Not only does he work reasonably hard defensively, but he also put in some excellent balls vs Villa. We really could use a good delivery from that Left side. We've been sorely missing quality deliveries into the box. He still need to develop, but we paid a lot of money for him, and he has shown sparks of potential. He caused Bournemouth and Villa a lot of problems.
If Mitro is in, we need Thauvin on the wing. Keeping Thauvin out but playing Mitro is like buying a caged tiger and feeding him vegetable soup.
If Mitro plays, then so should Thauvin. I f Cisse plays, then its pointless. I though he did reasonably well, considering it was cold and rainy too. couple of crosses were a bit close to the keeper, however I'd like to see him on the right a bit more, mixing it up. Crossing with his right or pulling in and corss/shots with his left. Wiji has to play middle with Sissoko on one of the wings.
Pointless playing Mitrovic if you're not going to cross the ball into the box. Therefore, Thauvin short start and either Colback or Anita should be dropped.
Agree with this. We shouldn't need 2 CDM in the team. Play Thauvin and put Gigi in the middle and drop Anita. P.S. Or to avoid hurting Anita's feelings we could "rest" him.
Gini is not really that effective as a left winger and Thauvin should play there. Gini in the middle with Anita and Sissoko.
I think Anita has put in some essential defensive work recently. I don't understand the low ratings for him. I think we should give Sissoko a rest. He's shown laziness and his final balls have been no better than anyone elses. He should be used as an impact sub. Perez could do damage coming in off the wing, dribbling into the box. --------------Mitro----------- --Thauvin------------Perez-- --------------Wijnal------- -------Colback----Anita---- Dummett-Colo-Mbemba-Janmaat ---------------Elliot-------------
Need to get Tiote back in mate, we play better when he's there, collapsed against Leicester once he went off injured. Personally would drop Anita as he isn't very good.
Can't understand any clamour for Thauvin, completely non plussed by him. His crossing was shocking on Saturday. Couple od decent ballls but he also wasted a load of good opportunities. Can't wait for Aarons personally, looks 5 times the player
The problem is it appears that Aarons is another Sturridge. Looks great and makes thing happen when he plays. Unfortunately that only happens 4 games of a season... Thauvin has plenty of potential to be decent if not great for us. Much like De Jong has started to look better now that he is having an extended run of games I think we owe ourselves to give Thauvin the same and see if he can improve also. Also compared to Sissoko and Gini, Thauvin does seem to put more effort into tracking back and helping out his fullback
Tash slating Moussa for his final ball is laughable, got two assists against Liverpool, put one on a plate for Mitro against Spurs and set up two on a plate against Villa, one for Gini and one for Perez. He's upped his game massively in the last three and to drop him now would be stupid.
It is not hard to put in more defensively than those two. Gini is quality but he just doesn't bother helping dummett is limited enough by himself without having that kind of laziness. I am not convinced with thauvin at all, I think we have yet another dud. I'd rather have kept cabella, at least he had a year behind. We don't seem to have upgraded at all. Thauvin is a weakling and as I say his crossing looks very average. De Jong looked quality from day 1 and has great pedigree with cl experience. Thauvin made the worst players in France xi. I am happy to give him time but he needs to earn the right to play - as yet he's shown very little bar against some lower league oppo. I do worry about Aaron's but to be honest I'm happy to hope, as he is far more talented that what else we have. He just won't be any use if we can't get him on the pitch. It once again highlights our ability to look for talent in all the wrong places. I've said it before, you could have had Redmond, Nathan dyer, or the likes of puncheon (or two of them) for what we shelled for thauvin. We didn't need someone to develop for a year to sell in two years time, we needed someone for the here and now
Don't get me wrong I would leap at the chance of a bullet proof Aarons (probably as fast as he'd leap to a Spurs etc!) We say Redmond, etc now but I'm pretty sure we'd have been incredibly underwhelmed if we'd have got one of those 3 through the door over the summer. I know that I feel that we should be aiming higher than buying half decent players from teams that are struggling, like us, in the bottom half of the league. Of course that leads me to sound like the deluded Toon fan we all are thinking we deserve better than we get for no other reason than remembering coming so close to silverware on plenty of occasions but falling a bit short. I think we should be aiming in the Shaquiri / Payet bracket (which based on the fact they went to Stoke & West Ham should have been within our grasp). However, at the end of the day we haven't got any of those players and I think that the best option we have is trying to bring on a player that the club has clearly seen something in while scouting otherwise what's the point? We're not gonna make any progress or money from Thauvin by leaving him on the bench and I believe he has shown enough to foster some small glimmer of hope that he could become good given time to adapt to the league. He's not looked any worse than Colback, Anita & Tiote have looked for most of this season so why not mix up the formation and give him the opportunity of a full game in a more attack focused team where we'd probably be playing a bit more to his abilities?
I think that is the point though. We seem to under strange delusion that the Thauvin's and Cabellas are better than the Puncheons and Redmonds. Yet we languish down the foot of the table year after year relying on these types. We seem to want to make a jump from relegation up to top 8 and can't work out why its not working. We are buying second rate foreign players and of course we have kidded ourselves we don't have a defensive issue for 5 years. Fair enough if you go get a real talent like Shaqiri with a top pedigree. But Thauvin? Nah no for me. I think Cabella looked better and had a better pedigree. At least he was a French B international Yeah most of our fans would be underwhelmed, its a massive source of frustration to me, and probably is the reason think some of our lot of unrealistic expectations. Personally I'd love to have seen Puncheon and Dyer come in instead of Thauvin. I think both would have done a cracking job. Signing two english wingers in their late 20's though is seen as foolhardy. I'd be happy to take babysteps, the Leicester type jumps are the exception not the rule.
------------------- Mitrovic ------------------- Perez ------------------------------ Thauvin ------ Wijnaldum ------- Sissoko --------- ------------------- Colback ------------------- 4-3-3. Back 5 as usual. Best we can put out at the moment IMHO.
20 mins here and there is no good like ..he has got talent some of his touches are brill ..needs to play games
Drop the one of the 2 holding midfielders and put Gini in the middle. Play Mitrovic up top with De jong, Thauvin and Perez around him. Play Gini or Sissoko in the middle, most likely Gini so there is no room for Sissoko but we should try to find out if Thauvin and De Jong are good enough (suited to) for this league