I certainly cant think of anyone in the prem, I would rather have playin holdin mid than him.The likes of Essien,Toure,De Jong probably have better athletic qualities, but I think he reads the game better than all of them, to make up for it
not sure.... yaya toure is playing to advance for me, he should be the best but isn't playing the slot. arsenal haven't had one since flamini really. fletcher, anderson and carrick all are under rated by us reds... we lambast carrick a lot but his stats are formidable. essien would be no 1 but has gone downhill the last two years with injury. Parker? nope barton... please... all in all lucas has improved too.
I told my Geordie mates on Saturday night that I rate Lucas far higher than Tiote. They all laughed but it is true. Tiote is a good player, he has a hard tackling game and a lot of strength. But Lucas has the intelligence, skill and his reading of the game is far greater than Tiote's style.
Find me another holding midfielder smart enough to draw two fouls in the last ten seconds of a game like he did at Arsenal last season. Quick thinking from him won us a penalty and a point.
There is no comparison that can be made. Lucas's style is completely different to that of any other DM is the Premiership. What i do see is his ability to not only break-up or slow down play but also to act as a fulcrum around which the back 4 swings. This makes Carra's job a lot easier. Is he better? Well that depends upon the criteria you pick for your comparison. I will stick with the fact that he's an enigma and most certainly the best DM in the Premiership playing in his style.
I wouldn't even call Essien a DM. He's used more as a utility player because he's strong in all the midfield positions. Mikel is a better comparison.
I am really startin to see a bit of Didi Hamann in Lucas,keeps it simple,good tackler,can spot a pass " when its on",reads the game very well
Lord Lucas is way better than Tiote. Not sure he's the best in the league but the fact we only paid £5mil for him and he is now a main player for us was a great bit of buisness by Rafa. I was asked the question the other would I swap Alonso or Mascherano for Lucas right now and I would have to say no because Lucas is only going to get better. He could be one of the world's best in a couple of year's if he keep's improving at this rate.
To be honest there's not many players in the league who play that kind of purely defensive holding role. Most of them are like Fletcher, Parker, Tiote and Essien, playing a defensive box to box midfield role, or like Carrick, Wilshere and Sandro who sit deep but mainly look to close down space, make interceptions and lay the ball off rather than actively chase around and tackle to break up the play. Mikel and De Jong are the closest player to Lucas in terms of his role imo. Lucas definitely played better than those two over the past couple of years, but I'm not sure he has more quality than those two.
That's precisely what Lucas does. I wouldn't agree that Wilshere does this though. He's more of a playmaker, and is far better on the ball than Lucas, but a worse tackler. Mikel, Carrick and Sandro are probably the fairest comparisons. Perhaps De Jong, but he seems a bit too 'chase the ball and get a heavy tackle in' for me, like Mascherano was.
Essien is far and away the best but has not played that role for a while, judging A DM's ability is one of the hardest for me as more than any other position it depends on a whole host of other factors that differ from team to team. Of those you mention de jong , mikel and lucas are all pretty much the same level, but that is still way behind essien.
He might be the best "for his style", but I rate Toure, Essien and Tiote (even more of a bargain at 3.5m) higher.
Yaya Toure hasn't even played defensive midfield for Man City, so I don't see how anyone can claim he is better than Lucas as a premiership defensive mid? Essien has also been average for about 3-4 years, we've only seen glimpses of his old quality. Tiote is ok but is too rash, and brainless at times, and needs a sitting player next to him (a Huddlestone, Alonso, Carrick type player). Tiote is more Mascherano than Lucas, and Masch is comfortably better than Tiote. Lucas is almost a mixture of Mascherano and Alonso, our centre halves literally had nothing to do throughout the match because Lucas dominated Kevin Davies in the air and on the floor all game.
Toure has played defensive midfield before though, at CL level for Barca and excelled at it. And as for Tiote, you're right in that he is the Mascherano type, I'm excited this season as we look to have found our Alonso in Cabaye.
I didn't mean that he had equal quality to them, far from it, but he has Mascherano's attitude, stamina, tackling and pressing ability while he is decent on the ball, has great positional sense and is great in the air and shields the back four with his aerial ability a la Alonso. Don't rate Toure much at all if I'm honest as a DM. I know it sounds harsh but I reckon its why Guardiola started slowly phasing him out of the team when he got there, and also why Mancini plays Barry and De Jong (usually) behind him, and never plays him behind. And on Cabaye, yeah, was reading this article on Cabaye, and on how he, and the other 2 midfielders Lille had, kept Lille ticking, even if it was the likes of Hazard, Sow, Rami and Gervinho that got the headlines. Sounds similar to when Alonso left us really, people didn't think it'd hit us that hard but it did, when he's missing for Madrid they're awful aswell.
Tiote is actually very overrated in my opinion. He's one of those players that because he scored the 4th goal against Arsenal and because MOTD did a little compilation of his tackles around November last year people think he's amazing. He get's booked a huge amount, and in my opinion doesn't have that much to his game, but people like to think they've uncovered a gem or big up players from less fashionable teams. Not for me.
