Dembele

[No Kane No Gain]

True, but we only managed the CL once with him in the side, falling short in other seasons because of lack of goals. Look at our goals scored compared to the others around us last season, miles behind, GD also dreadful in comparison. I know our strikers were really poor, but Bale JD and Dempsey aside the contribution from elswhere in the squad was grim, 3 of our Centre Backs equalled or beat MD's goal tally, so I'm baffled why we suggest to put a player in a forward position who's crap at scoring. I'm not saying we should find a 15 goal MFer and nothing else, it'd be nice but thats being silly, but whats also silly is another player who's goal tally only needs one hands worth of fingers with some spare! The last few points by YV in post #30 are also good ones, whilst excellent in the mid third of the pitch, gets a bit of a nosebleed higher up in the final third, the hesitancy I see can undo all the blinding work to get there, losing initiative in the move, and that happened many many times itself last season. Someone said he had poor striker movement, a more complete MFer in that situation would look to press forward alone, with MD its check, sideways or backwards, I'd very much like to see him press on, but last season he all too often chose not too.

We all acknowledge we've had difficulty breaking sides down, this is one reason why.

There are strikers who don't necessarily pay their way with goals just as there are attacking midfielders and players all over the pitch that don't.

Whilst I'm not actually pushing for him to play much further forward, I think it could work and his 23 shots in the league last year show that the lack of goals were likely positional or mental more than anything else. Maybe he doesn't shoot because he's crap at it but even with Bale's shot/goal rate he'd have scored just 3 in the league and I'd think even Bale's scoring rate would go down if he was only taking one shot per game. I know that's a bit tenuous but for me it comes down to attitude and confidence again with Dembele. Maybe he's not displaying confidence on the ball as much as he's just falling back on what he's comfortable doing rather than pushing himself to really push himself making more difficult forward passes, quick decisions and taking several shots that risk losing the ball. Sorry if that's coming across as a bit dime store psychology but it's a theory at least

 

[notsosmartspur]

No YV, its not dime store, I think you have something, I was going to mention his self belief/confidence myself but I've created the impression I'm down on the bloke as it is, which I'm not, I've only highlighted what I see as his pro's n cons in a very good detailed debate so far, so I'm glad you've brought it up. Comes down to character, and he doesn't seem a confident outgoing type, I'd like to see him being more authorative now he's not a newcomer.

 

[redwhiteandermblue]

All good points there ball retention is the phrase we're looking for, and he links attacks better than he creates from what I've seen so far, he's not bad at retrieval nicking it back either. His sorties forward often draw fouls/free kicks, in recent years that was basically loss of possession from thereon!, but with weapon Bale now its another threat. All very valuable skills in midfield, vital. Its utilising him in the right role as I think he is only average in other areas of his game, as we've seen, used wrongly he does look like a square peg in a round hole, so I do have questions over his versatility. Its a shame as he is an elegant player to watch, but one you need to build a team round I think, which is unfortunate when we're trying to build a team round Bale.

The puzzling thing to me is that our first signing, we think, is of a player a bit like him, rather than a playmaker, which would have been the obvious choice to make up the middle three. The idea seems to be that he, Dembele and Sandro can control any midfield, but I wonder who is going to make the key pass.

 

[silkship]

The puzzling thing to me is that our first signing, we think, is of a player a bit like him, rather than a playmaker, which would have been the obvious choice to make up the middle three. The idea seems to be that he, Dembele and Sandro can control any midfield, but I wonder who is going to make the key pass.

He might not have done it often enough so far- but he can be the player to make the key pass

[video=youtube;CA4hw9c0gPY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CA4hw9c0gPY[/video]

 

[redwhiteandermblue]

I can't say I saw that last year. He was very much a safety first, if ball-retaining passer last year. I remember a 91% pass completion rate I read somewhere. The Fail, I think, claimed he was the "most accurate" long passer in the league. Both stats indicate, to me, someone who will not make the dangerous pass because it will also be the higher risk one. I'll also say there may be more virtue in that than there seems to be.

I remember last year when things were going south, and wishing we'd just pass it around at the back a couple of times to take the wind out of their sales. We did that much more this year, and it worked even better than I would have guessed.