Transfer Rumours Summer '23 Transfer Thread

  • Please bear with us on the new site integration and fixing any known bugs over the coming days. If you can not log in please try resetting your password and check your spam box. If you have tried these steps and are still struggling email [email protected] with your username/registered email address
  • Log in now to remove adverts - no adverts at all to registered members!
He plays tonight and its screened on BBC Scotland, BBC red button and BBC SPORTS WEBPAGE if you fancy a look at him.
You must log in or register to see media
 
Last edited:
this from ChatGPT
A holding midfielder is a player whose primary role is to provide defensive cover in front of the back line, and to break up opposition attacks by intercepting passes, making tackles, and pressuring opposing players who have possession of the ball. They are often referred to as defensive midfielders or "number six" players.

Holding midfielders typically play in a central position in the midfield, and their main objective is to protect the back four and prevent the opposing team from creating scoring opportunities. They are also responsible for distributing the ball to their teammates, often through short, accurate passes.

In addition to their defensive duties, holding midfielders may also provide a link between the defense and the attacking players, by carrying the ball forward and initiating attacking moves. They are often strong, physical players who possess good positional awareness, tactical intelligence, and the ability to read the game.

Examples of great holding midfielders include Sergio Busquets, N'Golo Kante, and Claude Makelele.


Regenerate response
 
Just pop this here


Rodri’s Manchester City role shows holding midfielders are key to success
You must log in or register to see images

Manchester City and Arsenal’s title battle – and Liverpool’s recent struggles – show that a solid midfield is crucial

Thu 30 Mar 2023 16.00 BST

The holding midfield role is a bespoke one; you need to be technically very good, not just a destroyer, have a high-level understanding of the game and be able to drop into the backline but also break forward, depending on what team you are in. Simple enough.

Manchester City have one of the best in the business in Rodri. He has been an incredibly consistent performer since his arrival from Atlético Madrid in 2019 and City are reaping the rewards. The importance of his role is shown by Saturday’s opponents, Liverpool, who have been constantly linked with midfield players because they have struggled in this position. Rodri, on the other hand, has provided stability.

Rodri got it wrong: self-assured Scotland taught graceless Spain a lesson | Ewan Murray
He has played more minutes for City than anyone else this season, including the goalkeeper Ederson, a sign of his value to Pep Guardiola. To have someone that consistent at the base of the midfield is extremely important because their reliability feeds into the rest of the players.

Rodri has made the most passes in the Premier League this season, 189 more than Lewis Dunk in second, and 546 more than the closest midfielder, Pierre-Emile Højbjerg. He has also had more touches than anyone in the league. Leading his peers on these statistics is a sign of Rodri being indispensable in City’s challenge for trophies.

Guardiola said of the position, one he knows well from his playing career: “What is important to be a holding midfield is to be always stable: seven, eight, seven, eight. It’s not nice to have a big 10 performance and then a two or three. Maybe wingers or strikers can do it but for a holding midfielder it’s not good.” Rodri ticks all those boxes.

When managing Barcelona, Guardiola had Sergio Busquets and at Bayern Munich it was Xabi Alonso, two of the most intelligent players in European football of recent times. At City, Guardiola recognised Fernandinho would need to be replaced and identified Rodri as the man to do it. City spent £62.8m on Rodri when he was 23, thinking he could perform the role for the next decade.

Not many clubs break their transfer record for a defensive midfielder, but if you can find someone as reliable as Rodri it is worth it. Chelsea spent more than £100m on 22-year-old Enzo Fernández in January and 21-year-old Moisés Caicedo may cost a similar amount after showing what he can do at Brighton. These are players a team can be built around.

It was not a straightforward adjustment for Rodri from La Liga to the Premier League. He had to adapt to the faster pace and more physical game, not to mention his manager’s complex tactics, but he was intelligent enough to understand how he could do that. Guardiola said in October 2021: “I think now he’s so stable, he’s always paying attention and he’s realising what we are looking for because sometimes you need time to understand.”

You must log in or register to see images

Thomas Partey has been key to Arsenal’s title challenge this season. Photograph: Mark Leech/Offside/Getty Images
City are very well orchestrated, so everyone knows their role and responsibilities. Rodri’s is to keep things simple and the ball moving because they are a possession-based team. It is focused on short passes that help others, such as Ilkay Gündogan and Kevin De Bruyne, move into positions where they can be most effective.

Wingers and strikers attract the headlines when a team are doing well, but at the base there is always a very clever defensive midfielder. If you run through the Premier League, there is a strong correlation between a team’s position and the man in front of the centre-backs. Thomas Partey has made Arsenal into title challengers and when he is absent, as looks likely on Saturday against Leeds, there are questions of how they will cope.

In third, we see a rejuvenated Manchester United, whose fortunes have been reversed since Casemiro came in from Real Madrid to take a more defensive role than Rodri has at City.

From women’s team to grassroots game: questions linger in Qatar | Nick Ames
A defensive midfielder is the heart and spine of the team; they are the core of your body and without that stability you crumble. There are nuances to each player in the role, but they are always integral to any successful side. It is shown by those clubs who haven’t had the season they hoped for. Højbjerg has not been at his best and that has affected Spurs while Liverpool are not the team they were when Fabinho or Georginio Wijnaldum were dominating games.

Defensive midfielders have to see things before they happen in and out of possession. They need to sense danger and be two steps ahead on the ball because they build the blocks by keeping things ticking. I could not sense danger. You can improve your perception, but those who do it best are born with a natural inclination.

In the modern game, a lot of players are comfortable in multiple positions. Centre-backs can play in central midfield and vice versa, full-backs can play on the wing, centre-forwards can drop to be No 10, but being a defensive midfielder is a vocation.

Brilliant article. Seri and Slater are good players but neither are ball-winners. Seri’s a deep-lying playmaker who can scan the pitch and make clever passes. Slater’s an energetic box-to-box midfielder who likes to drive the ball forward. A defensive midfielder is, like the article says, a specialised position; a ‘vocation’. We’ve tried Alfie Jones in that position a few times and he did okay some games but really struggled in others. I’m terms of ability, Bielik is the best at this level as far as defensive midfielders go. However, despite having a solid season at Brum, he’s had two ACL tears in his career and he’s only in his mid 20s. I think that would make Rosenior very wary given our shocking injury record this season. There’s other players we could look at, like Ross McCrorie at Aberdeen and there’s probably options abroad as well. It should definitely be top of Rosenior’s agenda though.
 
People have been saying all season that we need a big enforcer in midfield, but I do wonder what those people have in mind for Slater and Seri, who are two of the very first names on the teamsheet currently.

It'll be interesting to see whether or not a player in that mold is something we go for. Rosenior has talked about having more height in the team and that's the obvious place to put it, but fitting another midfielder in there would be awkward and I don't necessarily agree with the simplistic view that you must always have a big midfield enforcer. Feels a bit old-fashioned to me.

We currently have 2 apparent first choices in deep lying midfield. Seri and Slater. If one those gets injured then we're looking at Woods, Doc and Simons. Only 1 of those latter 3 seem guaranteed to be with us next season and we currently look a bit thin on quality there if one of the main 2 are injured. I guess we could try Tufan in there but there's room to add another without impacting minutes for Slats and Mika too much. It's called having squad depth. We're going to need a bit more of it to progress IMHO.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Real ale tiger
If we bring in a DM, I suspect Slater would be competing with Traore for the more advanced role.

GK
RB CB CB LB
Seri DM Traore/Slater
RW ST LW
 
If we bring in a DM, I suspect Slater would be competing with Traore for the more advanced role.

GK
RB CB CB LB
Seri DM Traore/Slater
RW ST LW

Traoré’s been class as a number 10 but he can also play as a play-making winger on the right, like a Championship version of Foden.
 
Exactly, the best 4 teams in England all have one. Rodri, Casemiro, Partey/Xhaka, Joelinton.

We’ve finished bang mid table, to think we don’t need something to change in order for us to progress in terms of personnel is crazy. Slater and Seri work great in possession, without it we are still very weak with that partnership

Again that just seems like such a simplistic take. We famously concede very few goals, so I can't see how you can say we look weak without the ball.
 
We currently have 2 apparent first choices in deep lying midfield. Seri and Slater. If one those gets injured then we're looking at Woods, Doc and Simons. Only 1 of those latter 3 seem guaranteed to be with us next season and we currently look a bit thin on quality there if one of the main 2 are injured. I guess we could try Tufan in there but there's room to add another without impacting minutes for Slats and Mika too much. It's called having squad depth. We're going to need a bit more of it to progress IMHO.

I think there's maybe a good case for bringing in an extra midfielder assuming Doc and Woods go, but that's a big assumption in the latter's case since he's under contract. Even then, I'm just not sure it'd be a guaranteed starter type of signing when we've got such a successful central midfield already.
 
Again that just seems like such a simplistic take. We famously concede very few goals, so I can't see how you can say we look weak without the ball.

I will point you to the games against Sunderland and Middlesbrough where we conceded 4 and 3 goals respectively. In both of those games, we conceded really poor goals that I fully believe would’ve been dealt with before they got anywhere near our third of the pitch if we had a ball-winning midfielder. 2 of Boro’s goals in particular should’ve been stopped on the half-way line if we had a midfielder with a bit more physicality.
 
I will point you to the games against Sunderland and Middlesbrough where we conceded 4 and 3 goals respectively. In both of those games, we conceded really poor goals that I fully believe would’ve been dealt with before they got anywhere near our third of the pitch if we had a ball-winning midfielder. 2 of Boro’s goals in particular should’ve been stopped on the half-way line if we had a midfielder with a bit more physicality.

We conceded 3 and 4 goals in two games. Across the Rosenior half-season we've conceded very few. Focusing on the statistical outliers to try and prove that we're weak without the ball is clearly flawed. Our work without the ball is obviously not what's holding us back from being a playoff/promotion side.
 
If we bring in a DM, I suspect Slater would be competing with Traore for the more advanced role.

GK
RB CB CB LB
Seri DM Traore/Slater
RW ST LW

If we're going with 3 CMs (2 deep, 1 advanced) then ideally I'd want 5 (3 deep, 2 advanced) all of a similar quality to provide competition and cover. Even then the younger players coming through will get chances over a season as they're still only an injury away from the squad.

People seem to see squad building in terms of a first 11 and in an ideal world where those in the shirt are self-motivated and injury-proof that's fine. Otherwise you need more than those options without suffering a real drop in available quality when one or more inevitably goes down with injury or loss of form.

Really I think a squad of 18-20 of similar calibre players is going to be needed with our promising youth making up the 25.

We can't just rely on 11 'first choices' and then backups over a 50 game season. We need 18 or so 'first choices'.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Steven Toast
We conceded 3 and 4 goals in two games. Across the Rosenior half-season we've conceded very few. Focusing on the statistical outliers to try and prove that we're weak without the ball is clearly flawed. Our work without the ball is obviously not what's holding us back from being a playoff/promotion side.

Against the better sides we could have done with more physicality in midfield.
 
We conceded 3 and 4 goals in two games. Across the Rosenior half-season we've conceded very few. Focusing on the statistical outliers to try and prove that we're weak without the ball is clearly flawed. Our work without the ball is obviously not what's holding us back from being a playoff/promotion side.

I disagree. Conceding those sloppy goals which could’ve been dealt with much better against top-half teams is one of the reasons why we were never in contention for play-offs. Not being ruthless enough and scoring goals against bottom-half teams is another reason for us dropping points. Both can be true. It’s not either or. Even Rosenior said after the Boro game that Howson is the exact sort of player we’re lacking in midfield. I think you’re just being contrarian for the sake of it now.
 
  • Like
Reactions: bradymk2
I think there's maybe a good case for bringing in an extra midfielder assuming Doc and Woods go, but that's a big assumption in the latter's case since he's under contract. Even then, I'm just not sure it'd be a guaranteed starter type of signing when we've got such a successful central midfield already.

I think we need to get away from this idea of 'guaranteed starter' to progress.
 
Yes we dont concede too much
But we dont create too much either

Generally to create more chances and free atthe attacking end of the pitch
Opens you up to more chances against

Thats where a solid holding midfielder makes their money

We need to upgrade on this season
Or we settling for 12th?

Exactly. A lot of the goals conceded against both Sunderland and Boro away were because we lost the ball high up the pitch and they hit us on the counter. A good holding midfielder whose main job is breaking up play and winning the ball back would’ve been a huge asset in those games to make important challenges in the middle of the pitch or at the very least, commit a tactical foul and stop the counter.
 
Exactly. A lot of the goals conceded against both Sunderland and Boro away were because we lost the ball high up the pitch and they hit us on the counter. A good holding midfielder whose main job is breaking up play and winning the ball back would’ve been a huge asset in those games to make important challenges in the middle of the pitch or at the very least, commit a tactical foul and stop the counter.

Slater and Seri are playing well at present but we need a proper holding midfielder without a shadow of a doubt. I know everyone's hyping up Slater because he won a couple of awards but it's not like he's been super consistent all season