braineclipse
Willie Hall
Perhaps a reversal of sortsWell, this is a role reversal of sorts.Didn't we have a fairly long discussion a long while back about our preferred youth policy going forward? IIRC, I wanted to only put youngsters in if they were first-team ready, and otherwise buy players for the first-team, while you insisted that there was no difference between doing that and 'pulling a Chelsea', so to speak (not without some justification). Don't think we ended up agreeing on a preferred approach back then.
Anyway, why do you think a top-class deep-lying playmaker in particular would be transformative for us? I mean, over, say, a world-class attacking midfielder or backup striker (to use two alternate possibilities as examples).
but like I said I'm in two minds on this.Depending on your definition of world class any world class player is likely to improve our squad. I'm not sure Seri is world class, I don't think he would have to be to be a good signing.
The main point for me is that we simply don't have a deep lying playmaker in our squad apart from arguably Winks. Him or Onomah could develop into long term solutions for that role. But right now in terms of first team players with some experience we're without a player like that. Winks has played primarily as the more attacking of our two deep midfielders and not as a true deep playmaker I would argue.
Relying entirely on a young player like Winks for that role is fine with me if Poch thinks he's up to it. But we should expect inconsistency in a role like that. Someone who could play that role and be defensively solid enough to do so next to Dembele (or Winks) in some games or parts of some games would offer us a lot of tactical flexibility. I think that could be huge for us.
I think lacking a player to play a role, apart from youngsters, is different to having another backup striker or another backup/competitor for a AM spot. It would be more comparable to if we didn't have Son and thus didn't have a pacy AM option apart from the young and unproven N'Koudou. In fact that was the situation before we signed Son and part of why he's been so important.
I also think the deep playmaker role is a tough one to master and one where you typically see players needing more experience to truly flourish in. I rate Winks very highly, but even if he fulfills his potential and ends up in that role it might still take years.
Finally the money issue. The money being mentioned here seems doable. The kind of money we would have to spend on attacking player is a different story.
