I’m not sure Iraola can change the mentality of our midfielders and be able to coax them into being more disciplined. VVD’s loss of pace has also greatly impacted things.
Getting a DM and changing things a bit tactically seems a bit easier. But you could be right.
Mentality can be changed through coaching.
Gerrard 2013/2014 became our holding midfielder, Gravenberch 24/25 was excellent as a 6, when he was asked to be conservative.
Players can be coached and their mindset changed, if it is what they want, they will still want to bomb forward but if the intructions aren’t there they will stay.
It is the same as under Slot, where our use of the ball became conservative, players stopped hitting risky passes in favour of keeping possession, it even happened to Trent in the league winning season his numbers were far lower in the offensive aspect to previous seasons under Jurgen.
Its Camara, apparently its a done deal between Monaco and us and he arrives in Jan
Perhaps a more defensively minded midfielder however I don’t think Iraola would ‘want’ an out and out DM. As it stands I’m with this thinking.
As it stands our players imo have ‘bad’ habits and awareness however taking Szoboszlai as an example when central he does lots of stuff both in possession and out of possession I don’t like. Put him at right back he no longer commits them and becomes quite a beast. So there’s something there to work with.
The way he closes down for example is awful to watch. Run directly at the man in possession (something even a goalkeeper at this level can deal with) get close then jump behind the player leaving all the space he just covered open. He doesn’t do this when at right back, perhaps he needs that touchline?
All our midfielders in possession carry the ball too much and far that should be easy to iron out if they are willing.
P.S the way we defend is like we’re playing against ourselves, this has been a feature for a long time, we expect when pressing a player in possession that they will pass it backwards. Unfortunately that is very rarely the case without a very good targeted press press from 10 players.
No one is ruling them out but there’s a difference between giving them a chance and relying on them before they’re ready.
Levi Colwill is a good example. A season on loan in the championship showed he was probably good enough to play in the PL. A loan to Brighton confirmed that. Then Chelsea give him his chance but even then he’s one of six options they have. He gets time at CB and left back and if he’d struggled or needed pulling out they had other options.
There’s people here saying Ndukwe should be our fourth choice option next season based on a couple pre-season games.
It’s great to get excited by young lads but we have to be realistic. Very very few make the grade coming through the ranks at a club like ours. And even fewer at CB because the judgement of CBs is so harsh and it’s so hard to find minutes here and there.
By all means we should be trying to develop these lads and they could save us a fortune in the long run if even just one has a decent first team career. But what you can’t be doing is throwing them in the deep end with no safety net. Especially if that deep end is alongside a 36 year old and two other lads who have very limited experience themselves.
this bar is too high
the only way to NOT do that ( i.e Liverpool not being a massive step up) would be to buy first team players from the likes of Bayern, PSG and Madrid…
we just cant do that 11 times ( or even say, 5-8 times) for the same cycle of the team.
Hasn’t he already pre-signed the contract for if we were to activate the buy-back clause or something?
He may have agreed terms on a contract, but I’m not sure that means he has signed it and/ or that it is enforceable if he no longer wants to be here.
I thought part of the reason he left was to be a regular starter, so unless we have that on the table I can see him holding off from the move back.
I like Jarrel, but the jump from there to being, the leader, is too much to start with
But why is it 2 real CMs we need?
What´s the logic?
How many times are we going to fall for this?
So the wait is “almost over”…to announce a signing for Jan…when it’s the 4th September…
nearly 1
There might be some confusion here due to my wording. For me none of the midfielders operate as CMs (we often end up with 3 lined up axially which leaves massive channels.
We don’t ‘need’ to buy 2CMs, which is what I feel you might have understood, however the 2 deeper players need to change their ways so the operate as a ‘real’ CM unit.
I feel a DM would make the present situation of poor positioning more likely.
For me we lack discipline and need a mental reset.
As for what will actually happen we’ll see I’ve found the 1st 2 games this season interesting. Tonight I’ll be interested again who and where Iraola mines our lads up. Problem is time is becoming short CL starts then international breaks which will drastically reduce the time the whole squad have for coaching.
Ah right okay. Yeah I was curious why you felt the team needs 2 CMs (rather than a DM) to work, though I also kinda made it sound like you were suggesting buying 2 which isn´t what you said.
Really just curious why you think a DM would make the poor positioning more likely?
Just as I imagine that DM would be more likely to be in a solid position more often, given they are more defensively minded and less prone to charging upfield. Do you consider it a bit disjointed if the other CM isn´t next to them?
Every time.
Our song literally said “walk on walk on, with hope in your heart”
It’s the hope that kills you.
For me it’s about spaces. If we have a DM we tend toward a 1-2 midfield will those be CMs or AMs?
If Wirtz is in there the space between the DM and the AMs tends towards being too much.
If you have DM, CM, AM then the space is left in the channels as we see at times with what we do now we don’t need to exasperate that.
When we played 1-2 it seemed obvious we needed a DM now with 2-1 I don’t see it. I prefer to look at the space between lines. Which I think means CM’s.
I think with a little adaptation we have the players for a 2-1 midfield. Which seems sensible as it stands.