MaineRoadMemories wrote: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.
aaron bond wrote:MaineRoadMemories wrote: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.
johnpb78 wrote:aaron bond wrote:MaineRoadMemories wrote: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.
mcfc1632 wrote:johnpb78 wrote:aaron bond wrote:MaineRoadMemories wrote: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
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