communicate

<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote'data-author="Superblue_1986" data-cid="560906" data-time="1355310065"><p> Are we overhyping the importance of an orthodox defensive midfielder?<br /> I look at United at the weekend and they played Carrick and Cleverley in the pivot. Cleverley is a more offensive midfielder and although Carrick is good defensively and plays a little deeper, I wouldn't say acting as a defensive shield is his strong point. None of their other midfielders (Fletcher, Anderson, Scholes) are orthodox defensive midfielders either.<br /> Real Madrid are another - the likes of Khedira, Alonso and Modric can all press and put their foot in but none are orthodox defensive midfielders with the prime target to protect the defence.<br /> If you have two midfielders with the legs to get around the park and press, but also have the intelligence not to push forward together and leave holes, this would allow us to utilise two midfielders with other strengths that are not just sitting and protecting the back 4.<br /> Just a thought...</p></blockquote> It's really depend on what you want from your midfield. The standard double pivot : a runner and a passer like you said clev/carrick or alondo/khedira. Time to time manu will play Carrick and scholes in mid if they want to boss the game better. The key is one of them have to be comfortable playing deeper and the other slighlty higher. What we have right now: Mikel/romeu : deeper not a passer Lampard: higher + passer - but is not young anymore to go up and all day Ramires: runner + higher So what we need is either an alonso type to play with rami or lampard type to play with mikel. If we can get one player who can play both it's even better. I was surprised we did not go for dembele last summer. I thought he defintely can play lampard role

He was also sucked at fk, I was confused why Barca asked him to take their FK. This season, he scored wonderful FK past casillas

Nah pep loves barca too much to do that and Thiago is xavi replacement

to be fair we actually have 2 player in every position torres/danny hazard/marin oscar/mata moses/danny rami/lamp romeu/mikel

Yap and I really hope there is going to be a big incident that will justify goal-line tech

Yap not really sure why. Early last year city was devastating, i was extremely impressed. Kolarov and richard bombed forward silva was just killing every team but since then i feel that their offense does not have any fluidity Manu in ronaldo era was just devastating in counter, this manu team can still score but I just don't feel scared whenever they attack/counter

Lol I really want to see Barca playing stoke-kind of team that is why I want Everton to qualify for UCL next season and be in the same group as Barca. I want to see how barca cope against everton who will thumb long ball to fellaini all the time.

- We don't need defenders until jt and cole are still here. - Midfield is the place where we need the most help. I really want us to get dembele last summer. Axel witsel = too expensive. Cabaya can be interesting if we can get him - Striker : I think huntelaar/lewandowski are reasonable targets

He is definitely the best player I have ever seeen The sad part about messi is that some people will still use he never win a world cup hence he cannot be considered one of the greatest TBH I don't see Argentina winning WC, you cannot win any major competition without good defense and Argentina defense is just very poor.

I have just realized after watching Manchester derby how awful top team in EPL have been this season. Our mourihno/ancelotti teams or Manu ronaldo era will win this EPL this season in landslide

Does open play excludes goal from corner and free kick ?

Quite impressed with romeu today, he looks pretty good

He still have problem adapting to the physical nature of EPL. He is not super fast nor athletic so I think it will take him a while to adapt and change his game a little bit.

Yap I thought he was quite poor defensively, he is just not suited to play double pivot in epl.

TBH changing his system to play around messi is a brilliant idea, you have a player who is that good in messi. why don't you want to bring the best out of him. Pep is not perfect, last year everybody questioned his 3-4-3 system and the way he played fabregas as left winger. He also tried to get rid of etoo . He made some questionable signing. But in the end he won 3 la liga,2 ucl, 1 quintuple (I think there was one season where they won everything) but can he be successfully in Chelsea I honestly don't' know

It does not matter who has the better team. My point is you cannot use "they have the best squad hence he is overrated"

We had the best squad in epl when mourinho was here. The best cb partnership. Wc midfielder. Arjen robben was almost unplayable. And we have drogba Mancini won 3 straight titles with inter before mourinho.

I really hate when people use they have the best squad as the reason. Madrid won la liga last year with the best squad in la liga and he also won it here with the best squad does it mean that mourinho is overrated. City won it last year with the best squad does it make mancini overrated Manu had the best squad almost every year and does it make SAF overrated when he won epl.

Messi is a better comparison because of his build and playing style. If he can be 3/4 as good as messi now, I'll be more than happy

The one thing that I like from today was the fact that he did not try to take on players When he received the ball, he will just lay it off to our AM, that's what i want from torres

Nobody says we are going to play tiki taka and it's about playing more possession football. Arsenal should have won the league 2 years ago but wenger was so tight with his money. They just need one big signing and the should have won the league. Nah Real is not a possesion team, I saw one interview that one la liga manager even said that they want madrid to have more possession because they are not that good at it. Ronaldo is just a good player in possession team but in counter attacking team he is outstanding. A good example is Bayern,team with plenty of technical player and try to boss the game

Comparing carvalho to luiz is just crazy because they are totally two different players, carvalho is a crafty defender who prefer to play as cover and he complement terry game very well as terry prefer to play as stopper on the other hand luiz has tendency to be very rash in his challenge and he also prefer to play as a stopper

Lol please do the yes part I cannot find any reason other than we probably will better at set pieces

are you sure ? Because I remember that everybody is praising inter for good defensive game and mourinho for his tactical genius. and they were actually excellent against bayern and barca. T

TBH the criticism was not because we played defensively, Inter played ultra defensive against barca+bayern and the received plenty of praises. The criticism was because we were battered against barca and bayern. It is one thing to play ultra defensive, it's another thing to concede so many chances.