Sandro still has the most interceptions out of any player in Europe despite being out injured since the QPR game,
Interceptions per game is top in the PL (I haven't checked the rest of Europe).
The PL's top interceptor is Morgan Schneiderlin. (His defensive record is amazing, he has been one of my favourite non Spurs players this season.) His interceptions per game is the same as Sandro's, but he has played more games now.
http://www.whoscored.com/Players/29544/
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However at present he appears to be the only Alternative we have to Sandro.
Well, that's the point. He's Sandro's understudy. For the record, we do have options though.
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Did he play that deep at Fulham does anyone know?
He played AM. In a couple of games, Dempsey was striker and Dembele was just behind him.
Usually though, he played ahead of the DM.
Dembele is number 30, Diarra the DM is number 19.
That said, Modric played AM in a far more advanced position than where we played him most of the time. (Which is why Modric playing in Ozil's position seems weird to us, we're used to him in Alonso's position.)
I really, really hope not. If there's one place Parker lacks the ability it's in his head. Worst possible choice for a coach - cheerleader maybe.
He has always said he wants to be a manager.
If AVB can get a new defensive midfield target in for a reasonable fee I think he will do so and that would probably mean that Parker would be on his way, but if not then I think we'll be happy keeping him around for another season.
Where does that leave Livermore? Livermore is 23, I think... If we replace Parker with someone younger, it would make Livermore 3rd choice DM but without Parker retiring being light at the end of the tunnel for him? I guess there has to be a stage where he has to step up to the required level or leave, but I wouldn't be confident with him being our main backup for Sandro and I don't think he's likely to feature as a replacement for Dembele in many matches (especially given the other players we have that can play there), but he is Spurs through and through... People talk about footballers being mercenaries and having no loyalty, but Livermore is the opposite. He'd play for us in the Championship, League One or League Two.
Staying on his feet, going for a block would have been a better option. That being said it's a quick decision in a crowded penalty ares, he just made the wrong decision. It happens and doesn't make him a terrible player.
I think it was a block. The only thing that made it a tackle was Carroll not shooting... There were plenty of players behind Parker trying to block too, but Parker tried to throw himself at the shot... His problem was simply that the shot didn't come, this is probably the first case of Carroll possibly outsmarting someone, out of all the things Carroll could have done, his dink was unexpected. I'm not sure Parker knew how many bodies we had blocking the shot.
I think against Arsenal it will be crucial that we defend more in a 4-5-1/4-3-3 than in a 4-2-3-1. We need that extra midfielder in there to make it tight and deny them space. Wheelchair and Cazorla can cause real problems if given even just a little space.
It's fine, as long as whoever is playing off the front does defend. Arsenal have a triangle in their midfield, the middle person in the 3 will have their deepest midfielder to pick up. In theory that means Carorla/Wheelchair will be picked up by Parker and Dembele, the person off the front will pick up Arteta (an important job anyway, all 3 of those midfielders needs to be picked up)... That said, Arsenal have used that triangle for years, what they like to do is tilt it. Wheelchair can sit, Arteta moves forward and if our players get confused, it causes havoc. What we want to do is have players designated to mark positions rather than the players themselves. That way we don't have Dembele marking Wheelchair when he is the deepest midfielder and Bale(/Dempsey/Holtby/whoever) marking Arteta when he is on the edge of our box. Bale should just pick up the deepest one, Dembele and Parker should just take the more advanced two.
So the difference between a 4-3-3 and a 4-2-3-1 picking up those 3 isn't going to be that big. They would be insane to bring all 3 midfielders forward and not leave any in a holding position. That's madness if you're playing any team, but given they have a weakness to counter attacks, we have a strength when it comes to counter attacks, we have Bale, we have a ton of other players that are good at counter attacking...
That said, Holtby, Bale and others that play in that area are usually good at running around to press and don't feel they have less defensive responsibility than the two behind them. I'm not sure all of our players have quite got the hang of blocking a potential pass as they run to press yet, but we should be ok. If Mertesacker plays and doesn't have a simple pass, his passing is extremely unreliable... Cheesey's passing has been awful too lately. Bayern Munich basically gave us another glimpse of how certain Arsenal players respond to not having easy passes. Ade, Lennon, Bale and whoever else makes up that front 4 should have a good idea of what they're supposed to be doing.
Going back to that Bayern match, Bayern played a 4-2-3-1 but Arsenal played Ramsey in midfield and pushed Cazorla on to the right wing, so we can't use that match as a blueprint or anything, but that was Arsenal trying to throw an extra midfielder in there so in theory it would have been harder to lock down, but Bayern were excellent defensively.
Holtby/Dempsey/Sig or whoever starts behind Ade has to be very disciplined in coming back right side of the ball.
To be fair, I think everyone that uses a deep lying playmaker just has that player sat on by whoever plays in that position. Generally if Pirlo, Modric, Alonso, Scholes, etc are left alone, they create havoc. I think whoever plays in that position for us will simply sit on Arteta the entire game. Sure, we'll be pressing so we'll switch it up sometimes but someone will always be sitting on Arteta, I don't see how we can play any other way. The way we defend should be pretty predictable. We can't ask Ade to chase both CBs and the GK, so we're likely to just line up as Bayern did.
(Ok, so offensively we'll be different, Arsenal will use different players, etc. But the actual shape of the team should be pretty much that. You can see where each person should be and if by some miracle Mertesacker does play, Ade should make sure he can't pass to whichever CB plays alongside him.)
The reason I believe it's a vision thing is that he seems to be playing as if he and the opponent with the ball are the only men on the pitch. It's what we're missing the most from Sandro's play - that ability to cut out the pass and press the holder at the same time (might also be an athleticism thing too).
This, all day long and not just Parker. Every player should be able to do this. It drives me nuts when Defoe, Ade, Holtby, Bale or any of our players don't do this properly.
I understand it's not possible all the time, but the amount of times players are so close to being in a position to do this that I could stand next to them and pull them into said position without moving my feet, it drives me crazy... It's not an effort thing either, Holtby for example is more than happy to run a long distance to close someone down, he is usually excellent at intercepting the ball so he must know where the potential passes will go, yet the times I wish he'd stop a simple pass at the same time... I love the guy but I feel bad for him when he runs for ages but at an angle that allows for a simple pass he could have prevented.
Carroll feigned to shoot and Parker threw himself in front of the shot (that was never was) but Carroll rather cleverly flicked the ball up drawing the foul.
I agree with this.
He didn't throw himself in front of the shot, that would have been a very different thing. If he did he wouldn't have clipped Carroll. He threw himself into a tackle.
Why wouldn't he have clipped Carroll? The closer you get to the ball making a block, the more chance you have of blocking a shot. There are two types of block, imagine a ball at the opposition corner flag, a defender is going to clear it... One of our players is nearby... The first type of block is trying to make yourself big. A player jumping up in the air with his arse out is one example I immediately think of when it comes to this type of block. The second block might look like a sliding tackle or a flying tackle... That block sacrifices making yourself big for getting your foot close to the ball. Parker attempted the 2nd type of block.
That 2nd type of block is not a tackle because it'd be a foul every time.
To be fair, if Parker had made himself big it could have hit his arm and been a handball, it could have hit him and deflected in... Parker went for the block that wipes a player out afterwards, it happens when players shoot all the time, the worst case scenario happened for him and he gave away a penalty. If he'd given away the penalty for handball or deflected a goal in, people will say he should have done something else.
Parker will be Parker and although he knows now that Carroll wasn't going to shoot, I'm sure if Carroll was going to shoot, he'd do the same thing again.. Instinct as much as anything else... If he knew Carroll wasn't going to shoot, he wouldn't have made a "sliding tackle" across a long distance which might have been given as a penalty even if he'd got the ball if he had knocked Carroll over afterwards.
It was Andy Carroll, from that position he wasn't going to score, he wasn't going to do a defence splitting pass that somehow would have created a goal from the brilliance of the pass alone... There's no way Parker would have risked that sort of tackle in that sort of scenario. On the other hand, if it was Messi, Parker still wouldn't have tried a slide tackle from there because he'd know Messi could have moved by the time he got there. I'm really not buying Parker being a risk taker defensively. He's usually much more conservative with his tackles too, Sandro makes sliding tackles, Parker doesn't do them nearly as often. He's usually a cool head too (aside from wanting to punch Mikel and the last minute red card in the NLD last year).
If on the other hand we can get someone in who could play alongside Dembele (or someone else) instead of Sandro, but who could also play alongside Sandro and give us some more options in midfield that would be great. If that player was also a bit younger, perhaps with potential to grow I think we would look to make a move. So, it depends not as much on Parker, but rather on who we can find to bring in.
That person is Holtby and we've already got him. Dembele has the ability to do a DM's job, he has the mental capacity to do it too, so he would be ok... If he wouldn't be ok, then I'm not sure who would be other than an out and out DM and as far as destroyers go, your post covers why we wouldn't get one of those to replace Parker. The only option would be a passing DM which isn't really a DM at all... Like Carrick. Dembele is better than Carrick defensively though.
( The thing is, I'm replacing Sandro with Dembele in that... Our current selection of Parker and Livermore are the only other two that are DMs... Even if Livermore is an unusual DM. I'm a bit worried about the Alonso effect when it comes to Dembele replacing Sandro, I wouldn't have Dembele as the only holding midfielder in a 4-4-2 without seeing him play DM a hell of a lot more first, but in a 4-2-3-1, he should be fine. I'm just a tiny bit paranoid that someone with good defensive qualities might not be able to play DM in certain scenarios. Alonso is the same, the first half of the CL final for Liverpool, the 5-0 against Barca for Madrid and a bunch of other games really haven't gone well when Alonso has had all that responsibility... And yet Hamann came on to play DM for the 2nd half of the CL final and bamn, working midfield. So I don't want to go out on a limb and sound like I'm suggesting playing Dembele against one of the best teams in Europe without anyone beside him, but against the weaker teams with someone capable beside him, there's no reason why that would be a disaster.)
As far as people that can play alongside Sandro, Holtby I'm sure could. The above point was about Dembele having to replace Sandro as the most defensive of the two, but with Sandro playing, it'd mean someone would have to replace Dembele... Holtby can do this, he is very different but he has the energy and willingness to close down of Parker, he has an insane interception rate, he can tackle, but he can pass and do things offensively which would make him a good partner for Sandro or Dembele playing DM. Plus, he seems like he can be trusted to protect against counter attacks quite well in the event that Sandro or Dembele does get caught forward for some reason.
AVB moved Holtby's signing forward when Sandro was confirmed out for the season. He also stopped Livermore from going out on loan. (I think it was Livermore anyway...) To me it seems AVB is happy with Livermore backing up Parker but has a plan for Holtby too.
I know Holtby is very capable of playing on the left when Bale plays behind Ade, but I think he is more likely than Dempsey or Siggy to play in CM.
Also, in the event that Hudds gets a bit of fitness back, scores some lucky goal somehow and gets to cut his hair, I think he's likely to be another option in CM for this season... It would be strange if we didn't sign any midfielders (including AMs) for next season if we get into the CL and we have so many AMs that an AM would likely have to play CM if we did get another AM.
He moved forwards towards Carroll. It was an attempted tackle, not an attempted block.
Every single block in the history of blocks should do this. Even when someone jumps up in the air they tend to move slightly towards the ball. If a wall jumps, they usually jump forward and that's not an easy group block to coordinate. If someone is going to throw something at your face, you instinctively move your face back and put your arm forwards in front of your face.
I've covered different types of blocks in this post already, but there are two types of block... If someone is throwing something at your face you can put your forearm in front of your face and make your arm big or you can stick your palm outwards and fully extend your arm. Both ways, you move your arm forward.
To block a shot is to move forward. Goalkeepers moved off their lines when saving penalties until the rule was changed, this is fundamental. If you had the choice of narrowing the angle and didn't take it, you'd be going against all logic, science and instinct.
