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I was certain I remembered several poor passes from him directly to Leicester, but nothing in the video? Seems unfair to compare him to our other midfielders if only include the good stuff he did
This forum seems to be full of perfectionists. We haven't seen passes like these for many moons.
It's the fifa/football manager generation. Miss 1 pass and you're rubbish, it's getting a bit tiresome tbh.
He always played like that.
Agree with this. however we have had a few players over the past few years with good winning pedigrees who have failed to make that impact on the players around them. (Schweinsteiger/DiMaria/Ibrahimovic/Sanchez etc - sure you could make arguments for and against some of those btw)
Can Mctominay fans finally understand our frustration? The difference is the standard we've been holding him to.
Not to pile on but this post is symptomatic of a larger trend among Football followers who somehow expect perfection. Footballers rarely have flawless games, top central midfielders in particular the ones that have the ball relatively deep in their own half lose the ball cheaply and in a dangerous area probably once a game if not more either through a poor pass, a tackle or a poor touch. Also an other issue that I noticed people need to keep in mind that attackers miss the target a fair amount of times and they also often don't take the optimal option, that includes top players.
Absolutely. Our transition has already been better but Casemiro will be a game changer.
His 1st pass in that video, around the corner to Eriksen
Agreed. McTominay has a great attitude and has done well so far this season, but the difference in class is there for all to see. To be honest McTominay looks far more comfortable further up the pitch anyway.
McTominay is 25, there is no mentorship or drastic technical/mentality changes that we should expect.
I hope the level can be elevated rather than him being dragged down to a lower mean - at the very least, he can marshal the midfield and be the general in a manner we haven’t seen in a literal age. There’s a lot for every single midfielder here to learn from him - he tells them to go here or there, and they do it, should be the theme. It’s different to the players you’ve listed outside of Schweinsteiger because of position. This is one of, if not the most, catalytic positions on the pitch - a central hub that so much goes through and is governed by - without him, Kroos and Modric don’t even get the ball; without him the CB’s are exposed, and so on and so forth, so it’s exactly the same for us and he should be seen as a vital conduit because, as the player he’s coming here as, he is.
Sincerely hope you're right. Think you hit the nail on the head when you suggest hoping he can elevate rather than be dragged down to a lower level, which is whats happened in recent years to players at the club.
Fingers crossed. Erase the old attitudes and replace them with as many fighters and winners as you can.
There is no cut off period where as soon as a player hits their mid-twenties they can't improve their game, mentality and technical ability to become better all around player.
Modric didnt move to Madrid until he was 26... Clearly a very different player but you'd be silly to suggest he hasnt improved incrementally year on year
Who?
Neither Milner nor Henderson made drastic improvements when they joined Liverpool, that's totally removed from reality. I like to criticize Henderson but outside of his first season at Liverpool he was a good player that improved every year from 2012 to 2020. Milner was also a starter and pretty good player for City, he didn't make a drastic improvement when he joined Liverpool, he was excellent for Villa and then generally good to very good for City.
And Modric was one of the PL best player, he had all the tools and refined his game as a deep lying playmaker. He didn't drastically develop.
just so i understand, you dont think Modric improved as a player from leaving Spurs until the point he won the Balon D'Or ?
How did you come to that conclusion? I said that he didn't drastically improve, because he didn't, Modric was one of the best midfielders around when he was at Spurs and while he refined his game, he didn't drastically develop. The way you are putting it, you would think that he was at McTominay's level and became a world class player which isn't the case. Also it wasn't through mentorship but part of the same growth that he has shown every seasons of his career.
I didnt come to that conclusion, Hence why i asked you to qualify. You said he didnt "drastically develop" i very clearly stated in my post, that hes obviously a very different player to Mctominay, not sure if its a strawman argument to claim i think they're comparable in ability. i was just using him as an example of a player who improved post 25.
I didn't draw any difference, I don't really get your point but I can see that you are somehow ignoring the point that I made which is centered around the word drastic. I didn't tell you that a player won't improve and I didn't use the term drastically just for the sake of it.
That’s an interesting point. Do you think it’s easier for a defensive/central midfield player to be perceived as having a bad game than an attacking player is?
You are right, on about 3 occasions he turned over the ball in midfield which led to Leicester putting pressure on us. He played good when he came on, nothing special. People will see what they want to see, he's played maybe a half of football in total so far, so not enough minutes to say he's great or he's bad. Both sides need to give him time to have a run of games before labelling him great or bad.
I think so, it seems that people are more likely to label a regular 'poor' action as a mistake when they are looking at defenders while the term unlucky is more often used for attackers. Now I would say that in both cases people expect too much consistency of outcomes which is a bit baffling because if defenders were perfect no goals would be scored and if attackers were perfect dozens of goals would be scored per games. The narratives that people follow make no sense.
