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Not exactly found his feet yet but he's only just in the door.I felt he worked his socks off on Tuesday night covering a lot of ground.It was a slightly more encouraging display but not exactly what you might expect for a £30 million player.I think Sunday will be a big test for him and really hope he gives a good account himself.

They are deffo going for the barca way of defending by pressing... they just need to tell the players first, that might help.

I can understand not wanting to compromise and having an interim system while the front players get up to speed mentaly on the pressing game but it will take some time and will cost us.

As I understand it the system relies on the front players first and foremost, if they do their job then the gap they leave behind them as they attack the area is also their defensive responsibility, so that Yaya and Fernando dont have to come rushing forward to close space on the oppo breaking out, the attackers, forward mids and wingers all have to chase like fuck to close the oppo on the ball. IF they do that then basically Yaya and Fernando wont get pulled too far forward and leave a nice space between them and the defence to be exploited.
Once that is starting to happen the defence will get more confident as they know they are not so exposed and it allows the FBs to join in consistently higher up the pitch.
You will have seen recently that Zabba just cannot commit to going forward, cos he knows that the CBs are likely to be involved in one on ones or worse and he will need to cover them.
The knock on from that is that Zabba is not supporting Navas and not overlapping.. so the attack is weaker for it.

On the face of it, it appears that Yaya is at fault, and while he is crap at chasing back to his own area, the system is not helping him iether. Fernandino I feel sorry for, he is in the deep end with not only an unfair transition to a new system in a new league with new team mates, but also he has to work with Yaya, who doesn't fucking know himself where he is going to be in the next 5 seconds, nevermind anyone else, plus he may or may not bother to chase or put his foot out if someone runs right past him. Fucking nightmare to play along side if you ask me.

As it stands there is no solution till the whole of the front 6 chase like fuck, the front 4 mostly initially. Or employ a proper DM till at least 5 of them get it.
I wont say it again but Barry was the perfect compromise for this transition period, can cover DM and with bonus of playing forward AND he knows how to play with Yaya.
When you look at it this way you have to fookin laugh.. it is like having a machine and your cleaning it, so you throw away the bit that regulates it as it looks like it doesn't do anything and then wonder why it isn't working anymore.

Not sure about engineering... it is fucking genius!

I'm still holding my verdict on Ferdi as I've not seen anything special from him either defensively or when he goes forward. If he was holding back against Plezen, I didn't notice it as they were getting to our defence much too easily in the first half. In the 2nd half we notched up our attacking play, so Plezen were mainly on the defensive but the whole team was attacking, so again I didn't see anything special from Ferdi.
I feel he is not yet ready for a big match like the weekend one against the Scum and if he does start, I feel he will only shackle Yaya who I see as our match winner on such big occasions.
If I were Pellers, I'd start with Micha on the right and play Zabba as a DM behind Yaya with Milner giving a hand from the right.
Unfortunately, I'm not Pellers and I fear he will start with Yaya and Ferdi !

I think the only way we'll sort it is by playing twelve men.That way we can have two strilers, a winger, two holding mids, and Ya Ya and Silver. We'll murder everybody.

getdressedmctavish wrote:I think the only way we'll sort it is by playing twelve men.That way we can have two strilers, a winger, two holding mids, and Ya Ya and Silver. We'll murder everybody.

12 men has worked for the rags for years. They usually play the extra man as referee.....Webb on Sunday.

I honestly dont know how we're ever going to replace him. I cannot think of another player in world football that does what he does. Sure there are legit Defensive midfielders out there (Busquets, Fabinho, Casemiro, etc) and there are Box-to-box midfielders (Witsel, Thiago, Pjanic, Modric, etc) but I cant think of a player like Fernandinho.

Saul Goodman wrote:I honestly dont know how we're ever going to replace him. I cannot think of another player in world football that does what he does. Sure there are legit Defensive midfielders out there (Busquets, Fabinho, Casemiro, etc) and there are Box-to-box midfielders (Witsel, Thiago, Pjanic, Modric, etc) but I cant think of a player like Fernandinho.

Exactly my thoughts. There's really no one like him.

I think you have to consider him simultaneously one of the greatest and most underrated midfielders of this era.

Saul Goodman wrote:I honestly dont know how we're ever going to replace him. I cannot think of another player in world football that does what he does. Sure there are legit Defensive midfielders out there (Busquets, Fabinho, Casemiro, etc) and there are Box-to-box midfielders (Witsel, Thiago, Pjanic, Modric, etc) but I cant think of a player like Fernandinho.

Used to say the same thing about Yaya. You don't replace them like for like, you find a quality player that can make something great out of who you got.

That's true. But whoever it is needs to be able to do the defensive work first and foremost. Even though Fernandinho sprays some passes around and gets up around the box to have a pop every so often his defensive work is crucial to this side.

Remember the old myth that Brazilians weren't suited to this league because they couldn't do the tough stuff?

Myth busted.

He was mean. Didn't even want to shake hands with people he'd just clattered.

MoM for me - Bernie did lots of running around and was excellent - but Ferdy does so many crucial interceptions as noticed by the pundits etc. Missed him badly.

i think he's on some sort of eternal youth potion from the Amazon

I thought "his legs have gone"

Mase wrote:I thought "his legs have gone"

I remember thinking that in summer at the World Cup. How wrong was I!

Immense performance

He's off the scale, he's that good.

He was immense last night. He will need to keep at it for the rest of the season.
The best thing for him now is 1 proper game management. And 2 Kevin back in the team.

I don't want to see him playing in any cup games.

But is he underrated?

I am not saying he is the best ever was on that position, Paddy V is, however he might be the best box to box we had in the past 30 years. Don't expect the media doing him any favours, but except Souness, you rarely hear someone saying that he is the best, which, Imho, he is.

PeterParker wrote:But is he underrated?

I am not saying he is the best ever was on that position, Paddy V is, however he might be the best box to box we had in the past 30 years. Don't expect the media doing him any favours, but except Souness, you rarely hear someone saying that he is the best, which, Imho, he is.

Van Gaal spent five minutes praising him ahead of the game last night on Dutch television.

mr_nool wrote:

PeterParker wrote:But is he underrated?

I am not saying he is the best ever was on that position, Paddy V is, however he might be the best box to box we had in the past 30 years. Don't expect the media doing him any favours, but except Souness, you rarely hear someone saying that he is the best, which, Imho, he is.

Van Gaal spent five minutes praising him ahead of the game last night on Dutch television.

Jamie Redknapp said he's been the best ever Prem signing.

Mase wrote:

mr_nool wrote:

PeterParker wrote:But is he underrated?

I am not saying he is the best ever was on that position, Paddy V is, however he might be the best box to box we had in the past 30 years. Don't expect the media doing him any favours, but except Souness, you rarely hear someone saying that he is the best, which, Imho, he is.

Van Gaal spent five minutes praising him ahead of the game last night on Dutch television.

Jamie Redknapp said he's been the best ever Prem signing.

Good to hear that. I liked Redknapp, he is a smart chap, even if he has his locco moments.

saved our arses too many times to count last night. we would have been sluaghtered without him.