Our Midfield

You'll need to tell oor Brendan that, as he has bought him as an 8 and describes him as an 8..

He's looked ineffective when Rodgers has played him there in our 4-3-3 system

 

He has played a lot there, I agree.. but doesn't look a RW in our system. And Rodgers won't play him there, I don't think.

 

I can't work out if he hasn't really got over that shocker of a tackle against Aberdeen, is wanting away so not trying, a combination of both, or it's something else entirely. But something is definitely up with him.

 

Flat 3 midfield is not working and doesn't suit the personnel we have there. Need to change it up, but Rodgers is clearly wedded to it and will keep just rotating the odd player in and out to hope it clicks.

 

You're probably right, Brendan will probably stick with him through the barrier of converting him into the 8 he wants him to be like MOR. Worst comes to worst, we have *checks notes* Yang

 

It's stood out as a sore thumb since Rodgers arrived that it's never really functioned.

Feels too late in Rodgers tenure to think he'll change it now. Hopefully wrong on that.

 

I think Tounekti could play on the right..he seems to be able go either side. Think we need to try it, especially as we'll look to utilise Jota when fit.

 

Off the top of my head, if I could pick my best midfield trio of the last 15 years it would be Wanyama, O'Riley and prob McGregor but further forward.

That's a proper CDM, a proper box to box 8 that can do a bit of everything and then O'Riley who was a goalscoring/creative fulcrum but could still do a bit defensively if he really needed to.

We don't have any of that balance in this midfield. Nygren is a liability defensively, McGregor will never be a CDM and Hatate is lazy and hit and miss.

 

This all day long. Doesn't have the players to suit his set up and that highlights their deficiencies tenfold.

Until those players are in (not happening any time soon), a change of shape is needed. Again, this doesn't look like happening, so close games are gonna be a grind i.e the huns.


Europe is another story altogether. Been obvious for years there.

 

I've mentioned David Watson before in the transfer suggestions for us.

He's a tough, no nonsense and mobile midfielder, exactly the type we need in our midfield.
And that was some effin headed goal of his against us yesterday. You can see also he takes the game very seriously.

 

Another thing that I think now hinders us is continuing to play the system where our two 8’s go so wide that it essentially leaves one player centrally and teams have sussed the patterns of play in having them out there and largely mark up the winger and full back runs. So it just leaves the centre midfielder on the ball with no forward passing options.

 

He's never an 8.

He's either a 10 or in inverted right winger.

Would need an athletic right back who would overlap him tho to play RW unfortunately he's injured for another 2 months.

 

Like I say, you'll need to tell oor Brendan that.

 

We have 3x #8's playing midfield.
We have another 3x #8's sat on the bench.

Crucially there is no #6 in our squad - unbelievable really.
It's as obvious as Man City not having a striker before Haaland.

Arguably we also have no #10 since Oreilly - which should be Calmacs position, maybe Reo/Nygren.

The balance is totally wrong and no matter how much we shuffle all our #8's in a 4-3-3 it won't change.
Opposition simply man mark our powder puff #8's and close down our defenders. Simples.

In saying that we can and should be better with what we do have but the tippy tappy disease has truly taken hold.

 

I've been massively out of the loop: are the likes of Francis Turley and Jude Bonnar miles away from getting a sniff?