He doesn't have off days really. He actually had a very good game against Arsenal for example. Shame about everyone else.
You don't have a clue lol. Teams don't care if he intercepts the ball ? Get real . He's a defensive minded midfielder he's not going to be banging in goals for fun or assisting for fun as he is rarely in the final 3rd. If teams want him to chase the ball all over the pitch then they would be extra careful about no interceptions occuring, you completely contradicted yourself
Schneiderlin runs around a lot because Saints as a team run around a lot. And they are running around a lot because they don't have possession, and are getting caught unorganized on defense thus everyone scrambling around chasing the ball. So yes, teams are happy to keep Saints chasing the ball all game and if that means that Schneiderlin intercepts a few, so what? It's not enough to stop them from scoring 3 goals a game.
I'd rather we had a high work ethic as a team rather than sitting back and letting teams attack us. If you can't judge a midfielder on pass completion/tackles/interceptions then what can you judge him on, goals? He's already got one this season! Even if we had Kompany at centre back then we would still ship a fair few goals, Schneiderlin's not even a defender! Maybe if we didn't have Schneiderlin then we would concede 4 or 5 goals a game?
Just ignore him, he's a clown. If a team wants another team to chase the ball then avoiding interceptions is key to that.
Teams are not trying to get the Saints to chase per se. It's not like they are playing a deliberate Barcelona-style game. They are simply taking what is being given. Saints are chasing because they try to push the team up and it doesn't work so everyone ends up having to sprint back down the field on defense. Then they get pinned too deep so when they get the ball, Schneiderlin or whoever has to come back deep to get it then try to run all the way back up the field to create offense. It's not just Schneiderlin who is covering a lot of ground. It's the entire Saints team. And I believe that is in large part because things are not going as planned and people are not receiving the ball or being able to defend the way it was drawn up. I don't think the Saints are trying to play an end-to-end game, they're being forced into it. Look at what happened vs. Arsenal. Schneiderlin covered a great deal of ground that day (and JWP covered even more). He also had something like 6 tackles and 5 interceptions, and Saints had close to 50% of possession. They lost 6-1. By no stretch did Saints dominate the midfield, and I doubt Arsenal was worried for a second about Schneiderlin's interceptions. If you are a brutal, destroyer-type guy you might make three extremely hard tackles a game and give up three fouls. But you might still have been effective because you made the opposition think twice about challenging you, so you messed up their offensive flow despite the fact that it doesn't show up in the stat sheet. Or look at Fellaini. By statistical standards he is terrible this year on defense. But what he does is slow people down, and every now and again make a semi-dirty lunge to let you know he's there. The rest of the time, he just cruises around as a deep-lying playmaker. He can still make the tackles and interceptions if he has to, but he no longer has to do as much on defense now that Everton is a much-improved side. Fellaini has dominated several games this year. Schneiderlin has the same potential ability but he's not getting the chance to use it. So yeah, it's nice that Schneiderlin can play some good technical defense and is willing to hustle. But ultimately, the measure of the midfield is can they dictate play and Saints have not done that. It's not Schneiderlin's fault but it does mean that whatever stats he is putting up are to my mind somewhat meaningless. I think Schneiderlin is a good player. But I don't think he's getting a chance to play his proper role. I will still think he is a good player... possibly even a BETTER player if he were to cover less ground, have 2-3 less tackles or interceptions a game, but in exchange Saints dominate possession and win and maybe Schneiderlin averages an extra key pass.
Don't really want to get into a big debate on this as I think it's fairly apparent Schneiderlin has been brilliant so far this season. But I'll just chip in with the fact that the game in which Schneiderlin covered the least distance this season was against Arsenal, and we know how that went. And the game that we covered the least as a team was Everton, and again, we know how that went, second least was Wigan, then Arsenal. Think it's fairly telling that the three worst performances we've had all season were also the three games in which we covered the least distance. Then common sense shows that in the United and Fulham games, we pushed and harassed them for 60 minutes and had firm control of the game, then when we tried to sit back and protect our lead we got ripped to pieces, doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out what that shows.
Really? James Ward Prowse covered more distance than Schneiderlin against Arsenal and I believe that JWP and Steven Davis both have higher pass completion percentages. Saints have covered more ground than any other team in the Premier League. And Clyne is near the top of the leaderboard in tackles. How can all these Saints be so good, and yet the team be so bad? Schneiderlin has not been brilliant for the Saints because no one has been brilliant for the Saints. Not even Ramirez or Lambert. That is why they are in 16th place. Again, I'm not saying Schneiderlin is a bad player. I'm simply pointing out that these stats don't mean much. Schneiderlin has the potential to be the best in Europe, maybe he is even close to that right now but isn't getting the opportunity to display his true talent. But there's absolutely no way that over the last 7 games he is the best defensive midfielder in Europe. Not even top 10. Maybe not even top 10 in the Premier League.
Don't really want to get into whether Schneiderlin has been good this season because it's a very subjective and opinion-based topic so a discussion on it is fairly pointless, I was mainly talking on the discussion of whether us covering lots of ground is a positive or a negative. Personally I think his effort has been outstanding, passing efficient, defensively almost impeccable at times and even contributed going forward as well. Clearly you feel differently and that some of his impressive performances have been situational and not affected the game enough to be worthy of such acclaim, and that's fine and I see where you're coming from. One thing I'll quibble over is that I didn't say he is the best defensive mid in Europe, that would be a ridiculous statement as he's nowhere near, I said he's one of the finest young defensive mids in Europe. Not just including his performances but also his potential, that I think is a perfectly reasonable statement. And on the subject of how we can supposedly have such good individual performers and have had such little success, in my opinion we have had a few players that have put in several very good performances; Schneiderlin, as discussed, I believe has all-round been performing exceptionally, Clyne has been impressive defensively save for not wearing the right boots against United, and decent going forward, also shown versatility playing LB, Ramirez has shone at times and showed his incredible talent when he bossed the Villa game, Lambert has contributed in every area he's expected to and can only complain he didn't put away a couple of tricky chances against Fulham and finally Davis and JWP have both put in efficient, reliable performances without really exploding. But 5 or 6 players putting individually strong performances in doesn't mean your team is gonna be competing for Europe, and every good performance has been cancelled out by other factors. We haven't had a single game where our defence hasn't made mistakes, we haven't had a single game where both of our centre-backs have played well, Fox didn't turn up until the Fulham game, Lallana's end product has been poor and has had defensive lapses, Rodriguez has done nothing except put a decent effort in, we've had no impacts from the bench since the City game, and our tactics have let us down in the last 30 minutes of games several times as well as letting us down in the first 30 minutes of the games against Arsenal and Everton. I think it's easy to see how we can have had some very good performances from a few players and still have been as poor as we have overall as a team, after all, there's no I in team! It's silly to suggest that just because a team has not overall been good or successful, that definitely no-one can have performed to a high level. If at the weekend Lambert bangs in a fantastic hattrick assisted beautifully by Lallana and Rodriguez , but we get bullied by Andy Carroll who dominates our defence who put in a woeful shift, allowing him to score two simple goals, then a mix-up between Gazza and Clyne allows Jarvis to sneak in and tap into an open goal, meanwhile NA subs off Lambert, Lallana and Rodriguez for Chaplow, Guly and Kelvin Davis who he utilises up front in a false-9 Messi role. Then in the 90th minute they receive a corner, which Fonte inexplicably blatantly handballs with no threat at all, Nolan bangs the penalty home to win the game 4-3 and cap a dreadful day for us. Would that mean that Lambert, Lallana and Rodriguez hadn't been exceptional? No, it would merely mean they had been let down and their performances were negated by dreadful defending, just because we lost 4-3 in an overall dreadful performance highlighted by defending like chimps, doesn't mean we can't have had very good individual performances in what was as a whole a poor day. That was a fairly stretched out analogy of our season, but you get what I mean... I hope. Basically, to quote the great Albert Einstein, "It's all relative, babydoll."
