Yup, pretty much what I said last night! He needs to adapt and utilise the players strengths, which is not to play with a heavy biased on defending.
Honestly thinking Bissouma being sent to Coventry has had an effect on his approach Having him on the pitch gives us a way to bridge between our half and the opponent's, as well as potentially relieve pressure by having him take the ball through opposition lines - but more than anything else Bissouma had a degree of flexibility, as he could play in the standard progressive role next to Palhinha, or as the deeper progressive midfielder with Sarr or Gray operating as a screen As a result we're far more fixed on Palhinha/Bentancur, which is probably the most static pairing we have, which seems to be actively sabotaging his own system more than anything else
Bissouma has been such a disappointment and one that I doubt many supporters saw coming. He was widely rated as the best all round CM outside of the top 6 and we were delighted to have signed him. Just hasn't worked out. One of the few I won't blame Levy for. Ndombele on the other hand....
Havertz got injured and that prompted them to go for Eze We had been messing about for a month before that
Sadly, apart from the odd game when he first arrived, Bissouma has been a massive disappointment on and off the pitch: a headless chicken at times and a liability. Reckless decisions leading to conceding goals or getting himself sent off and failing to track his opponent. A shame, because the player at Brighton would have potentially ticked the boxes you raise. With us, not even close.
What makes it more frustrating for me is we then sort of panicked and almost immediately paid up for Simons after missing out on Eze. If we’d shown that same urgency in the Eze talks, he’d have been a Spurs player. Now we’re currently left with a player that’s struggling to get into the XI in his favoured position over Odobert who isn’t even a number 10.
I mean Levy was offering Poch alternatives to Nom Belly, specifically Tielemans, but Poch was pouting on that one
I was over the moon when we signed Bissouma thought at the time he was the best press resistant CM available on the market and at the time a great price considering I think he only had one year left of his contract. However as others have pointed out he has never been the player he was at Brighton at our club. Sometimes brilliant sometimes a liability with his rashness and decision making. Also allied to the fact his discipline and antics off the pitch has been lacking as a so called professional player. He won’t get a look in whilst Frank is here for sure. Getting more and more frustrated with this Bentancur Palinha axis , static no athleticism and pace it has to stop. Outright Bentancur is a good player if he has a pacy athletic type alongside him. Palinha is top drawer and I love him but we must get Bergvall / Gray or Sarr or another signing partnering him.
The thing with the Palhinha/Bentancur pivot is it does do the job as a screen for both Romero's through balls and Mickey Van's runs from deep - but that is all it is really working for, rather than anything transitional and that's why we appear to have reverted to the issue under Ange where our CBs are our main creative outlet Mixing them up to something like Sarr/Bentancur and Bergvall/Palhinha surely makes the most sense
He will need a rest, probably sooner rather than later, but for me Palhinha is the first name on the teamsheet. So my only question at the moment is 'who should partner him?' - and that has to be Bergvall or Sarr. So until such time as we can get consistent performances from Bentancur, I'm afraid that regardless of what a good player he 'can be', he'd be a distant 3rd choice.
BBC Sport has an article about the 13 most expensive PL signings. They only judge one to be a success with three promising, two to early to tell, six failures and one arguable but probably a failure. Our top signings have a similar success rate I think.
