Midfield: Amrabat or McTominay?

Borys said:
Playing Bruno in his default position wouldn't hurt - for starters. McTominay is occupying second striker role now, effectively pushing Bruno around.
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Bruno was at number 10 when we utterly domimated the ball in midfield vs AFC Bournemouth. We still didn't score thanks to the exact problem as yesterday!

Borys said:
Maybe the first goal doesn't happen if we close down Paqueta / or track Bowen. Either of those 2 things are infinitely more likely with Amrabat instead of McTominay on the pitch. That's second.
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I can respect the argument but Personally I don't buy that.

First Evans just switched off instead of keeping an eye on Bowen's run. Second, we've also seen Amrabat either beaten or stand off some one in that area so it's not necceserily true he'd press Paqueta there.

Furthermore, if we are brutally honest, Evans keeps his eye on their cf, Paqueta's glorious pass is rendered useless.

Thus even if I granted your premise. We still lose 1 nil thanks to Mainoo's error. No difference what soever if we change the midfield selection.


Borys said:
I'd argue that Amrabat is playing the deepest midfielder so maybe we would be able to escape the 2nd goal as well but that's a stretch.
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On that we agree.

Borys said:
This isn't only about McTominay, it's about the team being setup the wrong way as a consequence of his presence.
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Which is where we disagree. Right now he is just occupying the role Mount was bought for, in addition to being our top scorer thanks to our dead flanks.(Imagine the shame: Mctominay, Bruno, and Casemiro all have more goals than our forwards in the league!)

He strictly starts there now simply because both Mount and Eriksen have been injured. Thats It! This season ETH ditched his 4-2-3-1 for a 4-3-3 with one holder and two pushed up. ( i.e the wolves game at OT) The notion ETH "changed the set up to fix him in" is demonstratably wrong!

The ONLY thing that changes with him in the side is if he plays deeper than Bruno, unlike yesterday, he is purposely kept out of the build up phase of play. Otherwise ETH's current set up is one shield infront of defence, then two pushed up high, with either a fullback of a cb pushing up alongside the sole pivot for build up. Then without the ball the two pushed up drop all the way to between the sole pivot and the full back. That at times this season we have seen a Bruno making tackles almost at right back trying to ball win., for example.

Biggest issues we've had to the set up this term is first, the rotation of injuries in center defence and to midfielders. It has not only prevented us controlling the defensive space between our 3 man defence line, the sole pivot and the pressing 5, it has utterly stopped us developing ANY understandings and partnerships at the base and connector phases of the set up.

Then second and worst of all, our starting wide men have gone mentally AWOL either displaying little understanding of a creative wide attacker role (Rashford, Antony, to a lesser extent Garnacho for he is a kid), due to off field personal drama (Antony, Sancho) or have been injured (Amad) or plain under used (Pellistri)...not to mention straight up laziness (Rashford)

Me thinks till we find a solution out wide. Even with a return to full strength and midfield we will be in for misery. Like Rasmus has been going this goalless this long thank to his partner attackers hardly ever passing to him. I'll be impressed if we get to 10 goals over the next 8 weeks of football. Flabergasted is we hit 50 plus in the league this season.
 
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Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber said:
Bruno was at number 10 when we utterly domimated the ball in midfield vs AFC Bournmourth. We still didn't score thanks to the exact problem as yesterday.

I can respect the argument but Personally I don't buy that.

First Evans just switched off instead of keeping an eye on Bowen's run. Second, we've also seen Amrabat either beaten or stand off some one in that area so its no neccesrily true he'd press Paqueta there.

Furthermore if we are brutally honest, Evans keeps his eye on their cf, Paqueta's glorious pass is rendered useless.

Thus even if I granted your premise. We still lose 1 nil thanks to Mainoo's error. No difference what soever if we change thr midfield selection.



On that we agree.


Which is where we disagree. Right now he i just occupying the role Mount was bought for, in addition to beibg our top scorer thanks to our dead flanks.

He strictly starts there now simply because both Mount and Eriksen have been injured. Thats It! This season ETH ditched his 4-2-3-1 for a 4-3-3 with one holder and two pushed up. ( i.e the wolves game at OT) The notion ETH "changed the set up to fix him in" is demonstratably wrong!

The ONLY thing that changes with him in the side is if he plays deeper than Bruno, unlike yesterday, he is purposely kept out of the build up phase of play. Otherwise ETH's current set up is one shield infront of defence, then two pushed up high, with either a fullback of a cb pushing up alongside the sole pivot for build up. Then without the ball the two pushed up drop all the way to between the sole pivot and the full back. That at times this season we have seen a Bruno making tackles almost at right back trying to ball win., for example.

Biggest issues we've had to the set up this term is first, the rotation of injuries in center defence and to midfielders. It has not only prevented us controlling the defensive space between our 3 man defence line, the sole pivot and the pressing 5, it has utterly stopped us developing ANY understandings and partnerships at the base and connector phases of the set up.

Then second and worst of all, our starting wide men have gone mentally AWOL eitghed displaying little understanding of a creative wide attacker role (Rashford, Antony to a lesser extent Garnacho), due to off field personal drama (Antony, Sancho) or have been injured (Amad) or plain under used (Pellistri)

Me thinks till we find a solution out wide. Even with a return to full strength and midfield will be in for misery. Like Rasmus has been going this goalless this long thank to his partner attackers hardly ever passing to him.
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All true, but just blaming McT is the easy answer, it is like people have just forgotten how shit we were in the period between the league cup final and the Brentford game, with no McT.

The idea that Ten Hag is compromising his set up to include him has always been idiotic, he is playing the exact same role as Mount was with the same level of involvement in the game. That role, whisper it, doesn't really suit McT either as it exposes his technical issues when having to play in tight spaces, or on the turn.
 
Shake Jism said:
McTom 101 times out of 100.

Acrobat moves like anything but.
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Agreed. McTominay may be more suited to being a prominent player for a bottom half team, Amrabat doesn't have the level to play in the Premier League at all. Can't cope with the pace, either mentally or physically.
 
Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber said:
Bruno was at number 10 when we utterly domimated the ball in midfield vs AFC Bournmourth. We still didn't score thanks to the exact problem as yesterday.
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Was he? I am not sure. Looks to me like we always play the same system in which Bruno is not playing pure #10, not more than McTominay at least. Not saying Bruno is the answer, but surely Bruno in any other position than #10 ISN'T the answer to any question.

Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber said:
Which is where we disagree. Right now he i just occupying the role Mount was bought for, in addition to beibg our top scorer thanks to our dead flanks.

He strictly starts there now simply because both Mount and Eriksen have been injured. Thats It! This season ETH ditched his 4-2-3-1 for a 4-3-3 with one holder and two pushed up. ( i.e the wolves game at OT) The notion ETH "changed the set up to fix him in" is demonstratably wrong!

The ONLY thing that changes with him in the side is if he plays deeper than Bruno, unlike yesterday, he is purposely kept out of the build up phase of play. Otherwise ETH's current set up is one shield infront of defence, then two pushed up high, with either a fullback of a cb pushing up alongside the sole pivot for build up. Then without the ball the two pushed up drop all the way to between the sole pivot and the full back. That at times this season we have seen a Bruno making tackles almost at right back trying to ball win., for example.

Biggest issues we've had to the set up this term is first, the rotation of injuries in center defence and to midfielders. It has not only prevented us controlling the defensive space between our 3 man defence line, the sole pivot and the pressing 5, it has utterly stopped us developing ANY understandings and partnerships at the base and connector phases of the set up.

Then second and worst of all, our starting wide men have gone mentally AWOL eitghed displaying little understanding of a creative wide attacker role (Rashford, Antony to a lesser extent Garnacho), due to off field personal drama (Antony, Sancho) or have been injured (Amad) or plain under used (Pellistri)

Me thinks till we find a solution out wide. Even with a return to full strength and midfield will be in for misery. Like Rasmus has been going this goalless this long thank to his partner attackers hardly ever passing to him.
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We don't disagree actually, and the bolded part is THE problem - this whole idea of ETH new "double #10s" is flawed, and it makes even less sense to keep playing it with McTominay. I will even say that if we use the same personnel as yesterday and play more conventional 4231, we have higher chance of winning that this stupid single pivot/McTominay making runs into the box/ Bruno running like headless chicken all around the pitch shite.

I don't know where you got the part I marked red from, certainly not from me. We've been playing this system since the Lens pre-season game with some few and far between exceptions, we still have the same problems.

I don't blame McTominay for this, I actually said the same thing about Mount - there should NOT such a role in the team in the first place, this is purely on Ten Hag.
 
Borys said:
Was he? I am not sure. Looks to me like we always play the same system in which Bruno is not playing pure #10, not more than McTominay at least. Not saying Bruno is the answer, but surely Bruno in any other position than #10 ISN'T the answer to any question.


We don't disagree actually, and the bolded part is THE problem - this whole idea of ETH new "double #10s" is flawed, and it makes even less sense to keep playing it with McTominay. I will even say that if we use the same personnel as yesterday and play more conventional 4231, we have higher chance of winning that this stupid single pivot/McTominay making runs into the box/ Bruno running like headless chicken all around the pitch shite.

I don't know where you got the part I marked red from, certainly not from me. We've been playing this system since the Lens pre-season game with some few and far between exceptions, we still have the same problems.

I don't blame McTominay for this, I actually said the same thing about Mount - there should NOT such a role in the team in the first place, this is purely on Ten Hag.
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Fair enough. My point is though it's not really the set up hurting us. Its the utter dearth of quality in wide areas. Right now we are literally operating with arguably the worst set of wide men we've had in over 2 decades. .
Even worse we don't have enough quality center strikers to ditch the lot and play a diamond 4-4-2 or 4 - 3-1-2 or 4-2-2-2 or 4-3-2-1 instead packed with midfielders instead
 
It really doesn't matter, Ragnick was spot on, open heart surgery is required for this squad and there aren't many I'd keep around.
 
Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber said:
my point is it's not the set up hiring us. Its the utter dearth of quality in wide areas. Right now we are literally operating with arguably the worst set of wide men we've had in over 2 decades. .
Even worse we don't have anoigh quality attackers to ditch the lot and play a diamond 4-4-2 or 4- 3-1-2 or 4-2-2-2 or 4-3-2-1 instead ......
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The setup is definitely hurting us though. I don't disagree about wingers being shite, but at the very least we can isolate them against fullbacks and if Garnacho is given enough of those opportunities, something will end up at Hojlund/Bruno feet. But in order to set up winger against a defender in 1on1, we need to know how to move the ball through the defence and midfield. Doesn't seem to me like we have the slightest idea how to do it though.

We have enough fullbacks to play them in more attacking role, but again - that would require more "conservative" midfield setup and that doesn't seem to be in ETH plans.
 
mikeyt said:
It really doesn't matter, Ragnick was spot on, open heart surgery is required for this squad and there aren't many I'd keep around.
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It will take a billionaire to clear this squad out and pay these players contracts up and sell them, that's the only way to get rid of the likes of Rashford and Sancho due to the lucrative contracts they were given, no other club will pay those wages.
I think we have several more years of shit due to the incompetence of board mrmbe4s and our awful owners.

Who would have thought Spurs would be in a better place than us a few years ago, a new stadium and a decent team to watch.
Merry fecking Christmas.
 
Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber said:
How would having no mctominay vs west ham made a damned difference? It wasn't our midfield failing to control the game costing us. It was our wide players operating like football androids with freshly formatted memory stores that killed us all game. Even with Ambrabat we still lose two nil. {And NO this isn't "a defence of mctominay". Its bafflment at seeing anyone attempt to blame midfield selection for that defeat)
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Because we are a better side with a double pivot.
 
Kostov said:
Amrabat is not good enough, let's not waste a penny more on him and send him back to Italy in 5 days time.
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He has had two games where hes been outstanding, (Palace in cup and Chelsea) and the rest average or below average. I dont think we can send him back until casamiro is fit And proves he is up for it again. Its totally unfair to rely on a young kid, Mainoo to be our only number 6 And then if hes injured or ill we are stuck. So whilst the jury is out on Amrabat he is needed for now.
 
Amrabat is clearly superior to McTominay in all aspects of play except crashing the box.
 
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