Holy ****. First it was Stu as a striker and now it's Oriol as a 10... You know I'm a fan of Ralph (largely) but I am starting to think the man has lost the plot.
Well he's not advocating Oriol as a 10 is he - he's simply giving him license to go forward with Lavia the one sitting back.
Can we please hurry up and sign a striker and another creative player so Ralph can stop embarrassing himself with this sort of thing. Quick, someone reopen the Saint Liam! thread.
I'm a fan of the idea that Romeu can go forwards. He's strong, a good tackler so if he wins the ball he can drive forwards rather than look for a pass straight away. It's not a crazy idea by any means. He's also got a good shot on him.
Perhaps these perceptions will be on the line of Joelinton's successful move to midfielder. If it comes off Ralph walks on water, fail and there'll be shouts of sack them all, sack them all, the long and the short and the tall.
I understand it as Romeu lacking the mobility and athleticism to be the sole holding midfielder in a three player midfield (probably true) but whatever. Makes sense for him to operate on the right side of that kind of setup as he has a reasonable passing range.
I like Ralph, but it's a fine line between genius and mental and he doesn't very often cross the line into genius.
The insane part is that if he is after a cultured attacking midfielder who can create and score goals, we have just let one go on loan to Stoke for the season. no idea why he is saying that Oriol can score goals. He’s a wonderful footballer but I’m sure even he would admit goalscoring is far from his niche
I like this attitude, shows a bit of character. Instead of buckling under the pressure of the "Ralph out" brigade he's confronting them head on. It's a "criticise me and this is what you'll get" type of thing. Twitter and The Echo letterbox will be red hot.
Where does it say this? As I read it, all Ralph us saying that there’s only room for one DCM ( and Lavia is nailing it ) so Romeu may be accommodated further forward in midfield
You’d think if we are playing 3 in midfield and Lavia js the “lonely 6” then the other two will be JWP and either Armstrong or Aribo? Lavia, JWP and Romeu seems too defensive
Oh I’m not disputing that but with 5 subs and cup runs we’re going to see some rotation and Romeu still has something to offer. Ralph likes players to be flexible / adaptable to different positions and I see this as an olive branch saying ‘we still need you’
It's interesting because this "lonely 6" thing is an issue in 5-3-2 but not in the 4-2-2-2 And I assume the main reason we are not using that at the moment is due to the full back issue (and we had that sorted for oh such a brief period of time!) But I guess in a 4-2-2-2 the two 6s might well be JWP and Lavia. But having options will be good. And rotation. Since Romeu can clearly play as a 6 in the double 6 system. I guess it is kind of the difference between Kante and Matic. Matic was never quick or mobile enough to play as a sole defensive midfielder (if I remember correctly). But Kante was
Honesty a bit bemused by the idea that we should push Romeu up the pitch, and not Lavia. Lavia has already shown more willingness to move the ball forward than either Romeu or JWP, so he'd seem like the more natural fit as one of the box-to-box players in the 5-3-2.
