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The other games today 2018/19


Greg

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Personally thought Wijnaldum was fairly good overall in the relegation season for the player that he is, and the criticisms of him going missing/not caring were really over the top and a case of angry fans looking to scapegoat players because the entire team was dross. Wijnaldum's playstyle, facial expressions, etc, made him a very easy target in this sense. It's always easy to label someone as a mercenary when they're not a visibly physical player.

 

In terms of him going missing, it felt like some folk were just expecting him to be something he's not, failing to take into account his limitations as a footballer and the team he was in. He can't actively beat players (he can be slippery but it's not the same thing), he has neat technique but is not particularly skillful, not fast, very average passing, an average shot on him, etc etc. An all round average player with some alright technique, and that's it. He was never going to drag an average or poor team to decent results entirely on his own, nor was he going to start running around like a headless chicken getting knackered after 10 mins, or lunging into bad tackles giving away dangerous free kicks, just to appease some fans who view those things as passion when in truth they're things poor players tends to do to mask how crap they are.

 

In those games where he did play well mainly by scoring, I always felt like it was a combination of the team somewhat attacking more at home (more men forward, more balls into the box, pushed higher up = more opportunities for Wijnaldum to ghost into the box) and also some opposition teams not bothering to track/mark him or having poor tactics or poor defenders. Combine the two and ice that cake with some decent technique and you get the goals he managed to get for us.

 

The rest of the time we were either playing poor or playing away from home (sitting deep, hoofing, poor balls into the box = alot fewer opportunities for Wijnaldum to even get into the box, let alone have a chance at scoring), and I think in some games the tactics involved him playing deep, which is sort of what he does for Liverpool now. In a piss poor team unable to retain the ball of course an average to good footballer like Wijnaldum controlling a ball well, being a tad slippery and passing it simply is going to have little impact. And of course if the opposition teams were just competent at tracking his runs or marking him it meant he posed no goal scoring threat at all, home or away. All of this ties in with how he started the season in hot scoring form but then it all dried up when teams realised he's our only real goal scoring threat and started marking him properly.

 

Maybe there were some games where he wasn't 100% up for it, but I'd give him the benefit of the doubt. Firstly, I can't really blame any players for feeling demotivated under a Mike Ashley regime, so a few dejected performances are tolerable (only a few though). Secondly, he's had plenty of very quiet games for Liverpool, which indicates he's a decent player who can only play well when circumstances permit (rather than playing well all the time, which is what your quality players do). I'd say he probably played better for us than he has for Liverpool, but the current performance levels appear to be higher simply because he's in a far better team. In fact take Liverpool's front 3 out, stick Ayoze, Mitrovic and Obertan in their side up front (i.e. shiite players who can't control a ball at times), and I imagine Wijnaldum as he is now would be getting the levels of stick he got for us because he'd be doing sod all.

I don't care that he couldn't dribble, he spent whole 90 minutes of games basically hiding from the ball instead of looking for it

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Guest firetotheworks

I'd find it a lot easier to agree with all of that if he hadn't then went on to do exactly the same thing while surrounded by very good footballers at Liverpool. The whole 'Wijnaldum is invisible away from home' thing carried on with Liverpool fans as well. It's squarely on him imo.

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Aiden Flint has just missed one of the easiest chances I've ever seen. Boro are going out here.

 

Pulis on borrowed time? Seem to have come off the rails big time, in recent weeks.

 

Burton win. Boro managed 3 shots on target all game - according to 5Live.

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