Interesting that you mentioned Massengo in the list attracting ‘bigger’ clubs - I’ve posted on here before that I fail to see exceptional talent with him. I see him as bang average - even a bit lightweight. I really don’t rate him at all. I know I’m in a minority with that view, but I really don’t get what the fuss is about and would bite the hand off any club coming in for him with more than we paid.
He's 19 years old, still a boy physically, he is in my view a massive talent, when as he will eventually beefs up, he will be even better in fact almost certainly the real deal. The problem is and I have to go back to this, our midfield overall is incredibly poor lacking creativity, the chances they create for our strikers is woeful at times. The midfield is so poor that if you play Paterson, Eliasson and Massengo it is so weak my missus can tackle harder than the first 2 mentioned (and she has had 4 knee replacements, long story). So you build a midfield around your most productive players like Eliasson and Massengo, players who can tackle and hold the line and allow those players to fully express themselves, sadly for me our midfield is entirely built in the image as LJ as a player weak and lacking creativity. Midfield is the most important part of any team IMHO, they need to be able to protect your defence, stand up to the physicality of tackling/battling in midfield, allow your providers in midfield to fully express themselves and make the chances for your strikers, we have not had midfield like that since LJ arrived. As I said earlier I love Smith but he can't do it all himself and he lacks in my view the discipline needed to know when to go and when to stay, for me it was the reason even him and Pack were never consistent enough, I lost count of the amount of times both were caught out ahead of the ball when we were attacking last season and the season before and were caught out by a long ball over the top that usually took out our 2 full backs who were also attacking and left the 2 centre backs struggling against 2 strikers and at least 1 midfield runner who has not been picked up by this lack of discipline. A midfield needs to communicate at all times and one has to take charge and make sure everybody is where they should be at all times, make sure that midfield runners are picked up, that is not a midfield I have seen under Johnson, nobody takes charge, nobody talks, nobody points or instructs, with us the we end up with an inquest when we leak a soft goal, that talking should be going on at the time to prevent these mistakes.
I agree I don't see it. I think too many City fans just jumped on the fact he came from Monaco and Thierry Henry rated him. I think he played well in his first 2-3 games for us, but has been really poor since, misses tackles, gives the ball away and gets muscled off way too easily. I hope I'm wrong and he blossoms, but right now I don't see it.
Well, I thought Danny Rose was utterly ****e when he was at AG. Spent more time on his arse wailing for free kicks than doing anything useful. I thought he’d struggle to get into my Wiltshire League div 3 team to be honest. The rest is history !!!!! So what do I know?!!!!
well my view came true.When they were both with us. I said Bolasie would go on and be better than Adomah. The rest they say is history.
