Mogga
Member
Great summary. Funny how our best player this season can attract so much criticism, which if taken on the last two games alone would be justified. He is one eleventh of the team and is fulfilling his eleventh better than any of the other ten around him are fulfilling theirs. He can only influence the game so much from his position in front of the back four - the fact that the onus is on a player so far back to link the midfield to the attack is Tis's (bizarre) decision. The 'creative efforts' of the likes of Tully, B. Jones, Troy and in particular Dunne (who was embarassingly woeful going forward on Saturday [due to being played out of position]) was so horrible to watch.For me you completely right about him not creating or looking like scoring a goal for us, but at the same time he is being played in a similar position to Claude Makelele when he was at Chelsea, different types of players obviously, but covering the same area of the pitch. In that position he isn't ever going to be in the areas of the pitch where he is going to score or even create an assist unless he completes a 'Hollywood' 35/40 yard ball. In fact I would imagine Tis would go bananas at him if he popped up and made a run beyond the strikers and left a whacking great big hole right in the middle of our midfield, leaving the opposition strikers the freedom to drop into the 'hole' between our midfield and defence!
He often passes sideways because, as people have said, there is nothing going on around him (if only there were some decent wide players to give him more space!)
I think he's the best captain material we've had at the club for ages, and have seen him encouraging the players around him plenty of times. When did Matt Taylor ever open his gob?
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