"Dembeles main quality is keeping the ball,his strength, and short bursts yet his distribution is weak ... his goal return is extremely poor" So we want him to : - improve his distribution once he comes to the end of his little runs. - stay focused all game - have a few more shots on goal than he is inclined to Not insurmountable problems, are they.
First two are do-able, the 3rd isn't, his shooting is and has been constantly woeful, very very rarely on target, I'd much rather he teed someone else up.
"his shooting is and has been constantly woeful, very very rarely on target" Not sure I could even count the number of shots he has had on one hand. And that includes the Lyon goal (and my suggestion for trying a bit more often) .
If I told you Mark Hughes signed Dembele for Fulham, as a forward, what would your first response be?
"If I told you Mark Hughes signed Dembele for Fulham, as a forward, what would your first response be?" Had more money than sense. But until I see irrefutable evidence that Dembele is Steffen Freund in disguise, I would like to see him shoot a bit more than he actually does.
The reason for that is the player himself admits he's ****, that shows with his propensity to get rid asap. I think MD's worst aspect is his mind, happy to play in his comfort zone only, and despite many managers cajoling him to do more, doesn't really believe in himself enough. At his age now, old dog and new tricks spring to mind, he is what he is. Providing he puts others in who are better at it and his retention is 100%, I don't mind. He needed to add goals to his game before, with our signings its not that imperative now imo.
For someone who should be accustomed to playing in the forward areas of the pitch, he looks like a fish out of water when he gets in these parts for us. There was a point in the first half when a Norwich player was just inside our half with the ball at his feet. He looked up, saw Rose was closing him down, so he turned and passed it back. Two more backward passes and the ball hass gone back 50 yardrs to John Ruddy the keeper. Now we have all seen away teams do that, but I have seen Dembele do this in home games. I suppose it can reasonably be argued if he is keeping possession then the opposition can't hurt us as they haven't got he ball, but for all his strength and close control, he really could be offering more going forward than he does.
I think all of us on here feel that way about him. It seems to be a trait of our side even if Naughton and Dembele are often picked out as the main parties guilty of it, it's hard to tell whether it was on AVB's instruction or the player's decision. Anyway, Norwich was a marked improvement from most of the games we've had under AVB, lets hope this is a sign of things to come.
This is why I dont hold much hope for a great improvement as Dembele is what he is, and Avb is happy with his overall peformance so how can Dembele improve aspects if no one at the club is talking to him about his role.
i don't for one second believe nobody is talking to one of the players about improving. Thats what coaches are FOR and we have plenty of coaches who know what they are doing.
The coaching will mostly be about team setup and how the players interact as generally when you get to dembeles age the player has to take the role of working on his game yet in all honesty im not sure if Dembele has the right mentality and considering hes been lacking consistency and switching off in games since he arrived then I doubt our coaches have had much involvement on issues we can see.
I see Dembele as halfway between a defensive mid and a box to box type, and think he's doing his job, which is to help us control the ball and midfield in general, help get the ball from back to front for us, and prevent the other team from doing the same. We've had two games with him and Paulinho, and we've completely controlled both, so he deserves some credit, I think. (I do remember his glaring error, though, and found it pretty inexcusable.) It's a very close call for me whether he would be better with Paulinho than Sandro or for that matter Capoue, who's looked good so far. We'll see. Paulinho got forward to better effect, and had an assist, which are very good signs. I don't see why he wouldn't when paired with either of the others, though. He just may benefit from Dembele's dribbling. Dembele had a couple of incisive passes Saturday, but he hasn't had many overall. I wish he'd shoot more, to be honest. I remember the winner in the Europa last year, and one which just missed the corner this year. It's Paulinho, Capoue, Townsend and Walker who shouldn't be shooting from distance. In any case, if any two play as well as Paulinho and Dembele did Saturday, I'll be pleased.
Notso, if we are ever allowed to play 11 + Dembele, then I would be delighted for him to come along on that basis. So long as we are only allowed to field 11 of our highly talented squad at a time though, personally I would want more than someone who's "happy to play in his comfort zone only". We have got a ****ing beast of a player sitting on the bench in Sandro who will win the ball most of the time in a 20/80 situation and then play in a creative player, and he should not be sat on the bench so that we can play someone who just coasts through games, apparently happy so long as he doesn't do anything all that bad.
Two players for each position is all I've got to say to that. You also need to look round at other teams deep midfield pairs, few have goals in both. The more I think about it, why push for more from MD, just iron out the negative backpass. We have Paulinho, so with him and a front 4 with goals and creativity, is it necessary? One of them has to sit while the other is forward, and of the two I'd rather Paulinho be the one that pushes on. To use Chelsea again, they have Lampard and a front4, more than enough attacking, do they expect more goals and this n that from Mikel, an unfashionable player but obviously necessary, keeps possession for Chelsea. What I would say there is, that of out the two, I would still prefer MD as he's got more about him, providing he can cut out the going backwards. As for comparing with Sandro, thats worth a thread on its own perhaps, I'd need clarification on his fitness, but he doesn't look there yet, I might be wrong but he doesn't look as lean as pre injury, he may have bulked up, don't know, but I'd like to see him start on Thursday just to get a better look ourselves. One thing that has come out, is that our coaching staff will not let any player start until they are ready to. I've noticed frustration when we've seen players return to the bench and not given the minutes we think they should have, but so far I haven't seen the clubs new approach go wrong, as in rushed back a game or two early and the player get a recurrence. This has happened to Lennon for example a few times, injured, comes back too soon, gets a niggly knock, out for another week. So I disagree with throwing Sandro into start a PL game atm, as I said earlier though, our next game is ideal, but if he doesn't I would trust that decision. He's starting out alongside Paulinho as our 'in front of the back4 pair', so predominantly his role will be to do that, we have a number of clean sheets this season, and we don't seem to be giving as many fouls away outside our own box, so is there any reason avb should be unhappy with that? We don't need him to be Eriksen now.
