is that we play the way that requires the former, but of our regular midfield only Silva fits the bill. De Bruyne and Fernandinho fit the latter style.

Having Fernandinho and De Bruyne in midfield gives us a lot of direct attacking power but on the flip side makes us a bit clunky. Which as I said before works 9 games out of 10 but in the 1 game we really need to hold onto the ball it becomes a problem. Against the likes of Liverpool where we hit a cycle whereby we make errors, lose our cool and make more errors and so on, what we need is individuals who are just better at keeping the ball so that we're less predisposed to fall into these pits.

Pep actually tried to circumnavigate the problem at Anfield by playing the regular 3 with Gundogan out wide which was a big mistake. But weirdly enough, it looked a lot better briefly when in the 2nd half he swapped Gundogan and De Bruyne around. Gundogan and Silva brought a level of control and Fernandinho provided the back up, with De Bruyne being the usual threat out wide. Maybe that's the solution.


But my point is long term I don't see Silva or De Bruyne being dropped for these games (why should they be?). So we need someone else in there that can really control things. That's where Jorginho comes in. Fernandinho would be an excellent player to bring on in the 2nd half of these games IMO. Once the press gets tried he could just bully them completely (like in the 2nd half of the 5-0) and let our attackers run riot.

 

[BlueAnorak]

A more critical way to look at it is true the constraints prism.

In January, there were 2 strong constraints and 1 weak one.. 1) technical enough to survive at City 2) currently on a team likely to sell, and the weak constraint 3)a player willing to move now.

Fred fulfilled 1 and 3. And we assumed 2 was likely. It turns out the club who qualified for KO of CL wasn't willing.

Today though, the constraints are different. Again there seems to be 2 strong constraints.
1) Can improve a weakness in the squadss system
2) Does not have World cup commitments
And tell

Notice how the criterion has changed. For one, the "on a team willing to sell" isn't a constraint anymore. As everyone is willing to sell in the summer at the right price. But not true of the Winter window.

Second, we are not simply looking for someone who can cope with the technical level. We are looking for someone with the skill set to actually improve it. Players who satisfy this constraint are generally not available in the winter. At least not willingly.

And also the 2nd constraint of not having World Cup commitments is key. The incoming players have to be able to join as early as possible (i.e earlier than the World cup crew) so they can get some reps and get used to the culture here.

I'm not in the boardroom, but when I think about who to get, these are some of the factors and constraints i'd have considered.

That Jorghino is the highest rated player on our list makes sense.

He is as good as any of our Midfielders under pressure. And can improve our play there.
He is a fantastic passing out of the back.
He is not going to the World cup.
He already plays in a similar system.

That Jorghino is the #1 rated prospect should have been easily expected.

Spot on.