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The Defensive Midfielder

Lilywhite said:
You'll be hoping for a while then mate. For all our many overrated first-team players, Carroll is by far the most overhyped player on our books.

Has anyone watched him for QPR this season? He's so average. Doesn't stand out in the slightest even at that level. Compare him to younger midfielders who play his position like Will Hughes and Ravel Morrison, they are light years ahead of him.

Carroll will never be more than a Championship standard player.

As for the defensive midfield role, we definitely need to play Sandro every game, and rotate him out for Capoue every so often. There are very few games in this league where you can get away playing without a defensive-minded midfielder.
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Absolutely hilarious neither of those players have his passing range. But he's a deep lying playmaker and they're both attacking midfielders. They're gonna be more eyecatching if that what your looking out for. Carroll though is the engine of a team.
 
Lilywhite said:
You'll be hoping for a while then mate. For all our many overrated first-team players, Carroll is by far the most overhyped player on our books.

Has anyone watched him for QPR this season? He's so average. Doesn't stand out in the slightest even at that level. Compare him to younger midfielders who play his position like Will Hughes and Ravel Morrison, they are light years ahead of him.

Carroll will never be more than a Championship standard player.

As for the defensive midfield role, we definitely need to play Sandro every game, and rotate him out for Capoue every so often. There are very few games in this league where you can get away playing without a defensive-minded midfielder.
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Harry Redknapp seems to know a thing or two about football, young players etc. He also probably knows a lot more about Tom Carroll than any of us. He seemed to snap at the chance to take Tom Carroll to a promotion chasing QPR side, make him their number 10 and make him a first team regular. At 21.

To write him off as someone who will never be more than a Championship standard player at this point seems silly. A good and experienced football manager rates him as a good Championship player already and we all know he's rather small and so likely to develop a bit later into a first team regular.
 
Wenger played 451 but he needed a defensive player in the 5, Flamini. He missed him when he wasn't around and tried some other guys.

I guess Sherwood is trying 442 with the midfield 4 all tucked in tight, no wingers. Sigg and Lamela, rather than Townsend and Lennon.

But his options are quite limited at the moment due to injuries.

I guess he will pick Bentaleb at OT.
 
braineclipse said:
Harry Redknapp seems to know a thing or two about football, young players etc. He also probably knows a lot more about Tom Carroll than any of us. He seemed to snap at the chance to take Tom Carroll to a promotion chasing QPR side, make him their number 10 and make him a first team regular. At 21.

To write him off as someone who will never be more than a Championship standard player at this point seems silly. A good and experienced football manager rates him as a good Championship player already and we all know he's rather small and so likely to develop a bit later into a first team regular.
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I'll look for an article I read the other day that said he was the most influential player at QPR at. It was a stats based price and was around the amount of forward passes and key contributions to efforts on goal.... Modric stats basically

I watched them vs Leicester and he hardly left his own half to be honest and played very simple passes but I'd like him to at least get a chance with us, a real chance that is
 
theres no way to say that you are better off without a DM - its about the whole system of play on both sides, its about the players and how well hey can perform in their roles regardless of whether the formation is ahead of its times.

a DM concentrates a defensive resource into one role, without it defensive responsibilities are shared amongst the players. there's also a link between roles e.g. how good a CB is in coming forward to defend the area ahead of him (without a DM) and the chain-linkage of how the fullbacks follow up...
 
Modric THFC said:
Absolutely hilarious neither of those players have his passing range. But he's a deep lying playmaker and they're both attacking midfielders. They're gonna be more eyecatching if that what your looking out for. Carroll though is the engine of a team.
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This

And how sad there are always people who only ever appreciate of the former but ignored the latter.
You don't play football by only using either one way or one kind of player.
 
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Bedfordspurs said:
I'll look for an article I read the other day that said he was the most influential player at QPR at. It was a stats based price and was around the amount of forward passes and key contributions to efforts on goal.... Modric stats basically

I watched them vs Leicester and he hardly left his own half to be honest and played very simple passes but I'd like him to at least get a chance with us, a real chance that is
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I watched them against Blackpool and IMO QPR didn't exactly play to what Harry said. You can see the whole team were not playing to Carroll's strength / style . If you are going to build around him you got to give the rest a signal / concept / instruction that we are going to play a passing game.
However i can't see anything near to that . But it seems expect-able from a HR team as he never put too much focusing on the details .
I doubt his (Carroll) best could be get out under such situation TBH.
 
BrainOfLevy said:
That's true. I think it was important that Bale and Lennon were hard working, meaning we effectively had a midfield 4 all hussling to win the ball back and playing a deeper defensive line, so when we did get it Bale and Lennon could join the strikers and be found by the excellent passers in central midfield. Maybe we are going back towards something like that.

If the 2 wingers weren't hard working and weren't dropping in to create a solid midfield 4, it certainly wouldn't have worked as well against the bigger teams.
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I think the full-back at that time which were Charlie and BAE made the defense and the shape much organize as both of them are not a attacking-mind full-back who love to push up that much hence the whole team looked balance enough.

I think if we keep playing 442 we really need a DM (excellent defensive mind , positioning and game reading are the priorities IMO) as he needs to cover up lots of space when the team push up or the FBs drive forward. At this moment i doubt Sherwood'd ever play Capoue but from what i saw once Bentaleb came in it was so obvious that he play a deeper role and know what to do . The pair of Holtby + Eriksen didn't work TBH and we could have conceded more than 1 goal in the first half should Vydra catch his chance.
 
Holding Midfielders

Tottenham coach Les Ferdinand believes the holding midfielder is an unnecessary staple in many of today's football teams.

The former Spurs and England striker, who is now part of the coaching team at Tottenham headed by Tim Sherwood, has bemoaned a 'crop' of players who don't want to cross the halfway line.

He told the Tottenham and Wood Green Journal: “I know there’s a lot of talk about holding midfield players, and I’m always arguing with Tim and Chris (Ramsey) about this – and they agree,” he said.

“I don’t like holding midfield players. I like players to understand that if one goes forward, the other one tucks in for them. I don’t want someone who just sits in front of the back four and doesn’t go anywhere. I was saying to William Gallas when he was here, the worst thing that happened in this league was Claude Makelele.

He added: “When Makelele came into this country he wasn’t a holding midfield player. He was a player who had the intelligence to say ‘Frank [Lampard], you can score more goals than me so if you go I’m going to tuck in here for you, and I’ll hold. You keep going forward’.

“Then everyone went ‘right, we’ve got to have a holding midfield player’ - and what we’ve done is produce a crop of players who don’t want to go over the halfway line, who don’t want to pass over the halfway line and are happy to just sit in front of the back four.

The 47 year-old's view may give us some insight into why last summer's £9m signing, Etienne Capoue has been told he can leave White Hart Lane this month after being deemed surplus to requirements by the current regime.

Tottenham face Manchester Ciy on Wednesday night and Ferdinand believes the success of Spurs' opponents vindicates his view.

“People say Yaya Toure is a holding midfielder. No he isn’t, he’s getting forward and getting goals - but if someone else goes he’ll stay in there.

“Fernandinho’s scoring goals. Why? Because he’s a holding player? No. They’ve just got an understanding: ‘If he goes, I’ll hold, and if I go he’ll hold’.”


http://www.standard.co.uk/sport/foo...e--tottenham-coach-les-ferdinand-9090259.html


Interesting insight into where we may be heading. I know that defensive midfielders with no passing ability and a poor first touch who are in the team just to sit back and "rough em up" annoy the **** out of me. But it's an interesting point as I do think you need intelligent defensive cover in the centre of the park.

Cast your minds back to August 2011, and Harry made one of the biggest tactical ****-ups I've ever witnessed. He played 4-5-1 at home to Emirates Marketing Project. Not that unusual, except he played 5 attacking midfielders. Bale, Van Der Vaart, Modric, Kranjcar and Lennon were all excellent players, but the fact that none of them were defensive based meant that City continually carved us open down the middle, with Aguero, Nasri and co having all the time and space in the world to run down the centre and tear us to pieces. We lost 5-1. And if we try similar tactics tomorrow night, the same thing will happen.

There have been times in which we've played Dembele and Bentaleb - neither a natural holding midfielder, and looked extremely open under Tim. But I'm wondering if that's just teething problems with them learning their responsibilities, or if it's a flawed strategy. Or perhaps the players aren't smart enough to play together in this way, even if their individual attributes in terms of tackling, stamina and speed at getting into position are good enough but they're not using them properly.

What do you all reckon? Are we done with players like Capoue? Or do they sitll have a use at this level?
 
Re: Holding Midfielders

all he is saying is that he doesnt agree with a midfielder simply sitting deep in the middle all the time and doing fcuk all else. I agree, i much prefer the Emirates Marketing Project way where both centre midfielders are encouraged to take turns in venturing forwards, one goes and one sits back.
 
Re: Holding Midfielders

I've seen everyone on Twitter going mental about this. For me I kind of agree. I admittedly was one who was saying Capoue should be playing in place of Bentaleb because there were huge gaps between defence and midfield.

But I do subscribe to the Arrigo Saachi school of thought. Not one to believe in the specialist postion. Instead believing it is the teams duties rather than an individual to defend

http://m.bleacherreport.com/article...-how-arrigo-sacchis-ac-milan-took-down-europe

I don't read this as Sandro has no future at the club. I think it's a positive. We want to play football through the side.
 
Re: Holding Midfielders

it used to be the same with Arsanal when they had Petit and Vieira. Both could put a tackle in, but both also took it in turns to break forward. Its simply about having intelligent players in the middle who work well together
 
Re: Holding Midfielders

Spurs7891 said:
So, is Sandro going to be the next player to be sold by Sherwood ?
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Id say that Sandro has the ability to be more than just a holding sitting midfielder anyway, so it will be up to him to improve
 
Re: Holding Midfielders

indianspur said:
Id say that Sandro has the ability to be more than just a holding sitting midfielder anyway, so it will be up to him to improve
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It will be interesting how Sherwood deal with Sandro when he returns. I think this is where Sherwood's lack of experience as the manager will affect him.
 
Re: Holding Midfielders

To wonder what Sherwood will do with a player like Sandro, you only need to look at what kind of player Sherwood was himself. I personally don't think Sherwood has a problem with defensive based midfielders, more that he'd like for them to have some attacking attributes too and not just sit back the whole time.

[video=youtube;_GWaMKmEUPU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GWaMKmEUPU[/video]

[video=youtube;0qKrT0mMkkU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qKrT0mMkkU[/video]

Think Sandro has proven himself to be more than competent going forward when he needs to.
 
Re: Holding Midfielders

We have seen in the past that teams that have an out and out destroyer in the midfield can come unstuck with opposition teams just letting him have the ball and marking up the rest and wont be able to do anything with it. I subscribe to the fact that a midfielder should be adept at all facets of the game and dovetail with any and all fellow midfielders. You dont have to be a destroyer to win the ball back. Modric was great at winnning back possesion, so is Dembele, and if you have seen many chelsea games you will see also that Oscar is very good at it also and was why Mourinhio preffered him over Mata.

When we had Freund in the team or Palacios etc it awful to watch teams lay off them knowing they could do almost nothing offensive with the ball at their feet. Possesion plus tenacity as a team can win over the need for an out and out destroyer. But with all that Said I think that Sandro has more in his locker than just being a destroyer. his long range shots have shown that he has shooting ability. He has also shown a decent surge with the ball at his feet in the past.
 
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