Xavi Simons

[braineclipse]

I exaggerated to make the point. Yes he played from the left at Liezpieg but he played centrally for PSV (the best period of his career) and for PSG.

He can do a job out left, but that's it he can do a job. It's not what suits his attributes. He doesn't have extreme pace, he can beat a man but he's not really a finesse dribbler, playing him out on the left frustrates him and his performances suffer. I've seen this out of him at Leipzig, it's a large part of the reason why he was relatively poor last season versus his first season there.

There is basically no one who has seen a significant amount of games for him that would argue that he's even half as good primarily covering the left hand side and before you say he would be there nominally that suggests that we leave the team unbalanced with no one covering the left if Xavi plays where he really wants to and no Udogie can't be in 3 places and providing 3 different roles all at the same time. Something would have to suffer, so for me I'd rather we maximise Simons' abilities by playing him where he does best and worry about getting something from one various of the LW options we have instead. Hobble one position rather than two if you will.

You say nominally, but yes. An overlapping full back providing width and a more creative player drifting in from a nominally wide role is a thing that happens and can work quite well in football. I mentioned Eriksen for us before as an example of that.

For me depends who the other options are. I do agree that I think he'll end up more as a 10 and I think that's his best position, but depends

You don't really rate Johnson, right? Johnson on the left, Simons in the middle or Kulusevski/Maddison in the middle with Simons left (just as an example). No games where the second option there would be better?

Similarly now with Bergvall doing really well and both Odobert and Tel struggling to really impress imo. I think some games Bergvall as the 10 and Simons on the left may be the best choice.

 

[Bishop]

You say nominally, but yes. An overlapping full back providing width and a more creative player drifting in from a nominally wide role is a thing that happens and can work quite well in football. I mentioned Eriksen for us before as an example of that.

For me depends who the other options are. I do agree that I think he'll end up more as a 10 and I think that's his best position, but depends

You don't really rate Johnson, right? Johnson on the left, Simons in the middle or Kulusevski/Maddison in the middle with Simons left (just as an example). No games where the second option there would be better?

Similarly now with Bergvall doing really well and both Odobert and Tel struggling to really impress imo. I think some games Bergvall as the 10 and Simons on the left may be the best choice.

I don't rate Johnson or think that Tel or Odobert currently are up to the level we require but I'd rather play one of them on the left and have Simons in the middle. I just think we will get so much more from him playing through the middle.