Sandro Tonali

[PauloGeordio]

1 minute ago, Dandy Man said:

Much more like the man I want to love last night, oozes class when he's playing like that 

Needs to play that central role. Hope he just grows from here. Will have done his confidence the world of good 

[The College Dropout]

Some great discussion in here boys and girls. 
 

Sometimes I get annoyed when we talk about players as simply ‘class’ or ‘shite’ - especially our own players. These are professionals with certain skills, drawbacks and potentials. 
 

 

Saying that - that Enzo is shite.  Chelsea have been robbed.  

[The College Dropout]

I’d like to play a double pivot of some type. Maybe 442.  But a narrow Villa type in midfield.  Willock or Joe on the right but close to Bruno.  Get the width from Livra.  
 

Tonali and Bruno have complementary skills on paper. As a single pivot, I can see Tonali losing the ball in deep areas trying to move it quickly.  IMO he would need a close option in Bruno at all times. 
 

Latter day Kroos and Casemiro/Tchou - would dovetail closely a lot. Sometimes Kroos would be deepest to progress play and Case would get forward more. But Case would also often be the deepest defensively and could screen more through the middle. Better defensively on the transition - Kroos went through a 3-4 year period of being awful off the ball.  Couldn’t run. Tackle. Got better towards the end at blocking passing lanes but for awhile it was awful (tangent). 

[Holloway]

Lush curler free kick for the Longstaff disallowed goal

[The College Dropout]

A lot of his positive stats in Serie A came from set pieces iirc. 

[mattypnufc]

5 minutes ago, Holloway said:

Lush curler free kick for the Longstaff disallowed goal

Was Schar even offside for this?  Certainly didn't look it from the one shit replay we had  

[The College Dropout]

1 minute ago, mattypnufc said:

Was Schar even offside for this?  Certainly didn't look it from the one shit replay we had  

Didn’t look it to me. 

[Holloway]

2 minutes ago, mattypnufc said:

Was Schar even offside for this?  Certainly didn't look it from the one shit replay we had  

seen it twice over and still can't tell from the camera angle, extremely tight

[AyeDubbleYoo]

It’s very close, I’m surprised he put the flag up. 
 

Might have been 6 inches on VAR or something.  

[Dr Venkman]

12 hours ago, KaKa said:

 

I like it in that deeper position too. Adds a bit more urgency to the build up from the back.

[NWMag]

Couldn’t help but smile to myself when him and Bruno did their little passage of 1-2’s 

[Erikse]

1 hour ago, The College Dropout said:

Some great discussion in here boys and girls. 
 

Sometimes I get annoyed when we talk about players as simply ‘class’ or ‘shite’ - especially our own players. These are professionals with certain skills, drawbacks and potentials. 
 

 

Saying that - that Enzo is shite.  Chelsea have been robbed.  

 

Imagine being able to spend 120m + wages on a flop, and still have massive spending power in future windows..

[KaKa]

11 minutes ago, Erikse said:

 

Imagine being able to spend 120m + wages on a flop, and still have massive spending power in future windows..

 

Absolutely disgusting man.

[Erikse]

3 minutes ago, KaKa said:

 

Absolutely disgusting man.

 

If only we could just shell out 70m on Guehi, and if it doesn't work we can just buy a different 70m defender next window.

[Pixelphish]

20 minutes ago, Erikse said:

 

Imagine being able to spend 120m + wages on a flop, and still have massive spending power in future windows..

 

It's beyond the pale, man.

 

I don't care that PIF etc aren't spending a gazillion pounds on NE Glactico's. I care that so called "elite" clubs have carte blanche to do whatever the fuck they want because of historic revenues built before the shutters were pulled down. I know it's been said a million times but its theraputic for me to piss and moan about it.

[Yorkie]

 

26 minutes ago, Erikse said:

 

Imagine being able to spend 120m + wages on a flop, and still have massive spending power in future windows..

 

Exactly. It's worth a thought before launching into our guys for ultimately choosing to do nothing in late August. It doesn't absolve us totally - clearly our scouting and negotiating hasn't been up to scratch - but it really hammers home the impact of PSR and how the risk changes from team to team. 

[TRon]

10 minutes ago, Erikse said:

 

If only we could just shell out 70m on Guehi, and if it doesn't work we can just buy a different 70m defender next window.

 

 

They don't just buy one though, they buy 3 just in case.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

28 minutes ago, Erikse said:

 

Imagine being able to spend 120m + wages on a flop, and still have massive spending power in future windows..

Don’t forget they also bought Caicedo for £100m. 

[Gallowgate Toon]

Personally, I like the signs of how we've been using him and Bruno since City. The midfield was obviously not great at Stamford Bridge, but I thought it functioned well generally against City, Everton, and Brighton. We saw some changes in some build-up shape where they'd both drop back on occasion, and Tonali sometimes rotated into the deeper spot against both Brighton & Everton with Bruno pushing up. We also played 4-4-2 in phases as well with them both as the CMs and Joelinton at LM.

 

If we play 4-3-3, it's fine that they can rotate into that deeper spot depending on the game/circumstance against most teams. They have some overlapping qualities but have some vastly different strengths in the role. Last night probably showed we can be a bit bolder with rotating them going forward. I do think it'd help Bruno generally to reduce his responsibilities for a bit, he's had to carry a lot of things for us for years now.

 

Lewis Hall brings a fairly big shift to our options to build up from the back. He's decently like-for-like with Trippier in terms of style but he's on the left so we have more balanced routes out of the defence than we've had before imo. It was very Tripps/Schar before. Botman is good on the ball but I wouldn't say that progressive, and Burn's LB stint was much more tactical than anything else. This might mean we don't have to be quite as reliant on the midfield to do as much heavy lifting when trying to build play so we can have more flexibility to push Bruno up.

[TRon]

21 minutes ago, Gallowgate Toon said:

Personally, I like the signs of how we've been using him and Bruno since City. The midfield was obviously not great at Stamford Bridge, but I thought it functioned well generally against City, Everton, and Brighton. We saw some changes in some build-up shape where they'd both drop back on occasion, and Tonali sometimes rotated into the deeper spot against both Brighton & Everton with Bruno pushing up. We also played 4-4-2 in phases as well with them both as the CMs and Joelinton at LM.

 

If we play 4-3-3, it's fine that they can rotate into that deeper spot depending on the game/circumstance against most teams. They have some overlapping qualities but have some vastly different strengths in the role. Last night probably showed we can be a bit bolder with rotating them going forward. I do think it'd help Bruno generally to reduce his responsibilities for a bit, he's had to carry a lot of things for us for years now.

 

Lewis Hall brings a fairly big shift to our options to build up from the back. He's decently like-for-like with Trippier in terms of style but he's on the left so we have more balanced routes out of the defence than we've had before imo. It was very Tripps/Schar before. Botman is good on the ball but I wouldn't say that progressive, and Burn's LB stint was much more tactical than anything else. This might mean we don't have to be quite as reliant on the midfield to do as much heavy lifting when trying to build play so we can have more flexibility to push Bruno up.

 

The main issue with them two playing has been Bruno getting caught upfield with no cover behind him because Tonali has been right of centre. He was more central yesterday and that closed a lot of gaps. Ideally the double pivot mentioned by TCD would be the way to go, just not sure how you would fit the rest of the players round it.