Midfield conundrum

[The Man In Blue]

M Johnno.

get this fucker fit again.

[MaineRoadMemories]

De Jong offers nothing to the team if we are not playing against United, Chelsea, Arsenal or Liverpool. Against all other teams the game has passed him by. I'd drop him in favour of a player who crosses the half way line when we are playing against teams who are camped in their own 18 yard box.

[aaron bond]

De Jong offers nothing to the team if we are not playing against U***d, Chelsea, Arsenal or Liverpool. Against all other teams the game has passed him by. I'd drop him in favour of a player who crosses the half way line when we are playing against teams who are camped in their own 18 yard box.

I agree with this.

De Jong's game is far too one dimensional. He doesn't look like he can really do much other than put in a crunching tackle. When we're playing teams who attack us, he is very useful. But I don't think we need him against the weaker teams when we should be doing most of the attacking. Barry can do the defensive job and also play the ball around nicely.

[Im_Spartacus]

De Jong offers nothing to the team if we are not playing against U***d, Chelsea, Arsenal or Liverpool. Against all other teams the game has passed him by. I'd drop him in favour of a player who crosses the half way line when we are playing against teams who are camped in their own 18 yard box.

I agree with this.

De Jong's game is far too one dimensional. He doesn't look like he can really do much other than put in a crunching tackle. When we're playing teams who attack us, he is very useful. But I don't think we need him against the weaker teams when we should be doing most of the attacking. Barry can do the defensive job and also play the ball around nicely.

I question whether players like De Jong are even relevant in todays game. This is not an attack on him, but on the role that he plays, which I feel is actually archaic

I have noticed in recent years that there has been a trend away from tackling midfielders, simply because teams have worked out that it is easier to let the side with the ball make their own mistake, in which case you soon win back posession if you are cutting off the ability of the player on the ball to make a pass - as they will invariably give you the ball back.

With this being the case, the midfield enforcer position is simply not what is needed in today's football. You need a quick, strong, mobile player who is calm on the ball - but with a high degree of anticipation, awareness and intelligence to cut out passes rather than to crunch into a player on the ball - that sort of player went out of the top leagues with the 80s in my opinion.

[dazby]

Interesting opinion there John. The rule changes will certainly back you up on that.

However, City have been a soft touch for years and have been crying out for a hard man to keep our midfield solid. De Jong certainly ticks boxes in that department. Many posters have said it before and it will be said again, we just don't need 3 def mids against the lower placed teams.

[mcfc1632]

De Jong offers nothing to the team if we are not playing against U***d, Chelsea, Arsenal or Liverpool. Against all other teams the game has passed him by. I'd drop him in favour of a player who crosses the half way line when we are playing against teams who are camped in their own 18 yard box.

I agree with this.

De Jong's game is far too one dimensional. He doesn't look like he can really do much other than put in a crunching tackle. When we're playing teams who attack us, he is very useful. But I don't think we need him against the weaker teams when we should be doing most of the attacking. Barry can do the defensive job and also play the ball around nicely.

I question whether players like De Jong are even relevant in todays game. This is not an attack on him, but on the role that he plays, which I feel is actually archaic

I have noticed in recent years that there has been a trend away from tackling midfielders, simply because teams have worked out that it is easier to let the side with the ball make their own mistake, in which case you soon win back posession if you are cutting off the ability of the player on the ball to make a pass - as they will invariably give you the ball back.

With this being the case, the midfield enforcer position is simply not what is needed in today's football. You need a quick, strong, mobile player who is calm on the ball - but with a high degree of anticipation, awareness and intelligence to cut out passes rather than to crunch into a player on the ball - that sort of player went out of the top leagues with the 80s in my opinion.

In an ideal world I would agree with you - although I think that there are a number of similar examples - Mascherano as an example

But in an ideal world we would have the sorts of players in MF that can play the free-flowing / fluid stuff that means that teams are too busy defending to think about attacking and they just keep giving the ball away cheaply

But we do not have that luxury - and it is only a year ago that de Jong was starting plug the massive gap that was our MF where the situation was that our defence was always under pressure - getting bugger all support from the forwards and just hoofing the ball - giving possession away cheaply

I would favour a transition - where we get the quality MF players in - get the whole team flooding back when we don't have the ball and then phase out the use of DM - but it is too easy to forget just how easily teams went straight through us before de Jong arrived

[Beefymcfc]

It's not a conundrum, it's very simple. We are currently playing with 3 defensive minded midfielders due to the lack of a decent attacking/creative midfielder. Over the years we have has the likes of Ali, Eyal and Kinky, whilst more recently we've had Johnno, Stevie, Elano, and dare I say it, Joey Barton. All these players push the play forward which none of our current midfielders can do.

On top of the 3 DM, we set up to defend and try to push forward as a group, but when it doesn't work we revert to hoofing it up to one of the smallest strikers in the Prem. However, if you look at the likes of Barry and the forward positions he gets into once removed from that central role and given a free license, then it shows that the players have the ability, just not the orders to do the job.

Things won't change this season though, and we will have to see what happens in the transfer window, as Mancio has already stated that we were short in this area.

[Ted Hughes]

De Jong offers nothing to the team if we are not playing against U***d, Chelsea, Arsenal or Liverpool. Against all other teams the game has passed him by. I'd drop him in favour of a player who crosses the half way line when we are playing against teams who are camped in their own 18 yard box.

I agree with this.

De Jong's game is far too one dimensional. He doesn't look like he can really do much other than put in a crunching tackle. When we're playing teams who attack us, he is very useful. But I don't think we need him against the weaker teams when we should be doing most of the attacking. Barry can do the defensive job and also play the ball around nicely.

I question whether players like De Jong are even relevant in todays game. This is not an attack on him, but on the role that he plays, which I feel is actually archaic

I have noticed in recent years that there has been a trend away from tackling midfielders, simply because teams have worked out that it is easier to let the side with the ball make their own mistake, in which case you soon win back posession if you are cutting off the ability of the player on the ball to make a pass - as they will invariably give you the ball back.

With this being the case, the midfield enforcer position is simply not what is needed in today's football. You need a quick, strong, mobile player who is calm on the ball - but with a high degree of anticipation, awareness and intelligence to cut out passes rather than to crunch into a player on the ball - that sort of player went out of the top leagues with the 80s in my opinion.

In an ideal world I would agree with you - although I think that there are a number of similar examples - Mascherano as an example

But in an ideal world we would have the sorts of players in MF that can play the free-flowing / fluid stuff that means that teams are too busy defending to think about attacking and they just keep giving the ball away cheaply

But we do not have that luxury - and it is only a year ago that de Jong was starting plug the massive gap that was our MF where the situation was that our defence was always under pressure - getting bugger all support from the forwards and just hoofing the ball - giving possession away cheaply

I would favour a transition - where we get the quality MF players in - get the whole team flooding back when we don't have the ball and then phase out the use of DM - but it is too easy to forget just how easily teams went straight through us before de Jong arrived

I think the idea for DeJong was having him as the sole midfield enforcer in a unique, ultra attacking team, at least against lesser teams, Makelele did for Real Madrid. It worked in some games but the defense was full of holes. Probably over time it would have been something that we could have worked on, with more defensive help from the forwards & no Robinho's but time is something we didn't have, so they resorted to a more traditional, still attacking, slightly less adventurous system for many games but still suffered at the back. Now we've gone the whole hog to a fairly run of the mill cautious system, we have less attacking players in the team so it asks the midfielers to be make more of an all round contribution. DeJong & Ireland have failed to do that so far imo.

Ideally for the PL, Dejong & Barry should be 6ft 2, quick, intelligent, tackle, pass, head, create, sprint up & down the pitch etc, thus freeing up a position in the team for another attacking player rather than needing Zabba or Kompany to hold their hands.

In short they should be 25 yr old Vieira or Gerrard (or K***e, Ince types). Buying Gago isn't the answer, we need to find a couple of special players.

[Martinez]

Skysports seems to think we've been in for Kader Keita and/ or Arda Turan, although they're not superstar signings, any of them would offer something different to what we have imo. Ireland excepted

http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528, ... 83,00.html