Defensive midfield issues

[StriderHiryu]

@Finnegan with some top posts in this thread. We are in a state where the entirety of the midfield will be rebooted from scratch.

 

Regardless of which division we are in, I expect CDM to be a key position that is prioritised. I think Wilf will be moved on, and think it would be best for him. He's got the look of someone that needs a change in scenery. 

 

Morten Hjumland from Lecce has been linked a few times, who's a bit worse at tackling but very good with his feet for a 6. If we are in the Championship I can see Hamza returning to us and used in combination with Braybrooke. 

[Tom12345]

1 hour ago, Stadt said:

Mendy isn't good enough either, he ticks the ball over nicely, looks neat and tidy enough but he doesn't often win the ball.

 

Our only long term midfield options at the moment are KDH, Soumare and Ndidi. We're going to need at  least one player that can play as a 6 and an 8. Santi Comesana and Yacine Adli fit the bill. 

I think that is not a fair comment. He does. His positioning is excellent and he often intercepts or gets in the line of the passing lane forcing the opponent to go backwards or sideways instead. That is just different to someone who may not be as smart in positioning but then makes a wow tackle (or misses).

[Tom12345]

2 hours ago, Finnegan said:

 

The best football we've played at this football club since the title winning season was in a 433 with Maddison and Tielemans both playing as centre mids either side of a deeper lying Ndidi. 

 

We weren't struggling to get bodies up the pitch to be threatening when we scored 9 against Southampton and 5 against Newcastle whilst winning 12 out of 14 games to go 2nd in the table in 19/20.

 

We then changed the shape (largely because Rodgers had a melt-down after losing to Man City and Liverpool because he refused to be conservative) and lost something like 8 out of our last 19 games. So yknow.

19/20. That is before we were found out. We still had the Vardy counter attacking fear factor before then when teams sit back in fear of it. Since then, teams know how to press us and make us play backwards/sideways football so that does not work anymore. We cannot have other players burdened by the DCM who cannot receive a pass or do the basics right, just because supposedly he can tackle, a few years ago. It has been clearly proven that does not work over the recent years and our defensive record shows that we are worst off. It is not that Ndidi has gone backwards in skills - he has always been like this - just that his negative attributes were not as exposed because teams did not press us as much. Now that he has been found out, with this problem, we cannot let bits of the past to blindside us into not changing what is needed.

Edited 18 April 2023 by Tom12345

[Guest Col city fan]

👍

 

[The_77]

57 minutes ago, davieG said:

Otherwise he was non-existent as per his usually game.

Against Bournemouth? Ridiculous.
 

I know it’s easy to hate on him because he’s been very poor for us but he certainly wasn’t on that day. He was easily one of the most active players on the pitch for the whole game. 

[Stadt]

10 minutes ago, Tom12345 said:

I think that is not a fair comment. He does. His positioning is excellent and he often intercepts or gets in the line of the passing lane forcing the opponent to go backwards or sideways instead. That is just different to someone who may not be as smart in positioning but then makes a wow tackle (or misses).

 

[The_77]

6 minutes ago, Col city fan said:

👍

 

Well played, Col. Well played. 

[The boy Linacre]

3 hours ago, AKCJ said:

Soumare has been here for 2 years and has played for us over 50 times.

 

I've still not seen him sprint. The blokes a lazy bastard who shouldn't ever be allowed to play for us again.

Hard to argue with any of that, funny as it sounds.

Love the fact he wanted to stay (what for £95k pw??!!) and fight for his place.

Hate to think what he would be like when he's not motivated

Still living off the drag back/stepover trick in the centre circle in some home game.

Sometimes the footballer just never come out

[The_77]

1 minute ago, Stadt said:

 

I think there’s a recency bias when it comes to Mendy. He’s been doing all of the gritty defensive work lately (and playing great, I might add) but he’s been an extremely safe and passive player for most of his time here.

[The boy Linacre]

6 minutes ago, The_77 said:

Against Bournemouth? Ridiculous.
 

I know it’s easy to hate on him because he’s been very poor for us but he certainly wasn’t on that day. He was easily one of the most active players on the pitch for the whole game. 

Did we win, did we play really badly??  Doesn't really matter.

And I wanted him to work coz he looks a better player than Wilf and Mendy, but sadly yet to prove it more than once or twice as a maximum

[Stadt]

1 hour ago, The_77 said:

I think there’s a recency bias when it comes to Mendy. He’s been doing all of the gritty defensive work lately (and playing great, I might add) but he’s been an extremely safe and passive player for most of his time here.

https://fbref.com/en/players/1598599e/matchlogs/2022-2023/summary/Nampalys-Mendy-Match-Logs

 

There's obviously more to defending well than just making tackles but he's not a high volume tackler. He doesn't have the acceleration and aggression to do so. Imo, Mendy's always been slightly overrated on FT

Edited 18 April 2023 by Stadt

[davieG]

43 minutes ago, The_77 said:

Against Bournemouth? Ridiculous.
 

I know it’s easy to hate on him because he’s been very poor for us but he certainly wasn’t on that day. He was easily one of the most active players on the pitch for the whole game. 

Just because I disagree with you I don't appreciate being accused of hating him and not capable of objective viewing.

My son and I commented several times during the game how poor and uninfluential he was until that 10 min spell in the 2nd half when we were amazed at how he had came to life  and didn't look like he was just out for a walk.

[Chrysalis]

8 hours ago, Fosse93 said:

Couldn't agree more.

 

It was the area we needed to strengthen the most in January - you could argue it was CB, but given we had Soyuncu fit and available and he just wasn't being picked by Rodgers, it's harder to make that claim now I think.

 

A defensive midfielder who could pick a pass would've transformed the team. I almost can't believe Rodgers never managed to get one in, as it was pivotal to the way he likes to set his teams up (think Joe Allen at Swansea, Gerrard in his latter years at Liverpool). Playing possession based football with Ndidi or Soumare as a CDM is going to cause issues. Mendy is the best of the lot but even then he lacks physicality and plays too safe, not breaking lines etc.

It was never CB, other areas of the team has suffered because we had brought Rodgers over 10 defenders.  Good you realised though that Soyuncu was always available, that was ignored in the other CB threads.

[whoareyaaa]

Next season I would move KDH to a DM he can tackle and run around and keep the ball moving and keep Mendy as a backup

[AyewJoking]

8 hours ago, tickler28 said:

I don't know about anyone else but I can't help but feel that this is currently our biggest achilles heel. Since Ndidis form has dropped off a cliff....Soumare is a bombscare I only feel that I can trust Mendy but he's not enough on his own which is where the defensive qualities of Tielemans and KDH are brought into question (Youri doesn't commit to tackles for me and KDH gets caught up field a lot). Theoretically Soumare should be in the mould of a Doucoure or Fabinho but sadly he's not really very good. For me we're not winning enough midfield duels and this is then leaving our defence heavily exposed...plus we give the ball away far to much....anyone else agree?

Thank God you spotted this early and we they have plenty of time to sort it.

 

There are weaknesses in the team but enough strengths to finish top ten in this league just unforgivable that Rodgers was allowed to sabotage them for so long.

[Dan]

It's been a problem for a long time. We are ridiculously easy to play through and with Ndidi's extraordinary drop-off I don't see obvious solutions other than maybe a back three.

[teblin]

16 hours ago, davieG said:

Just because I disagree with you I don't appreciate being accused of hating him and not capable of objective viewing.

My son and I commented several times during the game how poor and uninfluential he was until that 10 min spell in the 2nd half when we were amazed at how he had came to life  and didn't look like he was just out for a walk.

That’s his issue, I think there is a player in there somewhere. But attitude seems off. 
 

seen flashes of thinking, he’s got something about him. But then it’s goes bad again.

 

Mendy safe pair of hands at the minute.

[Scotch]

Funnily enough, Hamza Choudhury has been miles clear of any of our defensive mids this year, granted in the championship. Passes, key passes, block, tackles, suslccesful tackles, Aries duels, etc, he's miles ahead. Just pass completion he falls short on but not by a whole lot. 

 

If we are In the championship next year, I reckon our CM will be him and KDH. 

Edited 19 April 2023 by Scotch

[RumbleFox]

6 minutes ago, Scotch said:

Funnily enough, Hamza Choudhury has been miles clear of any of our defensive mids this year, granted in the championship. Passes, key passes, block, tackles, suslccesful tackles, Aries duels, etc, he's miles ahead. Just pass completion he falls short on but not by a whole lot. 

 

If we are In the championship next year, I reckon our CM will be him and KDH. 

Aye he’s having a good season. If we are to be relegated I’d certainly be happy with him starting. 
 

[RumbleFox]

Sam Field at QPR looks a good prospect. 

[deep blue]

41 minutes ago, Scotch said:

Funnily enough, Hamza Choudhury has been miles clear of any of our defensive mids this year, granted in the championship. Passes, key passes, block, tackles, suslccesful tackles, Aries duels, etc, he's miles ahead. Just pass completion he falls short on but not by a whole lot. 

 

If we are In the championship next year, I reckon our CM will be him and KDH. 

Don't want to re-ignite the Hamza debate but it's certainly true we've been woefully lacking in a solid tackler this season and Hamza certainly fits the bill there.

 

With regard to the idea of pushing Soy up to a DM role, it's a risk and he wouldn't be the same style of DM that Ndidi's been for us, but it's an experiment that could work and we have enough CB's in the squad to allow this.  It would also be a solution that wouldn't oblige us to resort to playing 3 CB's.  I don't like the 3-CB formation for us because it has so often quickly turned into a defensive 5 with us and there aren't enough players up the pitch for a decent out ball.  On the contrary, a player with Soy's abilities as DM would help us to be able to initiate attacks from defense as we did when we had Kante (sigh).

[Scotch]

I just don't see how it's feasible to have Faes and Soyuncu in the same team because they both have the same glaring weakness. That being they commit far to easily. This is great if it comes off but them charging out of position, missing or losing the tackle and exposing us is all too common. Having both in the team all but garentees that at least one of them is going to do it in almost every attack. 

[An Sionnach]

1 hour ago, Scotch said:

Funnily enough, Hamza Choudhury has been miles clear of any of our defensive mids this year, granted in the championship. Passes, key passes, block, tackles, suslccesful tackles, Aries duels, etc, he's miles ahead. Just pass completion he falls short on but not by a whole lot. 

 

If we are In the championship next year, I reckon our CM will be him and KDH. 

As a fan of Hamza's no nonsense game , its nice to see some appreciation on here. The debate  has always been determined by the football snobs. There is always a place for a limited player in a team as long as he knows what he can do well and does that consistently and to a high standard. He does.

[Finnegan]

2 minutes ago, Scotch said:

I just don't see how it's feasible to have Faes and Soyuncu in the same team because they both have the same glaring weakness. That being they commit far to easily. This is great if it comes off but them charging out of position, missing or losing the tackle and exposing us is all too common. Having both in the team all but garentees that at least one of them is going to do it in almost every attack. 

 

What makes me smile about this is that it's a classic staple of Football Manager tactics come to life, haha. 

 

FM has "stopper" and "cover" CB roles. The stopper steps up to win tackles and interceptions and the cover, well, y'know. 

 

It's generally considered suicidal to have two defenders assigned to stopper at the same time. 

 

What you basically want is one very aggressive centre back good at residing play who can step out of the line to win the ball (Faes, Soyuncu or - sadly better than both of them at it - Fofana) with then a very mobile centre back who can cover behind should it go wrong and outrun most attackers to recover. 

 

We really lack the latter. Evans, Vestergaard, Amartey and Souttar aren't going to be winning many sprints all that soon. Soyuncu and Faes are a bit quicker but they aren't really quick enough to turn and recover from their own mistakes, while Fofana was to an extent. 

[sylofox]

22 hours ago, AKCJ said:

 

I've still not seen him sprint. 

Care to explain in those 2yrs who you have seen sprint.

 

Playing Bodgers borefest slow ball tactics, they only sprinted off at HT and FT.

 

I still think Rodgers is more to blame for poor form and performances than the players.

 

He managed to bore the shite out of the fans. Now imagine being told to play that way.

 

Then bringing in Daka to replace the speed merchant and legend that is Vardy. But then playing a system and pace that nullifies both of them.