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A gettable deep playmaker (pure speculation once again)

NaijaSpurs said:
Another midfield player is not what we need month, rather a striker and a left back
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Aside from getting a truly exceptional striker who can create chances out of nothing (like a Suarez or Aguero if we can find an affordable version) then whomever plays up front for us needs some decent service and ever since Modric left us (combined with the 2012 deadline day failure to sign Moutinho) our midfield has looked incapable of creating clear cut chances for any of our strikers (as they are all beasts who lack the guile to play defence splitting through balls).

Imho that largely explains our strikers' poor scoring rates in the Premier League over the past 17 months / 55 matches...

Defoe: 254 minutes per goal (compared to 166 mins per Premier League goal over the previous 6 seasons)
Soldado: 276 minutes per goal
Adebayor: 328 minutes per goal (compared to 163 mins per Premier League goal over the previous 6 seasons)

We definitely need another LWB in the squad to provide some cover / competition for Rose though.
 
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I don't think we need anymore midfielders, but I do think we need a settled three in there that have good movement. We could go the gooner route of having four central midfielders all of the same mould sitting behind the striker with one mobile DM sitting in behind. Something like:

Holtby--Eriksen--Carroll--Lamela
------------Sandro-------------

Given the players we have you could easily role in Sig, Dembele, Chadli or Paulinho into one of those roles although in the case of Paulinho and Demebele only one of those at a time. I only used those players above as they are all of a similar ilk, able to spot a pass and score some goals, although I feel we would need more goals from that lineup from somewhere. Lennon and Townsend could be used in games where we needed to setup on the counter. From what limited football I have seen of Carroll, he like Lamela, Holtby and Eriksen seems best in the final third and not deep lying but he does have better off the ball movement than most in our squad

On a side note when you consider the youth prospects people go on about (Pritchard, Ceballos, Bentaleb, Kane), all of those could slot into that system if need be. I think we have the creativity in our squad, we just need to cultivate it properly. Heck on current form even Livermore could come in for Sandro as a far more mobile DMF.
 
Totally agree that this is one of our biggest problems Braineclipse, and the reason that I've hated seeing Dembele and Paulinho as our CM duo.

However, I still hope Capoue can play that Carrick role for us. He certainly showed signs of it before he got injured, and for Toulouse he averaged 64 passes a game (10-24 more than his fellow CMs). (For comparison, Paulinho is the CM with the most passes per game for us at 47, despite us having more possession than Toulouse did).
 
Just to illustrate the issue, here are some passes-per-90-minutes figures for midfielders at some of the top possession teams:

Canas 77
Ramsey 77
Carrick 77
Toure 76
Gerrard 71
Barry 70
Dembele 57
Ramires 55
Sandro 51
Paulinho 49
 
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elltrev said:
Just to illustrate the issue, here are some passes-per-90-minutes figures for midfielders at some of the top possession teams:

Canas 77
Ramsey 77
Carrick 77
Toure 76
Gerrard 71
Barry 70
Dembele 57
Ramires 55
Sandro 51
Paulinho 49
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hmm, i must admit...my interest is peaked
 
elltrev said:
Just to illustrate the issue, here are some passes-per-90-minutes figures for midfielders at some of the top possession teams:

Canas 77
Ramsey 77
Carrick 77
Toure 76
Gerrard 71
Barry 70
Dembele 57
Ramires 55
Sandro 51
Paulinho 49
Click to expand...

Yup, the fact that Walker (58) and Dawson (53) have been doing the most passing for us this season is a sad indictment of how devoid of creativity our midfield has become.

Although according to http://www.whoscored.com/Teams/30 Paulinho is our top midfield passer with 46 per game, Dembele trailing behind on 39 and Sandro managing a mere 27 passes per game 8-[

Just to show how important Modric was to our passing and creativity...

Average passes per game:

2011/12: Modric - 70; Assou-Ekotto - 59; Parker - 59; van der Vaart - 49; Walker 48
2012/13: Dembele - 49; Vertonghen - 48; Naughton - 48; Walker - 44; Parker - 44

Key Passes per game:

2011/12: Modric - 2.7; Bale - 2.3; van der Vaart - 2.3; Adebayor - 1.8; Lennon - 1.7
2012/13: Bale - 2.4; Lennon - 2.0; Dembele - 1.9; Walker - 1.7; Adebayor - 1.1

Accurate crosses per game:

2011/12: Bale - 1.3; Modric - 1.3; van der Vaart - 1.2; Assou-Ekotto - 0.7; Lennon - 0.6
2012/13: Bale - 2.0; Assou-Ekotto - 1.1; Walker - 0.9; Huddlestone - 0.5; Sigurdsson 0.5

Accurate through balls per game:

2011/12: Modric - 0.5; van der Vaart - 0.4; Bale - 0.3; Parker 0.3; Adebayor - 0.2
2012/13: Parker - 0.3; Lennon - 0.2; Defoe - 0.2; Dempsey - 0.2; Naughton - 0.2
 
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Mumorn said:
I'm sorry but Eriksen for me has all the ingredients to play there.
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Astonished his name wasn't mentioned sooner - surely he is far and away the best candidate!? Absolutely no need to look elsewhere with Carroll to understudy him too.
 
Mumorn said:
I'm sorry but Eriksen for me has all the ingredients to play there.
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He certainly got the skills but at the moment he is maybe too lightweight although that was also said about Modric. He could be the answer, will be interesting to see if Sherwood will play him there on a regular basis.
 
Simon_B said:
He certainly got the skills but at the moment he is maybe too lightweight although that was also said about Modric. He could be the answer, will be interesting to see if Sherwood will play him there on a regular basis.
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Some of the Danish guys on here were mentioning that he plays for their Denmark. I think he'd flourish there for us. Proper heir to the Modric thrown.
 
Mumorn said:
Some of the Danish guys on here were mentioning that he plays for their Denmark. I think he'd flourish there for us. Proper heir to the Modric thrown.
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Being a Dane myself I can assure you that this has happened only a few times and with limited succes but then again he's surrounded by poor players so it's not fair to judge him only by these few appearances. Our national coach Morten Olsen almost never change his classic 4-2-3-1 where Eriksen always plays as a number 10. But as I said it may work to play him deeper, if he's given time to adjust to the role and if he plays alongside a more physical CM like Sandro.
 
SteveAWOL said:
Yup, the fact that Walker (58) and Dawson (53) have been doing the most passing for us this season is a sad indictment of how devoid of creativity our midfield has become.

Although according to http://www.whoscored.com/Teams/30 Paulinho is our top midfield passer with 46 per game, Dembele trailing behind on 39 and Sandro managing a mere 27 passes per game 8-[

Just to show how important Modric was to our passing and creativity...

Average passes per game:

2011/12: Modric - 70; Assou-Ekotto - 59; Parker - 59; van der Vaart - 49; Walker 48
2012/13: Dembele - 49; Vertonghen - 48; Naughton - 48; Walker - 44; Parker - 44

Key Passes per game:

2011/12: Modric - 2.7; Bale - 2.3; van der Vaart - 2.3; Adebayor - 1.8; Lennon - 1.7
2012/13: Bale - 2.4; Lennon - 2.0; Dembele - 1.9; Walker - 1.7; Adebayor - 1.1

Accurate crosses per game:

2011/12: Bale - 1.3; Modric - 1.3; van der Vaart - 1.2; Assou-Ekotto - 0.7; Lennon - 0.6
2012/13: Bale - 2.0; Assou-Ekotto - 1.1; Walker - 0.9; Huddlestone - 0.5; Sigurdsson 0.5

Accurate through balls per game:

2011/12: Modric - 0.5; van der Vaart - 0.4; Bale - 0.3; Parker 0.3; Adebayor - 0.2
2012/13: Parker - 0.3; Lennon - 0.2; Defoe - 0.2; Dempsey - 0.2; Naughton - 0.2
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Who scored just divides the thing in question (I.e. Passes in this case) by the number of apps, which treats a sub app the same as a start. I've got figures on actual minutes played from the official fantasy football site, so my figures are more accurate ;)
 
elltrev said:
Who scored just divides the thing in question (I.e. Passes in this case) by the number of apps, which treats a sub app the same as a start. I've got figures on actual minutes played from the official fantasy football site, so my figures are more accurate ;)
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Ahhh, good stuff! Following your lead, I've calculated our top 5 passers rates over the past 3 seasons... The Key Pass figures suggest that Eriksen is indeed the natural heir to VdV as our #10 whilst Capoue and Holtby appear to be the closest we've got to Carrick and Modric for the deep midfield playmaker role currently :-k

Attempted Passes per 90 minutes:
2011/12:71 - Modric63 - VdV61 - BAE53 - Parker50 - Walker
2012/13:58 - Huddlestone57 - Naughton54 - Dembele48 - Vertonghen46 - Walker
2013/14:59 - Capoue58 - Holtby57 - Walker56 - Dembele52 - Dawson
Top 4 Rivals:77 - Carrick77 - Ramsey77 - Yaya71 - Gerrard69 - Barry58 - Lampard

Accurate Passes per 90 minutes:
2011/12:62 - Modric55 - VdV49 - BAE47 - Parker43 - Gallas
2012/13:50 - Dembele48 - Huddlestone47 - Naughton42 - Vertonghen38 - Walker
2013/14:52 - Capoue51 - Dembele48 - Holtby48 - Walker43 - Dawson
Top 4 Rivals:69 - Yaya67 - Carrick65 - Ramsey62 - Gerrard60 - Barry48 - Lampard

Minutes per Key Pass:
2011/12:31 - VdV33 - Modric39 - Bale40 - Lennon44 - Adebayor
2012/13:39 - Bale42 - Lennon43 - Dembele58 - Walker61 - Dempsey
2013/14:27 - Eriksen33 - Holtby36 - Chadli44 - Townsend48 - Lennon
Top 4 Rivals:22 - Silva28 - Mata28 - Suarez33 - Ozil36 - Rooney40 - Mirallas
 
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