Jibe said he wants to play box to box. He said ‘I’ll play wherever but I see myself as a box to box player’ or words to that effect. Smart move therefore is to try and use him that way, nobody will know Jobes strengths better than Jobe. Make him an 8
I think in Adil and Pritch we have more than enough in the 10 position. Data wise both of them stand out, albeit the sample size is small because both have not been used enough this season. Pritch is one of the top creative players in the league in terms of xA and Adil offers serious goal threat and has good creative numbers if you look at xG + xA. Both of them are underused, rotate these two in the 10 position and we will see major benefits.
Think it was just a lazy link due to Beale signing him for Rangers Was always going back to holland from what i heard, it was just a matter of which team
think i mentioned some pritchard/dack split but that was before dack became a sick note and adil had a chance to shine...as it stands, i guess we would all prefer to see pritchard start games with adil getting a good half hour to see the game out especially in the 'heavy months' of two per week. jobe showed his class in his first few games but seemed to drop off, the lad needs a break from the team and time to 'recharge' as i think many forget his age and this is his first real full season in a first team...why run him into the ground when other options are there. have to add i have been a lot happier with the defence since onien stopped 'grappling', just a shame about the injuries (again) but the new lads have done well.
We play with a 10 though so if we play Neil and Bellingham both as 8’s we still don’t have a proper 6 and that’s our Achilles heel at the minute
I know we play with a 10, unfortunately I think Jobe would look better in a different system. We could play a 3 of Neil as DM, Jobe and Adil as the 2 No. 8's as an example
I think Ekwah, Neil and Jobe could all play the 8 really well but we only need 1 if we want to play a 10 and it’s a problem imo. Leaving 2 of them out when you’re trying to give them as much game time as possible to boost their value is difficult it’ll be interesting to see if Beale changes it. I’d feel more comfortable with any of those 3 playing alongside Evans and Pritchard in a midfield than the 3 of them playing together
Could play Ekwah holding and Jobe and Neil box to box. You could swap Ekwah and Neil round in that too. We could do with another option in midfield. There's always O'Nien I suppose.
If we're going with that then for me it has to be Neil in the holding role. He's just much better and more effective at it. I have no idea why we've tried to turn Ekwah into a defensive mid this season, it takes away so much that is good from his game and renders him much less effective. It's been to the detriment of the team. Ideally we'll sign a specialist defensive centre mid this window. I'm in the minority but that would probably do for me this this window - I think it would be transformative. After that another top winger to compete with Clarke and Roberts then maybe a striker but only if Burstow's loan ends.
That’s generally what we end up playing when the 3 of them start with Jobe further forward. We could play Neil and Bellingham together in the middle with a proper DM… all we need is to find a F9 as good as Bobby Firminho
I know 99% of links turn out to be bollocks but I wouldn’t mind one for us appearing soon to kill some time until Saturday incoming anyway don’t need anymore Clarke speculation
Yeah, apparently Ekwah prefers playing box to box. Could be wrong but I believe he played holding sometimes before he came here. A proper holding player would be a benefit to the squad, a bit like a back to goal 9, I suppose. Both would just give us extra options that we don't currently have.
Lacking strength makes him unsuitable to be a holding player. Physique-wise he's more suited to a role slightly further forward and I don't think he's a natural holding player, although he's capable of being effective there.
