Started a whopping 6 games this season and wouldn’t even be their holding midfielder as their 6 is Dan Neil
He's a classic no 6. The fact you acknowledge his attacking contribution just shows he's better than the average at this level.
Alzate is way better than Seri. Maybe Seri before he came to us was the dogs bollocks, I have no idea. For me, I’d have got rid of Seri after the first season, he was an accident waiting to happen, he couldn’t pass out & create things like Alzate, his passes were safe & going nowhere. Maybe it was the way he was told to play, but if it was, it was a terrible decision!
It's no coincidence our midfield looked much worse when Seri was at AFCON, and ivory Coast improved when he went into the team.
I wouldn't go as far as you regarding Seri, as someone pointed out when he was at ACN we certainly looked worse. However, I do agree Alzate is better, not so one dimensional which Seri tended to be.
We also won 4 in 6 which was our best points return in that amount of games for the season. In fact immediately following his return we beat Southampton then didn’t win for 6 games! I loved Seri but he was a luxury. Our midfield was absolutely rubbish off the ball last year
Why the 'competition'? It's irrelevant and impossible to prove. Seri was class, but at the end of his career (for Championship level intensity week in week out). Alzate is class. I said at the time he would be a big signing for us, and so it is proving. We have the makings of a very good midfield for this level if we can keep them all together for next year - Alzate, Puerta, Zambrano, Crooks, Matazo plus Slater as a decent squad player and maybe Palmer still as something different, although I expect he may well leave.
Just seems to be a notion we can’t have top level champ players because we are 21st. Most of the best players who’ve gone to the premier league from the champ weren’t playing for the best teams. Bowen, Olise, Eze all playing for mediocre sides
100% I don’t think anyone’s going to be taking him away though, unless he has a very low release clause, in which case I’d expect it to still be someone in this division. He’s good but he’s not done enough to warrant PL teams coming in for him.
Reading made the play offs before olise left, and qpr were regularly towards the top of the table. We were 8th under Grant around the time Bowen left.
I take your point, I was just remembering that I felt at the time, certainly playing out from the back, we looked more vulnerable without Seri. Like you, I always enjoyed watching him play, but as I mentioned in my last post he was very one dimensionable, and as you say didn't have the physical attributed to press when needed.
It may be correct about Seri pressing in general but not many goals have resulted directly from pressing - the goal he scored against Middlesbrough and the one he made against Ipswich last season did.
Seri had good defensive awareness and anticipation off the ball but we got him after his prime when his legs started to go and he was always quite small and lightweight to begin with. Off the ball, he had the intelligence to know where to be to break up the opposition but just lacked the physicality or athleticism to actually do it. When Slater and Morton played together, they had the legs to get around the pitch but lacked the positional discipline Seri has and they also lacked physicality. We haven’t had a defensive midfielder who had all three qualities of: positional discipline/intelligence, athleticism and physicality for as long as I can remember. We have Alzate now who I’d say has two out of three as he’s more physical than Seri, Slater and Morton but still not as physical as most defensive midfielders.
Yeah Alzate isn’t physically dominant, technically definitely though. His defensive numbers are really really good despite him being smaller
Seri the midfield master? How many times did he lose the ball at halfway and we subsequently conceded a goal? Another of those the longer away the better they get.
