The problem yesterday wasnât Schwarzer and Senderos, it was Sidwell and indeed has been for some time. That might appear to be a ridiculous statement, not least because I made him MOTM against Chelsea. However Iâd suggest itâs nonetheless correct because nobody can play with him; Diarra canât, Baird canât, Murphy couldnât. Thereâs no doubting his endeavour and for sure he âcovers every blade of grassâ. But thatâs the nub of the problem - heâs all over the place and lacks the discipline to hold a position. Or, to quote Bill Shankly, "He has football in his blood, but it hasn't reached his brain yet.". Sidwell just follows the ball and completely fails to read the flow of the game. Consequently others get exposed. My criticism has a caveat though. And that is, itâs primarily levelled at him when he is paired as one of the holding midfielders - in a 4-2-3-1 system. Not the formation we played against Chelsea Iâd hasten to add. By all means play him as the central one of the 3, if you want someone to hustle the opposition but then you would need to acknowledge another failing - Sidwell wonât hold the ball and/or create space to bring others into the game. Iâm not questioning the guyâs motivation, rather Iâm saying recognise his limitations and pick your team accordingly.
Firstly, LOL at the thread title. Secondly, I agree. He's a good played to have when we don't have the ball, but when we/he does have it, he makes little use of the possession. This is fine if he part of a central 3 because he has more options around him, but otherwise he just lumps it back to the defence.
I don't think it's just Sidwell who is to blame though. Both Karagounis and Diarra both on many occasions, rather than look for the forward pass, turn and pass the ball back to the defence or hoff it up-field. Karagounis was to blame for Hangeland's red card against Sunderland with a sloppy back pass that Hangeland has no time to get to. This is why Dembele was such an important member of our team, and Murphy before him. Both were attacking minded and always looked to pass forward to create openings rather than play safe and pass backwards. We desperately need an attacking CM in January.
Don't dispute that Bandit, but the point of the post concerned the immediate situation. There are after all, 5 league matches in December and potentially 4 in January before anybody new will be available. Also I didn't say Sidwell was the ONLY problem, I said playing him as one of the two 'holding' midfielders is THE problem which needs to be, and can be, resolved.
All the games that we've struggled in, including the ones immediately after Dembele's departure which we put down to missing him, have been ones where we were missing Ruiz. I'm more and more convinced that he has already taken over from Danny Murphy as the man who makes us tick, albeit from different areas of the pitch and in different ways. If he's fit and available next weekend, I think it will be a different story. Berbatov has - rightly - got a lot of credit since he came in, but the combination of the two of them is more than the sum of its parts and makes the rest of the team play better too.
He wouldn't be my first choice, but that isn't the same as saying I wouldn't play him. I think our recent loss in form is down to not being able to play Ruiz and Berbatov together very often. Sidwell is a symptom rather than the disease.
Sidwell and Diarra provide little creativity. I'd also say that Baird is not creative either. My preferred 2 would be Baird and Diarra. But its all like for like in the middle of our park. Karagounis can't do 90 minutes and is surely a stop gap to change formations - Chelsea - where he was excellent but if he was 1 of the 2 in CM he'd struggle all game for pace. Tavares - who knows but is holding by all accounts and seemingly not the answer. We'll struggle on with what we've got I feel.
We are struggling already. Spending in January is the only solution of getting someone decent or someone on loan.
