Forum Phoenix
Well-Known Member
Definitely some solid glimpses of him starting to express himself and put himself into the game in the second half I thought. But Tommy’s boots at this stage are a bit big to fill I’m afraid. Beyond his passing range, accuracy and fantastic reading of the game, he’s a fantastic defender. Whereas Liam I personally still think is a bit more attack minded / creative by nature as opposed to defensively hungry. And looking across the park I think this may also have put the balance a little off. If Roux was in at RB and McGing played DM alongside Wout I think it’s unlikely city would have had their spells of dominance,
Wout is a lot of defence with a little attack. Tommy is very balanced and like Monty will read and step up defensively if we’re being dominated or otherwise morph into an atracking player if we’re on top,
So I’m not sure how much was city and how much was missing Tommy... and Agree with what others have said, that we just we seemed ‘off’ outside of missing Tommy.
So I suspect it’s more than having a key player out but also the overall balance, and seemed to me the balance was wrong without another defensively strong DM behind what is a very attack minded front 4. I think kubi is probably best of our forwards defensively (and that’s of more use when he’s in the mids aswell) and Da Silva is amazingly 2nd. Hoole gets stuck in which I like, but is reckless and lacks a good defenders timing. Connor, just pressures to close down and keeps pace really. Which is good, but a good defender has to win the ball condistently which he does not.
So anyway, beyond missing a true 9, I thought a lot of our creativity was thwarted last week because we couldn’t build the way we now ike to as we didn’t have the central midfield control that we’ve had in most other games.
Wout is a lot of defence with a little attack. Tommy is very balanced and like Monty will read and step up defensively if we’re being dominated or otherwise morph into an atracking player if we’re on top,
So I’m not sure how much was city and how much was missing Tommy... and Agree with what others have said, that we just we seemed ‘off’ outside of missing Tommy.
So I suspect it’s more than having a key player out but also the overall balance, and seemed to me the balance was wrong without another defensively strong DM behind what is a very attack minded front 4. I think kubi is probably best of our forwards defensively (and that’s of more use when he’s in the mids aswell) and Da Silva is amazingly 2nd. Hoole gets stuck in which I like, but is reckless and lacks a good defenders timing. Connor, just pressures to close down and keeps pace really. Which is good, but a good defender has to win the ball condistently which he does not.
So anyway, beyond missing a true 9, I thought a lot of our creativity was thwarted last week because we couldn’t build the way we now ike to as we didn’t have the central midfield control that we’ve had in most other games.
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