Mateus Fernandes Official

[Muttley]

By that reasoning peak Gareth Bale should have been played as a left back if either we or Real had a injury crisis in that position. I get the point you’re making and if there was absolutely no one else available and the manager remained determined to play a 10 then yes, but there are 3 players better suited to the role, we are effectively weakening the whole of central midfield, again this is not a knock on Bentancur, or his individual performances he is very good at what he does but post injury he is a traditional defensive midfielder with a more limited passing range, this in turn forces Tonali to drop back as the 6, or the deep lying playmaker, which he is not, and then Fernandes is shoehorned in as the 10, Fernandes is a better 6 than Bentancur and can fulfil both the traditional dm role as well as the playmaker, ie a modern day elite 6, it then frees up Tonali to do what we payed £100m for, a box to box ball carrier, that foundation means a Gallagher or a Bergvall would be more effective as the 10.

Firstly, I need to watch more of Bergval as I'm still baffled to his best position. For me, Gallagher is another great guy but always a squad player.

As someone said the other day (@thfcsteff ???), it's Simons that we're probably missing the most along with Kulu. We know what phase Madds is in his career and I would expect his minutes to always be managed at this point.

I made the point a few months ago that we'd brought in 2 midfielders that have traditionally finished the 90 mins each week whilst their team mates at Hammers and Toon were the ones to be subbed. I'm wondering whether we need to break that cycle with Tonali. He's been withdrawn for only 15 minutes across these 4 league games.

Ultimately what RDZ needs the most is for all 3 combinations of centre mids to get their understandings. There will be times when one of them is unavailable and the other 2 will need to pair together seamlessly. Fernandez needs to prove we stay as defensively secure when Bents is off the pitch in second halves of games. He also needs to show that he can work with Bents in the double pivot. I think we're all probably thinking that these clean sheets are great and that midfield change this season is a big reason.

I'm not sure we're looking at the other combinations as well though. The full-back to wide forward combo's is one. The relationship between he 9 and his wide players is another. The number 10's understanding with those ahead, behind, left and right is bigger than all of them. You don't get that playing one single game of 90 mins, whoever fills the slot.

 

[Yiddo.1882]

These are 25/26 statistics generated by AI, so there may be room for error, they show his overall standing in the Premier League for each.

Successful short passes: 1256 (37th
Successful long passes: 110 (29th)
Interceptions: 35 (32nd)
Duels won: 199 (13th)
Tackles won: 103 (5th)
Touches: 2120 (38th)
Total Passes: 1562 (38th)
Through Balls: 14 (13th)