mozy

Nice little tonic for those saying McClaren was worse than Pardew (at the time of his appointment). Did anyone on here say that? Cronky doesn't count. I know I responded to a fair few comments along the lines of 'It's another Pardew', 'another English dinosaur'. Anyway, hopefully this better style of play is what we see every week. How are those the same thing? What I, and a few others, said was that Steve McClaren was an unambitious appointment with a very patchy record. Not the significant upgrade the club should have gone for, and I stand by that. Not sure if it was you or not, but the main gripe for me was people saying he was another Pardew in terms of style of football, which is just plain wrong. I also don't think he failed at Derby but I guess that's open to debate.

You can still influence the game in the final third without playing the #10 role. I agree that I wouldn't want to see Siss and Gini there just because they both offer a lot of the same things and I do think we need a defensive midfielder like Anita but who is better defensively. But to say Gini should be #10 because he can't influence the game offensively otherwise is ridiculous. I'm not saying he can't influence the game from CM, I'm saying whoever plays #10 has more of a license to be creative and doesn't have the same transitional defensive responsibility. If SDJ/Cabella/Perez prove to be highly effective at #10 then I'm all for Gini replacing Colback, but right now I'm not convinced.

Nah I disagree with you completely. Arsenal/Chelsea do not need Coquelin/Matic to chip in with goals/assists. They are in the team to do a specific job and that job only. The CM's for us need to be decent allrounders whos' main job is around possession and control of the game. The essence of someone playing as a #10 is that they are at the heart of things. I want our best midfielder (Gini) in a position where he can influence the game in the final third, and not be shackled with defensive responsibility. Tottenham just finished 6th with Ryan Mason and Nabil Benteleb playing CM.

Goals?

Maybe that's what we do. Put a tarpaulin over him and offer him out as a mystery gamble.

In the formation/style we are playing we mainly need our CM's to be good at ball winning, keeping posession and maintaining their positioning. Colback and Anita do this better than anyone else in the squad* so they are the best for the job. * Gini could possibly move back, but why move him from his best position.

Be like Swansea starting with a CM pairing of Ayew and Sigurdsson Hardly. Both Wijnaldum and Sissoko have played central midfield in their careers for a start. So have Ayew and Sigurdsson. It was just quickly realised that both players excel in the final third, so placing them in a position which shackles them to stay back is dumb.

Be like Swansea starting with a CM pairing of Ayew and Sigurdsson

The CM pairing should and thankfully will never ever happen.

...or is allowed to be depending on who's coaching and managing him. Virtually impossible for any player to move to a new country, language and league and prosper under the likes of Pardew and Carver. I'd be prepared to give him this season to see if he can adapt, write the first year off. This is guesswork, but I imagine Carvdew gave little to no instuction to any of our players about how to actually attack/movement/areas which we want to work the ball. So based on that, Cabella was doing what he thought needed to be done in certain situations (slow down play, step over, cross, cut in etc etc). I'd say he needs the guidance of a competent coaching setup in order to hone his talent / decision making, but he should be the one to say 'I'm best as a left winger Gaffer', or whatever.

Cabella needs to decide what kind of player he want's to be, a Winger, an inside forward or a #10. He does elements of all 3 but has a very incomplete game overall.

He barely even had any shots. That guy was so low on confidence when he came here it was so obvious.

Happy to be proven wrong, but his skillset seems more suited to that of a striker than a #10.

Nice little tonic for those saying McClaren was worse than Pardew (at the time of his appointment). Did anyone on here say that? Cronky doesn't count. I know I responded to a fair few comments along the lines of 'It's another Pardew', 'another English dinosaur'. Anyway, hopefully this better style of play is what we see every week.

A front 3 of Traore, Agbonlahor, Ayew could be thrillingly frustrating then.

Nice little tonic for those saying McClaren was worse than Pardew (at the time of his appointment).

I'm making a judgement on what I've seen so far. And asking the question, was he a different type of player for Ajax? As I haven't watched enough of him.

I'm really confused by SDJ so far, nothing I've seen makes me think he can be a good Premier League #10. He just seems to have really poor movement and generally looks sluggish and slow. I'm assuming he was a far better player for Ajax? Pre injury, Pro fitness and all?

£8million for Lucas would have been good business 5 years ago, not now. Sakho looks like one where he has all the raw ingredients but is marred by constant brain farts.

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat??? A couple of times, huh? How dare he. Never mind not putting him in midfield then. JUst keep him on the bench where he'll never be able to lose the ball a couple of times. Are you crazy? There's a difference between getting dispossessed when you are playing as a #10 on the edge of their area compared to getting dispossessed when you come deep and have no cover behind you. Hmmm ... so you have deciphered that because he lost the ball two times in that position yesterday, he will therefore always lose the ball if played deeper. Sorry, who is the crazy one again? By the way, did you see Holland use him in a deeper role in the World Cup? Have you seen him play more centrally for PSV? Please be very careful how you address me my friend. Nonsense. For goodness sake. What I said was that there is absolutely no way he could be used in Colback's role YET. I stand by that to the highest degree as he will INEVITABLY have an adjustment period to the higher pace of the English league compared to the Dutch. I know he played as a 4-3-3 CM for PSV but from what I hear he was still the most advanced of that trio, so is used to having the cover of two men behind him. Apparently I want him glued to the bench though, so fair enough.

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat??? A couple of times, huh? How dare he. Never mind not putting him in midfield then. JUst keep him on the bench where he'll never be able to lose the ball a couple of times. Are you crazy? There's a difference between getting dispossessed when you are playing as a #10 on the edge of their area compared to getting dispossessed when you come deep and have no cover behind you.

Wijnaldum was dispossessed a couple of times when he came deeper, giving Southampton good counter attack chances. It would be madness to put him in Colback's role yet.

Absolute rubbish. No way could Wijnaldum play in Colbacks role. What a total waste of an attacking minded player who'll score and create plenty of goals for us this season playing him that far back. It's the sort of thing I'd expect from Pardew. In fact scrap that I don't even think he'd be that stupid. He's an attacking midfielder, that's where he's played all his career at Feyenoord and PSV. Except he played CM last year and everything he's best at lends itself to CM rather than it does AM. Also i'm not saying he should to do what Colback does That's the problem in itself, Colback is far too negative and we don't create anything through the middle because of it, we need more impetus from deep positions. Not sure where you got the idea that playing CM is a waste, might want to let Yaya Toure and Cesc Fabregas know that. It's interesting that both of the players you mention came in for varying degrees of criticism last season for not providing enough defensive help.

Simpson is supposed to be the 'bibs and cones' man anyway isn't he? Probably doing him a bit of a disservice but still.

When Pardew made that similar comment it was totally blaming the fans, something like 'The fans got louder so the players got carried away and went looking for a winner. That can happen'. The way that cunt just acts like all things are predetermined and abolves himself of any personal responsibility. Fucking criminal.