Sideshow Bob wrote:see, reading stuff like this makes me worry. it says his passing stats are as good/better than fern1's. however, what they fail to mention is that fern1 also tracks back and provides cover for our sometimes sh1t back 4. can jorginho handle that bit, too??
As far as I understand his strength is not as a box to box type of midfielder but deep lying playmaker...aka positioning. Here's an in depth scouting report from March on him:
https://www.esdfanalysis.com/player-analysis/jorginho/They refer to that in the part discussing his defending:
Jorginho helps his team in those situations with his solid understanding of the game and his good defensive positioning/reading the game. Quite often he is able to intercept by simply closing passing lines for the opponent...
Jorginho reads the intention of the opponents passes quite well and therefore can intercept the pass easily. Especially in the situation in which he has lost the ball, Jorginho shows his understanding of the situation by often moving forward to press instead of moving back in position. Because of his immediate forward pressing, he reduces the available space for the opponent and forces him to make decisions quickly.
Some of that sounds exactly like the rest of our players who win the ball back swiftly. Being fair, the report does point to deficiencies defending "bigger spaces" as he is not that pacey of a player.
Fern is obviously good at positioning and "tracking back" as a CDM but ideally under Pep that's not going to be required as much when with Jorginho we could possibly improve on already having the ball 60-80% of the time. He is good at some aspects of defending, and will be surrounded by other hard working and intelligent players. Against Liverpool and pressing teams at higher levels this quote below indirectly makes the point as to why the "tracking back" concern may be less key than one suspects:
In the Champions League and Europa League, he has shown that he doesn’t need that much space to operate because he is very good under pressure like all of Napoli’s players.
Isn't losing the ball pretty much the primary reason we nearly ever have to "track back?" It was against Liverpool and we had games we lost or drew last season where we had huge amounts more possession, but gave away goals on the counter from the high press and fast attackers. Instead of chasing them with fast players, couldn't you argue keeping the ball better would be more effective? Again, I saw that as exactly why Liverpool continue to defeat us.
Everywhere else we have players who fit that mould, working hard to win the ball back after losing it, but then when a player like Fernandinho - as good as he is - has to make a swift decision with the ball under pressure he has given the ball back more than say even someone like Yaya.
Seems Jorginho is good at cutting off passing lanes so that's his value as a CDM. I trust Pep knows what he is doing at this point, and can see very good reason from the points I'm trying to make as to how it would work compared to a hard working ball winning midfielder in the De Jong/Fernandinho (better technically, of course) mould.
I guess my larger point is, remember how many of our fans hated the idea of key Pep ideas during and after season 1?
- Sweeper Keeper (replacing Joe)
- Playing out from the back
- Ball playing defenders (Playing Kola as a centre half)
- Roaming 8s (Silva and KDB no longer attackin/wide mids, now "roaming 8s")
- Dropping Kun (wanting his forwards to be involved in buildup and winning the ball back)
When he added more players that he wanted to address those concerns we not only improved, we became a nearly unstoppable force across the league. I think we can get a bit stuck in how we are accustomed to "what works" on a football pitch, but Pep is trying completely different things that those solutions from the past won't help enough address current problems.
Also, to be fair, we may have wanted Fred, but because that changed, and Pep already liked Jorginho he became the best pick of the lot given what is available.
I'd ask, who would you like to see instead? We aren't getting Kante, so forget him. He also is not going to help with any long passing Pep likes from deep. Hard to think who would be a Fern clone, but ideally is better with the ball, that we could actually sign. Who is this player?