His comments were aimed at everyone but the back 4, who he said have guts and determination in their DNA. There is no doubting the quality of our attackers, but the Oscars, Hazards etc have had success early and I am thinking they don't fight like the old guard. When things get tough, they seem to get frustrated, then fold and throw the collective towel in too easily. Maybe I'm wrong and too critical, but the steel and backbone of Joses' previous team is not the same this time. Jose said he will concentrate on teaching and instilling determination, and that would seem to be needed. Maybe it's simply immaturity by a group of youngsters who will toughen up as they get more experience. It was interesting to see how Palace bonded and how (aaaagh !!!!) Liverpool played with such flair and teamwork, switching midfield positions as necessary. Without decent strikers, maybe it's just too hard for our guys to get into a rhythm. Anyway, sure there are different opinions out there, so feel free to give them.
The lack of a prolific goalscorer up front was always going to be an additional burden for our midfield players; personally I don't think they're up for the hard grind you need for winning championships plus the fact that Jose's earlier teams were more physically imposing whereas the likes of Hazard & Oscar are smaller by comparison. I suspect the latter may be sacrificed to make way for a striker or a midfield partner for Matic.
City have two Matics: Ferdy and Ya Ya. We've had half this season. Matic for three months. We missed Rambo's workrate v Palace. he would have been perfect in 4-3-3, better tactically than Luiz. Everyone goes on about play Luiz in CM, but Luiz better in 4 2 3 1 atm.
The problem is a leader in the middle. It's fine having JT rallying the defense but we need another strong character further up the field now that Lamps is a bit part player. We don't appear to have anyone of the right stature.
We do need a proper midfield. When Jose was here last time it was Essien, Ballack and Lampard. All perfectly capable of running a game in that system and knowing that Maka was protecting. I feel we have that person to protect (Matic) but we haven't got the physicality in the midfield anymore which allowed us to bully teams and that's why we're dropping points against the likes of West Ham, Crystal Palace etc. All we need is somebody who can run the midfield.
Yep. Everyone says Luiz is the solution. Is he? I think we need another matic type (city play two) and/or a Kroos/Modric type creator, and rotate Rambo. Unless we think Luiz or van ginkel can step up
Ramieres of last season would have been great on saturday. Poor guy needs a rest, unfortunatley with the games coming thick and fast along with WC in brazil it looks like thats not going to happen.
Have to agree completely. When the midfield does work i.e. Matic and Luiz v City, the whole team runs heaps smoother. Luiz is not going to get full support from Jose as a midfielder, so for me a creative strong controller is absolutely vital. Trouble is, who is he and where is he?? Apart from Yaya, it's not an easy search.
I personally feel Luiz will be gone in the summer. I hope Torres and Ba are gone too. We seem to be doing well in FFP terms and imo Luiz, like Mata, is a great player that we just dont need at the moment and in order to bolster key areas of the squad, he is going to be sold, as he is one of the players in our squad that would command a large fee. £35m + to Barca for Luiz £5 for Torres £10m for Ba £15-20m for Mikel Plus we sell a couple of the other fringe/loan players and we can easily muster up £70-80m + to get a midfielder and a forward. This is what Im hoping happens. Luiz is not a PL defender, he can do a great job as a DM in the PL but not as a CB, his style would be more in tune with Spanish CB's so I feel a move to La Liga is inevitable for him. JT and Cahill are doing okay, plus we have that Zouma kid coming in next season, plus Ivan can play CB. With Azpi and Cole I think that would cover us at the back, maybe recall Bertrand too if we need cover. CM is hard, obviously we have Matic playing the DM role which is good, but we DO need someone capable beside him. Lampard is old and Rambo and Mikel are unreliable. Mikel should go imo. Then we need to sign someone to sit beside Matic, someone like Lampard used to be, or a young Gerrard. AM we are fully stocked as we know, Schurrle, Oscar, Hazard and Willian rotating those 3 roles. Then we just need to sign Eto'o for another year, dump Torres and Ba, recall Lukaku and sign a decent CF like Costa. choice of Costa, Lukaku and Eto'o upfront sounds good to me.
