I had to miss yesterdays match as family guests had come who prefer politics to football and my laptop was with my bro.....sad i know! In any case i was wondering what you guys made of m'vila's performance. I've heard contradicting reports on his performance (though kos apparently played great!). I know its just one game but its probably the first time any of us have had a detailed look at him. Is he what we need or not? Thanks in advance. I was previously skeptical about him but have come round lately the fact that he has apparently said he only wants to come to us makes him altogether a more attractive proposition.
thats great though i wonder if he comes whether he will play the same role or more of a box to box role. I hope for the former but fear it will be the latter.
Copied from London24: Arsenal target Yann M’Vila had a reasonable game for France against Spain in their Euro 2012 quarter final, seldom letting the likes of Cesc Fabregas, Xavi, Andres Iniesta and co past. There were some flashes of genius from the defensive midfielder but the 21-year-old struggled to have much attacking possession against as the Spaniards looked to pass their way into the semi finals, but M’Vila worked hard to keep the Spain forwards away from the penalty area. Indeed, early in the second half, Spain strung pass after pass together but M’Vila worked with his team to deny them any opening at all, causing the defending champions to lose possession. M’Vila showed great skill to evade three midfielders early on and pick his pass to Franck Ribery with only six minutes on the clock. The 21-year-old tends to sit just in front of the defenders and look to mop up any offences Spain had and cut out a number of attacks. With other, more high profile players, such as Ribery and Karim Benzema, having poor games by their standards M’Vila looked to step up and adventure forward. The danger, though, was that Spain are excellent on the counter and on one occasion Hugo Lloris had to be alert to stop Cesc Fabregas, who was playing in a striker role, from scoring. The only times Spain, really, threatened the France goal tended to come down the flanks after M’Vila had helped shepherd them wide. Indeed, the full back, Mathieu Debuchy, lost his footing allowing Jordi Alba to put his cross in and Xabi Alonso did the rest with his head to give Spain the lead. M’Vila can also pick out a long range pass, spreading the ball wide to Samir Nasri as France poured forward searching for an equaliser but were unable to break through. Through no real fault of his own M’Vila was sacrificed for Olivier Giroud, who is 90 per cent certain to make a move to Arsenal, as France made a bold statement of intent. But his absence was felt as Spain broke through the middle and Pedro was brought down by Anthony Reveillere. Alonso stepped up and slotted home the penalty to send M’Vila and co back home.
It was really hard to tell he was doing anything, as France was quite poor overall. But what was apparent is Spain struggled to fashion many chances. I'm not suprised he didn't do much going forward, as he was probably asked to sit back and he was facing an all-time great Spanish midfield. In my opinion, he would be a more important signing than say Giroud. Our main problem is our defensive organisation and leaving gaps between defence and midfield. I'm hoping that with his signing and Bould coming in, things will improve in this regard.
The way that spain play make it really hard to judge a holding mid unfortunately, they were just spraying the ball around him like he wasn't there. Although, from what I did see, he seemed slightly lackadaisical in that game, never sprinted, even when there was a spanish player going past him, just jogged around and seemed a bit disinterested to be honest. He did show that he can pass the ball well, and did seem to make a few interceptions, so maybe not all that bad, but nothing in particular that seemed to justify his 15-20 million pricetag. If I'm completely honest, I'd rather we didn't sign him and instead looked at signing an AM, considering we're definitely not going after another left back this summer
