by Remember Colo » Sun Oct 18, 2020 2:17 pm
I'll harp on the midfield once again. For nearly a decade we've played ultra conservatively, having hired defensive managers and not recruited the necessary type of players to play a possession-oriented attacking style of play. Sure we've had some exciting wingers and forwards in that time, but those aren't the positions that influence the pace of play or are likely to retain consistent periods of possession. Other than Cabaye, Gini and maybe early Tiote we really haven't had CMs that will take over a match and have the skill to play on our terms. Instead we've had a couple tackling-only CDMs (e.g. Hayden), hard workers with no skill (e.g. Perch), and players that are likely to ping some long passes around as soon as the opportunity arises (e.g. Shelvey, Guthrie, Barton).
Until the club priorities that position, and hires a different type of manager, they'll just keep throwing money at forwards that are handicapped and needing to make chicken salad out of chicken s***.
I'll harp on the midfield once again. For nearly a decade we've played ultra conservatively, having hired defensive managers and not recruited the necessary type of players to play a possession-oriented attacking style of play. Sure we've had some exciting wingers and forwards in that time, but those aren't the positions that influence the pace of play or are likely to retain consistent periods of possession. Other than Cabaye, Gini and maybe early Tiote we really haven't had CMs that will take over a match and have the skill to play on our terms. Instead we've had a couple tackling-only CDMs (e.g. Hayden), hard workers with no skill (e.g. Perch), and players that are likely to ping some long passes around as soon as the opportunity arises (e.g. Shelvey, Guthrie, Barton).
Until the club priorities that position, and hires a different type of manager, they'll just keep throwing money at forwards that are handicapped and needing to make chicken salad out of chicken s***.