Kevin De Bruyne 2016/17

De Bruyne is a playmaker. The trouble is we have played him mostly as a wide player. IMO we should be rotating him and David. You don't win player of the season in the Bundesliga if your shit!
 
mad zab said:
De Bruyne is a playmaker. The trouble is we have played him mostly as a wide player. IMO we should be rotating him and David. You don't win player of the season in the Bundesliga if your shit!
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I don't think anyone is suggesting he is shit mate?

The idea of De Bruyne being a playmaker for us though is just an absolute fallacy. It's an idea in people's head, but he's never actually played centrally for us and dictated a game, that's just not what he's done for us.

His assists and goals record in Germany was incredible. His strength is how direct he is. He's brilliant at exploiting space in behind teams, either hitting an early ball for a team mate, or carrying the ball himself.

The problem is, City very rarely come up against a team who leave any space in behind them. Most teams sit deep against us and don't allow any space behind them. This negates a lot of De Bruyne's game. He can't hit that early ball in behind, and he can't drive forward in to space, because the space is simply not there.

He also gives the ball away very cheaply when trying to play simple passes, his ball retention is pretty lousy, certainly not good enough to be a playmaker.

The playmaking role at City requires incredible ball retention, playing with very little space, being patient, waiting for opportunities, playing the eye of the needle pass on the edge of the box. These are all things that David Silva excels at. He's one of the best players in the world at all of those things. De Bruyne clearly isn't, it's just not his game.
 
Shaelumstash said:
Another fairly anonymous away performance at Upton Park from Kev.

Our best performances were at the start of the season before we bought De Bruyne. Silva in the middle, Sterling and Navas wide, stretching defences with their pace and leaving space in the middle for Silva to dictate play.

During this period we won 5 out of 5, didn't concede a goal, and Silva was in the form of his life.

Since De Bruyne signed our form has been patchy at best, and our best performance was in Seville when he was dropped.

Of course our problems aren't down to De Bruyne as an individual, but we need to start picking a team that functions. A team with balance. A team that wins.

The team that played the first 5 games was without doubt the best functioning set up we've had this season, maybe it's time to go back to that and get on with winning this league?
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You've sort of answered your own question above.

The fact is that we have Yaya Toure best postion Number 10. David Silva best postion number 10. Kevin De Bruyne best postion number 10.

We can't afford to play all three in the team when Yaya is one of a two man midfield. But our manager can't drop any of them, hence especially away from home we are shit! Just my opinion.
 
Mr Ed (The Stables) said:
You've sort of answered your own question above.

The fact is that we have Yaya Toure best postion Number 10. David Silva best postion number 10. Kevin De Bruyne best postion number 10.

We can't afford to play all three in the team when Yaya is one of a two man midfield. But our manager can't drop any of them, hence especially away from home we are shit! Just my opinion.
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I think I agree that we can't play all 3 of them in the same team. Perhaps there's a way of squeezing them all in, but as you say, the 4231 just doesn't seem to be working.

Where I'd disagree, is that I think the manager can drop one or more of them, he just chooses not to.

I also don't agree that all of their best position is as a number 10.

I think Silva is undoubtedly best as a number 10.

Yaya for me is not at his best when he starts as a 10, like at The Swamp when he was pretty ineffective. I don't think he's very good with the ball behind him, he doesn't have the subtlety of movement to receive the ball on the half turn with his back to goal. I think he's much better collecting the ball deeper and running with it.

I actually think his best position is as one of the two box to box players in a traditional 433. Similar to how we played at Sevilla, Fernando sat deep mopping up, and Yaya and Fernandinho in front of him. Having a sitting player behind him means he doesn't have to worry as much about the defensive side, and it means he can still dictate play and drive forward with the ball.

De Bruyne I think has been pretty lousy for us when he's played as a number 10. Against a packed, deep defence, he's pretty much completely ineffective there as he can't hit that early ball in behind. He gives the ball away too cheaply, and he's not patient enough to get on the ball and retain possession and wait for an opening. He just tries to hit the killer pass straight away, and most of the time he just gives it away. His spell there was Silva was out injured was a bit of a disaster for him and the team.

His best performances by far for us have come when he's played wide against a team that is chasing the game and pushing forward. Second half against Newcastle, Sunderland at home, where he's got space to run in to and exploit. I just think he struggles against teams that are sat deep, and unfortunately, that's what we come up against more often than not.

I think we should be starting with Silva in the middle, and Sterling and Navas wide. Against deep, packed defences, those two wide players are perfect. They stay wide, which means opposing back 4s have to stretch right across the width of the pitch to deal with it, that's when gaps open up, and there's no better player in the world at finding those gaps than Silva.

Once we get a goal or two up, and the opposition have to come out a bit more, commit men forward, push up, there's no better player to bring off the bench than De Bruyne to exploit space in behind on the counter attack.

It's a no brainer for me, and the only reason De Bruyne keeps currently getting picked in every game is because of his price tag.
 
Shaelumstash said:
I think we should be starting with Silva in the middle, and Sterling and Navas wide. Against deep, packed defences, those two wide players are perfect. They stay wide, which means opposing back 4s have to stretch right across the width of the pitch to deal with it, that's when gaps open up, and there's no better player in the world at finding those gaps than Silva.

Once we get a goal or two up, and the opposition have to come out a bit more, commit men forward, push up, there's no better player to bring off the bench than De Bruyne to exploit space in behind on the counter attack.
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Spot on.
 
Call me crazy, but can this work on a regular basis.
4-3-3
Typical back 4
Delph, Yaya, Silva
KDB, Kun, Raz

We can be very direct. Allows Pellers to avoid the dilemma of picking KDB over Silva or vice versa and dropping Yaya.

I think we lack the right identify. We stopped playing 4-4-2 because we were leaky. Now Kun up top on his own is isolated. Maybe go all out attack. But in reality your forwards have to track back which Kun and Wilf are not capable of doing more than walk on our side of half. If you're leaky with this 4-3-3 than have the fullbacks play more conservatively offensively.
 
KnaresboroughBlue said:
Spot on.
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Sterling is mostly poor on the left. Hesitant, slow and often over thinking things. I think he should be tried on the right. Might finally click for him there. I think either of David or KDB in the middle will be fine and the other on the left. Sterling and Navas should fight it out for starts on the right. at home, Yaya and Dihno in the middle, on the road, drop DeBryune or Dave and play Delph in the middle next to Dihno, with Yaya as the base.

I'll lean towards starting Silva on the left and Navas right.

So my team will look like this:
Home:
.............GK..........
RB. . .CB..CB.....LB
.....Dihno.. Yaya...
Rah...KDB....Silva
........Aguero

On the road:
........ ...GK.......
RB...CB....CB......LB
.............Yaya........ .
......Dihno..... Delph..
Navas...... ....Silva...
............kun,..............
 
This board is so Jekyll and Hyde. One moment he's the second coming of Colin Bell. Next he should be dropped for Navas that cannot cross for the life of him.

My opinion:
Silva should be playing on the left wing instead of him. He's a no 10 through and through. A no 10's objective is to create assists and/or goal, that's what he does best. Silva was playing on the left wing before and pretty sure he can do it again now. He is our most dangerous counter attacking player but on every build up he's not there in the middle. All he could do is just wait on the wings for yaya to pass to him which more often than not ended up with yaya being dispossessed.

Our 11:
Hart
Zaba - Komp - Nico - Kolarov
Delph - Dinho
Sterling - KDB - Silva
Kun
 
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